Dare2dream

Dealing with all of the information, ideas and projects

2010-03-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Supporting innovation and continual growth is an important part of the job of an administrator. Seeking ways to model and encourage integration of technology, building a vision for the future and staying on top of new developments and research can be a full time job. The use of social networking tools in my professional life like Twitter, and Ning helps me access the information I need to do my job. However, I find that often when I am filtering the information flow that my focus is on tools, research, or ideas that will empower the teachers and meet specific needs they have identified.But sometimes we also need to ask what tools are best suited to support and help administrators?

Looking through my toolbox, I rediscovered a tool, which I would argue, has huge potential to organize and simplify my life as an administrator. There are other tools I use but Evernote is a game changer. One of the most difficult things about administration is the multitude of roles, concerns, projects and stakeholders we work with on a daily basis. Evernote works with all your computing devices and is a place to put all of that information whether it is project ideas, to do lists, expense receipts, business cards, web pages, notes from a meeting or conference, or a voice memo about a classroom observation. This blog post steered me back to Evernote and one of the things that really makes this work for me is the concept he mentions of keeping it simple by having a default inbox where everything goes. Often I am clipping web pages, making notes or collecting business cards on the fly and then I can take a few moments at the end of the day to reflect, tag and categorize. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Evernote, in my opinion, is its ability to search photos of hand written text, or of business cards. At the conference I attended last week I snapped a picture of each business card as I received it and through Evernote it was synched to all of my computing devices and I could search by any information on the card to find it again.

Every day is a busy time for administrators and right now we are looking toward the end of the year and planning for next year. Perhaps, Evernote is one way to make all of that work easier. What tools would you suggest to support and help administrators?

Cross posted LeaderTalk

Photo from Flickr by verbeeldingskr8

Does Twitter cause writer's block?

2010-01-19T21:58:00.000-08:00

Does Twitter cause writer’s block?
Last year at NECC ( now known as ISTE) several well known bloggers talked about how in many respects twitter had replaced blogging. I was aghast, thinking how can twitter take the place of blogging. Now one year later I am on twitter everyday and writing…well almost never. I do not necessarily think this a good thing but it may be an acceptable thing….a stage in finding an equilibrium in this information rich, interactive world.
I feel strongly that blogging and twittering can serve fundamentally different purposes but there is also some significant overlap. Twitter and blogging can both be about exchange of ideas and conversation. The development of lists in twitter, tools like tweetdeck which helps you organize your feeds and the use of hash marks all have made to concept of twitter conversations a reality. In many ways twitter is a better platform for conversation than blogs are unless you have a strong readership and comment base on your blog.
The fundamental difference, in my opinion, comes from the nature of the two platforms. Twitter is just in time connections, instantaneous discussion, and a ready source of resource for cutting edge developments in news, technology, software, productivity tools , classroom applications and educational research. Blogs can provide similar information and in fact twitter often points me to useful blog posts. On a personal level however it seems to me that “to blog” is an essentially different experience. Blogging is a place for reflective thinking. For me it means taking time to pick and choose from the information stream those things which resonate with me and/or challenge me and/or connect with the reality of my community. It means taking time to ponder those things to formulate my own understandings and then write about them to help reflect, clarify my thoughts and open these ideas to conversation.
Twitter has increased my contact with my personal learning network (PLN) and increased my exposure to ideas and information. Everyday twitter provides new links for my diigo account and new resources or tools to pass on to my colleagues at school. It is easy to get caught up in what seems a prolific and productive connection with my PLN but it is not enough. I need to take time to process, to think, to reflect and therefore I need to write…. It is time to find my way into the next stage…

Moving Forward : 1:1 with Netbooks

2009-10-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

Moving Forward : 1:1 with Netbooks

Tenacity and flexibility have been important character traits for us during the roll out of our 1:1 program. Last year in a discussion on 1:1 implementation at EduBloggerCon, just before NECC, someone asked how you know you are ready to move forward. It was an interesting question because those of us who were going 1:1 were in varying places with our infrastructure, teacher tech skills and funding. Though our answer may not have been satisfying the consensus was that it had to do with building a vision and a willingness to be risk takers. We all agreed that there comes a point when you need to move forward and be willing to deal with the messiness that is inherent in change.

We were scheduled to start our 1:1 program on August 26.the first day of school this year. We spent time in the summer working to prepare, discussing a move toward a textbook free environment, and curricular planning. But alas, on August 21 all of our brand new, imaged netbooks were stolen. It has been a rocky road but on Tuesday October 13 all of the 6th, 7th and 8th grade students got their netbooks. It was a happy day! But in all reality the delay has been positive on many levels. Even though we still are in the midst of learning a we go, during those initial 7 weeks we were able to put in place some important protocols and do some introductory work with the students.

As we all know there is head knowledge and then there is application of that knowledge in a real classroom. What looked, well almost easy, last spring required many adjustments when students and teachers walked in the door this fall. For the teachers, even though they had visited other schools and were committed to the vision, the importance of changing teaching /learning became very real. They did not want these netbooks to become expensive paper and pencils. Lessons plans needed to be revisited with a more realistic perspective of what ubiquitous connectivity would mean. Blogs were set-up for these new classes and instruction and discussion of how and why we blog moved forward. Student scribing was explored and begun and the teachers had time to work with Dyknow which we are using for lesson delivery and classroom management. In many ways this buffer time has allowed the teachers to build their confidence and competency in administering a 1:1 program which has helped the deployment go very smoothly. Walking through the rooms the day after we distributed the netbooks students and teachers were moving forward almost seamlessly.

There will still be bumps in the road and lots of “just in time” learning but I am more convinced than ever that there comes a point at which you have to be willing to take the risk even when you do not have all the answers. We already see student engagement increasing in our Junior High and we are looking forward to rolling out a 1:1 program for grades K to 5 over the next 2 to 3 years.

St Elisabeth School serves students from Preschool through 8th grade and is located California. We have a multicultural student body and 69% of the students live at or below the poverty level.. Over the last 18 years, as a teacher and then as principal, I have always been committed to the integration of technology across the curriculum and over the last three years I developed a program of global collaboration for our school.. As an administrator I have made it a priority to build a common vision, helping the staff become risk takers and to invest in the future. Together with the staff we have also done the same for our parent community helping them to embrace the needs of their students in a connected world. As a community we have developed a common vision for the future, which includes a commitment to digital equity and ubiquitous connectivity for our students

Originally written for 1:1 Sig Newsletter)

Going 1:1 Rethinking Learning and Curriculum Resources

2009-06-14T00:11:00.000-07:00

As the year winds down the work speeds up...at least at my school. One of the projects we are undertaking is the transitioning to 1:1 with netbooks for our 6th, 7th and 8th grades in the Fall of 2009. It is both an exciting and daunting task. Our school has worked for three years to build a vision for the importance of technology integration, connectedness, global awareness and the skills the students will need for their futures. We are a tuition based school and with 63% of the students living at or below the poverty level and therefore it is not easy for the parents or school to make this a reality but we believe it is a critical component in assuring the students an excellent and relevant education.

In brief we are committed to the idea that students:

Must understand how to function professionally in a digitally connected learning environment and workspace
Must be able to communicate clearly in the global arena
Must be able to find and use information not just memorize a textbook
Must be creative, collaborative, problem solver who use critical thinking to come up with innovative solutions

Among the many tasks this project demands of us over the summer months one is spending time refining our understanding of the paradigm shift in pedagogy that 1:1 requires, and building a set of curriculum resources which take advantage of this change. (We certainly do not want to use new technology simply as an expensive pencil or worksheet). . With the news of California moving toward online textbooks the discussion on the web have increased about textbooks , their relative worth and what the ideal scenario might be for such an online resource..In a live discussion on Friday with a number of people on this topic there were a few principals that resonated with me. In part, what I want for our students is access to primary sources, to multimedia, resources, interactivity, real time discoveries, connectedness with other learners and with experts ( locally and globally), and an opportunity to contribute. I realize that this is a tall order but in my opinion it is also supports authentic learning that will produce life long learners,

Building our set of resources is one of the fun parts of this project and so I freely admit, it is what I work on when everything else is overwhelming. It has lead me down some interesting paths and into a few very promising discoveries. Two of which I want to share with you. The first is Flexbooks which from CK-12. Their mission statement says it all.....
“CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization with a mission to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the U.S. and worldwide. Using an open-content, web-based collaborative model termed the “FlexBook,” CK-12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning.”

The second resource is entirely different but very interesting because it harness the power of being connectedness. It is the Open Source Teaching Project. This site provides a platform for connections between business professionals and students from Middle School through College. It provides for dynamic interactions, real world connections and the assignments posted so far are al about critical thinking and application of knowledge.

Both sites are worth exploring , both have tremendous potential and both need our involvement to help them grow into the rich and flexible resources our teachers and students need. Exploring what it means to go 1:1 pushes us to consider more fully exactly what it means to be a learner in a connected world and it challenges us as educators to envision, locate and develop the best possible resources for our students.

Barbara Barreda
Cross posted to Leadertalk

Things worth another look

2009-05-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

Things I have read or come across recently which I do not want to loose track of and which are worth another look.

From Digital Voice Awards- an application I had not hear of called MonkeyJam
And the award winning projects

Google Docs Blog Educational Spreadsheets gadgets- word search, flash cards and Word Study

Soon to be released DVD of Presentation Zen - Promising for Fall in-services

Just came across Jalbum another online photo album ( found on Susan Seedro's blog)

And finally 4 blog posts

2 from Scot Mcleod
Top 10 TED talks for educators and top 10 podcasts- So who needs summer books for Professional development ...okay, ok I read to but now I have some listening for those drives ...

An interesting discussion ( so read the comments too) on Jeffs blog about a third grade project, Presentation Zen, and whats behind tech integration

And finally Susan's post that is a transparent discussion of a transformation from static teacher blog pages to a more personalied and interactive presence on the Web.

Pondering the Implications of Presentation Zen in Our School

2009-05-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

A four day weekend at this point in the school year has become a real chance to gain some rest and perspective, If you have been here before you can see I even had time to change up the site a little. By the way the picture above is from the California Poppy fields in Antelope Valley.

I have finally gotten around to reading Presentation Zen and I am sorry I had not gotten here sooner! It is not just a good book with good ideas, at least for me, it is life changing. I got about half way through the book before I decided to go back and read it again so I could take notes.

Two things that the book has me pondering right now....

A whole new approach to parent meetings- especially budget meetings. What if instead of graphs and figures I used pictures. Pictures that will create an emotional connection for the parents. So while I am talking about needing funds for the arts, or clubs or???? I play a group of pictures showing their students engaged in these activities. Why didn't I think of that! The boring facts and figures can go in a handout for the end of the meeting!

The other thing is a very different question about creativity and process. In the book he talks about stepping away from the computer and sending time planning in an analog fashion. That I know works for me. Even though I feel guilty about it there are times when a notebook and a pen really works for me. The question all of this raised for me has to do with our students. We are going 1;1 next year in grades 6, 7, and 8. Do these students have the same needs to help them be creative? If so how do we build that in? I know in some 1:1 classrooms , especially those with tablets, you see no paper. What about for students using netbooks, what do they need. A yellow pad and portfolio, a portable at their space white board....

What do you think?

Sound Bytes from CUE 2009

2009-03-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

(Cross posted to LeaderTalk)

Last week I attended the Computer Using Educators ( CUE) Conference in Palm Springs California and so I thought I would post a few of the ideas that caught my attention. It is always good to meet with other educators and discuss the needs of today’s students, best practices and unfolding developments, especially in the area of technology integration.

One of the things I noticed at this year’s conference was a subtle shift in the conversation. Most of the sessions I attended which spoke about technology tools did so from the perspective of the pedagogy and learning application instead of being “how to” sessions focused on learning the tool itself. This is a very important shift because it underscores the concept that the technology needs to be transparent and that the Web 2.0 revolution in education is not about the tool it is about learning. As one presenter stated “technology is the way to achieve the learning goal where the kids live.” This year there was also more discussion of data and research. eg. Robert Marzano presented data on the integration of technology and student test scores, and Hal Davidson spoke about a study from BYU on the use of video/media in Math instruction. While there is still need for more researched based data to support the anecdotal evidence on technology integration and best practice it was nice to see this data included in the presentations.

While there were many take always from the conference there are three that I want to focus on here. First is the book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen , Curtis W. Johnson and , Michael B. Horn . Perhaps you have already heard about or read this book but I encountered it for the first time at the CUE conference and I believe it is an essential read for all administrators. We know change is needed, we know change is coming but this book pushes the envelope and can be the catalyst for some deep thinking and conversation. It also reminds us that the change that is coming will be anything but business as usual.. I have not finished the book yet but I hope there will be future posts and conversations here about its message. One thing is certain the revolution is not about how much technology we can put into our classrooms but it is about how we meet the needs of our students. in addition to this book you may want to take a look at the authors blog of the same name, Disrupting Class, here.

Next, if you have not already done so, take time to review the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE). current draft of the National Technology Standards for Administrators. While I was at CUE I attended a discussion of the draft for these standards and if they are to be effective it is important that we all take time to read them , reflect on our role as technology leaders and offer our ideas and insights to clarify that role.. If you do not have the opportunity to attend a live session to discuss the draft of the standards there is an online survey which you can fill out to share your ideas and reflections ( or you can offer to organize a discussion in your district).

Finally I would like to share a tool that is new to me and which makes the top ten in my list of technology tools for administrators. It has a very easy learning curve and it has made my work easier. Do you have to transfer files between computers? Do you ever use email files or a flash drive to transfer files from home to work, or from you laptop to your desktop Do you email files to a colleague or work collaboratively on documents? If so, take the time to look at Dropbox . It is free, and it automatically syncs all types of files, from spreadsheets and documents to photos or pdf files between computers. It is a very simple download and now all of my documents are on each of my computers and also stored on the internet. Yesterday a colleague wanted a copy of a lengthy document and with one click of a mouse I shared my folder with him through dropbox. I know I sound like a commercial but I can’t resit a free tool that actually makes me more efficient because both time and money are rare commodities in my world.

*PS For those Kindle folks like me there is a Kindle edition available of Disrupting Class

8th graders make the cut with High school students- PLEASE VOTE

2009-01-14T08:31:00.000-08:00

Okay this is shameless self promotion, but I am a very proud principal! Our 8th grade students entered the Character Counts Video Contest and they have made the finals! Not only did two of the videos make the final cut but because of their age they made the cut in the High School category!

Now we need your help....click the link and please vote

Our videos that made the cut are "The Caring Project" and "Fairness" from St. Elisabeth School

The assignment was to do a short video , no longer than 2 minutes, promoting one or more of the Six Pillars of Character. This was only the second video story our students have made so I want to acknowledge David Jakes skyped into our class earlier this year to teach them how to do Photo Stories! Thanks David, we could not have done it without you!

Which way? Planning for the future....

2009-01-07T10:40:00.000-08:00

As I have been writing on twitter we are in the the final stage of preparing for our accreditation visit which will take place in early February. Our self-study book goes to print tomorrow and as I am doing a final edit it occurred to me that it would be interesting to share the four critical areas we have identified as five year goals. In this post I will list the goals and give details for the first one and then over the next week I will post the details for the others.

I would love to hear your thoughts or have you share your own five year plan? What do you hope you school will embrace over the next several years?

Critical Areas of Growth

1. Ubiquitous access to technology ( 1:1 computer initiative for K to 8)

to ensure digital equity

to provide a vehicle for developing information fluency, digital citizenship, global connections and support creativity and innovation encouraging critical thinking, knowledge application, and effective communication and content creation
to build student capacity for creativity and innovation- To support critical thinking, the ability to apply academic knowledge to real life situations, creative problem solving, and the ability to create content and unique applications

2. Developing an awareness, understanding and connection with the natural world and our stewardship of God's creation

3. Formalize academic support for challenge and intensive students with Implementation of archdiocesan STEP and MAP program and on site academic counseling.

4. On going support for enrollment, financial planning and marketing:

Restructure the Consultative School Council
Implementation and development of strategies from Deanery Pastor/Principal meetings

For critical area # 1 , Ubiquitous access to technology I think it is interesting to note that even thought the idea is near and dear to my heart the request to move in this direction for K to 8 originated directly from the faculty and they choose this as the first priority. The following is directly from our Action plan explaining our rationale and timeline.

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Rationale:
Digital equity*: Based on our school community profile ( with 63% of our students on free or reduced price lunch) we have wish to ensure all of our students will have access to the information, knowledge, skills and tools that will secure a level playing field for them in the future and afford them access to economic opportunities. We are seeking equal opportunities for all of our students regardless of socio-economic status.

Current educational research and the identified skills and knowledge essential for the 21st century, includes the reality that these students will need to be well equipped to be independent learners who can access and evaluate new information and can use this information in creative and innovative ways to make new meaning and solve problems. Analysis of school community profile, student work, test scores and discussions revealed the importance of providing, access, and guided practice to ensure all students can effectively find, validate and apply information in a digitally connected world.

· What Is Digital Equity?
"In simple terms, digital equity means all students have adequate access to information and communications technologies for learning and for preparing for the future-regardless of socioeconomic status, physical disability, language, race, gender, or any other characteristics that have been linked with unequal treatment. Knowing how to use computers, software, and the Internet is simply not enough anymore. To be prepared for today's digital society, all students must have the skills to find, understand, and use information, and, perhaps more importantly, to evaluate that information. In short, they must become people who are able to continually discern, adapt, and learn."
http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/04/equity.php

Alignment with SLE's and Mission/Philosophy
Ubiquitous access to technology flows directly from the Philosophy and Mission and is connected to all SLE's and will also further enable global connectedness, global awareness and practical application of moral and ethical use of technology

Timeline and Actions	Persons Responsible	Resources	Accountability/Reporting
Spring 2009 – Form 1:1 Committee to: -Provide Parent /Community education -Provide input and suggestions on equipment options -Research insurance options ( Work of the committee will carry on through both stages of implementation)	Administrative team , Technology Coordinator 1:1 Committee	Time Identifying potential committee memebrs	Status reports posted on the web site/
Spring 2009 Research infrastructure needs and equipment choices	Technology Coordinator Principal Vice Principal	May require upgrade of DSL line	Report to 1:1 committee and to faculty and staff
On going- Hands on professional development for staff	Principal Tech coordinator, Tech Club student trainers and teachers	Webinars, online conference, Professional learning Network, onsite training, Professional conferences	Faculty minutes, observation Professional development list
2009-2010 Initial implementation at Junior High level - Includes training and support for teachers with monitoring software, classroom management and pedagogy	Principal, Tech coordinator, Tech Club student trainers	Secure monitoring software Provide finance options for parents Insurance for student laptops	Reporting to the community Open house Calendar of training
2009-2010 Intermediate Academy /Primary Academy Support for basic literacy and productivity skills for staff and students	Principal, Tech coordinator, Tech Club student trainers	Webinars, online conference, Professional learning Network, onsite training, Professional conferences	Faculty minutes, observation Professional development list
2010-2011 Monitor and observe Provides time for Junior High to gain proficiency, for us to measure effectiveness and for the other teachers and parents to observe 1:1 in action.	School community	None	Observation Reports on web site
2011- 2013 Phase two implementation Grades 5 and below	Follows outline above

Photo by ken mccown

Reading in a digital world....

2008-12-19T11:32:00.000-08:00

Reading has been a theme at school and in my life recently. Grades 3, 4 and 5 are participating in a program through e-Pals called in2books. It is an awesome program and today the 5th graders shared with me how much they love the program. The students get to choose books to read and every student receives an online adult mentor who has also read the book and then they have conversations about it. the students are really excited about reading these books and they are learning a lot about communication skills too.

As promised I will include pictures of my new kindle. I love it! I will being really putting it through its paces over the holidays but one of the things that totally excites me is its potential for education.

Not only can you download whole books at the push of a button but you can access wikipedia, highlight passages, clip text, make notes, look up things online or simply look up a word in the dictionary. Tell me again why we need those big heavy textbooks? It is only going to be a matter of time until there is enough academic content avaialable .

Oh, did I mention you can also load audio books or your own text documents and subscrible to newspapers and magazine. if you love to ead and love technology ...well you should see my smile!

Rising from the Ashes

2008-12-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand word so I think this photo story speaks for itself. Once again thank you to all of you who are walking with us! You are all my heroes!

Risk- takers learn by doing: The Road to Change

2008-08-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

"A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" George S Patton

This was the theme of our three day in-service that marks the beginning of our school year. It is a kind of mantra for us and it reflects the catalyst for the changes we have embraced. One of the lessons we learned at NECC this year was that there are a lot of people who really want to move forward and try new things but they are held back because they feel they "do not know" how or what to do. What we discovered was that we did not "know" either but we accomplished a great deal because we went ahead and tried.

We are continuing along this path this year. We understand the importance of educational theories, and the research that informs practice and those certainly are the underpinnings of our vision and our plans. And as a educational leader I have a responsibility to read and do research but the purpose of gaining this knowledge is not to teach it to others but rather to drive school improvement which focuses on student learning. Good teaching we know comes from good planning and is supported by teachers having a firm grasp of their curriculum, well defined goals and an understanding of their students needs. These conditions help teachers be risk takers and give them the time energy and focus they need to be innovators and learners. The question is how do we get there?

Two things that I have been reading about and struggling with for over two years are the concepts of curriculum mapping and Understanding by Design. I have made various attempts to introduce these concepts to the teachers and encourage their use but only with limited success. Perhaps because they were not well scaffolded. Perhaps because I did not not fully understand. Perhaps because I was trying to get it perfect- What is a really good essential question? After watching Chris Lehman do two down and dirty Ubd lesson plans with his audiences at NECC I realized I was trying to hard. To borrow from Nike we needed to "Just do it"! thus was born our 3 day in-service.

This is a salute to an awesome staff and too the ability to move mountains if you have the courage to take risks and believe in yourself.

Day One I gave each teacher a packet of curriculum standards and benchmarks that had been cut apart into slips for each standard and were color coded by subject. Subject by subject they sorted through these slips of paper and marked them 1st quarter, 2nd quarter 3rd quarter or 4th quarter and put them in corresponding envelopes. When the sorting was done on they laid out their year on big tables and looked for cross curricular connection and did some rearranging. Then they filled out a monthly map to make a record of what material they planned to cover. And so Day One was finished and everyone already had a plan of action for the whole year.....

Day Two- I introduced Ubd- Not with lengthy explanation , philosophy or theory ( they had heard snippets of allof that before) but by using a template and writing a lesson plan together for a unit on California Missions. We worked through stage one and then tried our hand at it. by lunch time everybody had completed stage one the understanding, essential questions content and skills for one topic/ standard. We repeated our mantra- "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." After lunch we finished our model lesson with the assessment piece and then the activities. And then it was back to work on their own plans. With much bouncing around of ideas and discussion by the end of the day everybody had finished one complete Ubd plan! Wow!

Day Three- With new confidence and the promise that Sunday nights could be reclaimed from the lesson planning monster we dug into write more plans. We focused on big ideas, why we teach these topics and real world assessments. By days end plans had been written for all of the beginning units and in some cases for the whole quarter. We face the unfolding year with a new sense of purpose. We know that the plans will get adjusted and that we will get better at doing this but we also know we can do it because we have done it. I believe the benefits of these three days will be reaped twenty fold. Already there is discussion about not being tied to the text and having the time and the focus that will allow the exploration of a whole host of other kinds of resources.

Technorati Tags: Ubd, curriculum, risktakers, ChrisLehmann, NECC

Finding the Path

2008-07-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

(Cross posted to LeaderTalk)
The path to understanding and change. This is a personal journey but one that has been formed by the many people who form my personal leaning network. In the discussion surrounding NECC08 one of the things that people have talked about is how this NECC may have been different from the last. NECC is different each year because we are different having journeyed, grown, changed over the course of the year. In reflecting on this reality for myself , in thinking about about leadership and learning, I have had cause to think about my journey, my perceptions and the ongoing act of transformation.

A vision is shared,

connections and exploration begin,

a personal vision is developed,

a shared vision is built,

learning about tools, connections, and possibilities,

exploration/ practice begins,

reflection on practice leads to reflection on pedagogy,

establishing big picture goals for student learning

and knowing where to find the tools to help achieve your goals,

Obviously this is not solely a linear process but it does summarize my journey and the journey for our school. (The highlights represent our current focus.)

The first agent of change I encountered almost 4 years ago was Alan November. At NECC this year I attended his session "Designing Rigorous and Globally Connected Assignments". The ideas were not new but their value lay in how they embrace the big picture and they serve as a waypoint to evaluate your course of action. Alan always touches on the fundamentals like using country codes and other tricks of good searching and some basic tools ( a concept I will comeback too) but the heart of it all for me was in the following three statements.

Give the children problems to solve.
Rewrite the job description of learners.
We need more voices teaching

What impact does this have on my planning for next year? What do I need to do?

First, I need to know where my staff is with regard to the journey. I was fortunate to take 4 people with me to NECC and we will debrief tomorrow night and talk about where we are and where we perceive our colleagues are with this journey. The tools discussion also fits in here. What are the essential tools? We are re -imaging all the computers in the school with a basic tool box to ensure everyone has access to what they might need and to ensure some platform uniformity. We will include Google docs and open office, picassa for basic photo editing, skype, photostory3, Google notebook, diigo, audacity, Google reader, google earth, voicethread, primaryaccess one of the mindmap programs, wetpaint wiki and learnerblogs. The emphasis is on ubiquitous access to tools but it is driven by the pedagogy that says that learners need access to information, collaboration, global connectivity and the ability to be content creators.

With regard to Alan's statements particularly the middle concept that we need to rewrite the job description of learners I am thrown back into the whole discussion of how to be an agent of change. Chris Lehmann's NECC presentation on Understanding by Design (UbD) hit the nail squarely on the head because it addresses how we think about what we teach and what learning is all about. UbD will form the other part of our before school to do list. UbD is not a magic bullet but it is about thinking and planning and with each passing year I become more convinced that one of the reasons change is slow is because for the most part we plan like we always have, chapter by chapter, sticking in blogs and wikis or some other tool because we know we should but not because we are thinking differently or setting different goals. Once the school year starts and the busier we become we are more likely than ever to fall back into what is easy and comfortable. So starting our planing with the big picture and working with Ubd can change our thinking , our framework for learning and become a tool of change. At least that is what I am thinking.

The final piece I am going to strive for in the coming school year is to create an environment that values, supports and rewards risk takers.

So here are the questions: Tools are cool but what are the basic elements we really need? Personally and for your school -How did your journey unfold- Where are you and what is next? How can you rewrite the job description of learners? What agents of change are you putting into place for the coming year?

Photo credit: Uploaded on January 21, 2007
by ionushi

Technorati Tags: NECC08, UbD, November, Lehmann, Classroom2.0

Back from NECC- Where the real learning begins

2008-07-03T08:02:00.000-07:00

NECC is over and now I am home sorry to have left the face to face leaning community but I am also ready to begin to think deeply, reflect and move forward. Tomorrow is Leadership Day and I am also thinking about what I have to contribute to that conversation.

This NECC introduced me to a few new tools ( not that there weren't plenty of them out here) but most of what I sought was a deeper understanding of the pedagogy and the learning that the tools facilitate. To that end there are several presentations I want to reflect on including, Wes Fryer's session at Edubloggercon on Digital story telling and Oral histories, Alan November who always helps put the big picture in focus and Chris Lehmann's presentation on pedagogy. (Those will form /inform my next post).

What tools am I using, what tools are we using at school, and why are we using them? What do we need to be doing? Having teachers with me this year was a great opportunity to hear what they needed, what they were excited about and what structures I can facilitate to enable them to move ahead.

A few ideas are already surfacing..

Mentoring...teacher to teacher...who will really learn what tool well and be willing to help others

As a community we need a repository ( social bookmarking) of tools and tutorials for just in time learning and to share academic content

We need a way to bring new teachers quickly up to speed and fire their imagination with possibilities

To avoid projects or technology being an end in itself we need to have clear curricular goals.
and a clear understanding of the big picture....inclusive of the concepts of Global awareness, digital literacy, critical thinking, creativity and innovation in problem solving etc.

So in the end what do you need from technology? Perhaps it is only three basic things- Connectedness, publication capacity audio and visual, & collaboration tools. It does not matter which specific tools ....It is about what tools work for us and about the learning and skills they facilitate.
Chris Lehmann said tools are invisible (not to put too much of a spin on semantics ) I was challenged by that to move beyond simply transparency for our tools. At what point do tools truly become invisible?
Technorati Tags: NECC08, NECC , San Antonio, Chris Lehmann Wes Fryer, Pedagogy Web20

ThinWalls- NECC- A Transformative Experience

2008-07-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

Clarence has done a nice post outlining some of our plans for the future of ThinWalls. And I have to echo his reflection about our face to face meeting being a wonderful experience and an opportunity to also deepen the connection of all involved.

This morning we discussed briefly another aspect of a ThinWalls classroom, the interpersonal connectedness or community, we hope the students would establish. To foster this we have discussed opening some channels of communication, like Twitter, that would help them develop that sense of connection beyond the specific content area. We also hope to make use of social bookmarking which I hope will move beyond the specific academic content they are working with to embrace their leaning in all areas.

From the perspective of the NECC experience I think another important thing happened for the ThinWalls classroom. Doing the poster session served as a form of publishing that allowed us to reflect on , recognize and celebrate what we had actually done. For the classroom teachers, especially Lucy and Terri, the day to day work and planning kept them so busy that they did not recognize how much they had done or the significance of their work. It was a great opportunity to see the big picture and to realize the significance of the ThinWalls work. But even more importantly from and administrative perspective I am seeing that "publishing" teacher work to an authentic audience is every bit as important as publishing student work!

Technorati Tags: NECC08, NECC , San Antonio, ThinWalla, Barbara, Barreda, Clarence

NECC- The Mega-Conference Syndrome

2008-06-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Three days into my San Antonio stay I am trying to get my head around the pros and cons of this kind of mega conference. I have attended Eubloggercon, gone to some formal and informal sessions, had some conversations, visited the exhibit and completed our poster session in the Global Gallery.

Everybody in the Bloggers Cafe this morning told stories about sessions over run with people or closed. The members of the faculty here with me have talked about having to run from one session to the next in hopes of getting a seat. My question about the conference scene in general is whether the more intimate conferences are more effective. Certainly I know the more intimate format of the BLC last year fostered some great conversations for me.

At the end of the day a few of us talked a little bit about the conference audience and conference spaces. Jeff Utecht shared about the organization of the conference in Shanghai and the ability to create both formal and un-confernce sessions that were open to the flow of the conversation they generated. Formal conference sessions all had a back up physical space where the session/conversation could be continued if warrented for a full 45 minutes after the completion of the session. The un-conference sessions ebbed and flowed and were assigned spaces as requests were made for conversations.

A conference the size of NECC has a very diverse audience. For many ( maybe most) it is a fairly new experience.They are looking to figure technology out and they are looking for cool tools, examples or ideas. If you visit the exhibit floor alot of people seem to be looking for software and gadgets too. There are others who are looking for the conversation, the pedagogy and the chance to converse on a different level. And of course there are many others with many other goals . The point is that there has to be way to meet these diverse needs and I think it has a lot to do with providing dedicated spaces and not filling every corner ( let alone every minute) with scheduled events.

Technorati Tags: NECC08, NECC , San Antonio

Cell Phone Conundrum

2008-05-14T18:22:00.001-07:00

(Cross posted to LeaderTalk)

In my position as an administrator, sometimes I feel adrift in a sea of information and an ever changing landscape of responsibilities and possibilities. I am already a day late with my post and I have at least three topics which I want to explore but for now I will stick with two related topics that stood out in my recent reading.

The Cell phone conundrum. There is an article in the latest Technology and Learning which does not offer any real opinion but which exposes the wide disparity of policies. The most extreme example of allowing/encouraging cell phone use is:

“Three middle schools and three charter schools in Brooklyn, New York, started a pilot program in direct opposition of New York City's public schools' cell-phone ban. The schools gave 2,500 free cell phones to students, preloaded with 130 minutes of talk time. Students will be rewarded with additional minutes in return for good behavior, attendance, homework, and test scores. Teachers, meanwhile, can send text messages to students to remind them of assignments or upcoming exams. The $2 million program was funded by private donors through the Fund for Public Schools.”

The reader survey, which accompanies this article, however shows almost 89% of the respondents ban cell phones on campus. Greg’s blog prints and excerpt from a New York Times blog on cell phone in the classroom. While most of the discussion centers on higher education there are some good points ( along with the usual fears, liability, responsibility, cheating, posting you tube videos etc).

At about the same time David Warlick posted the same example I have above but the primary context of his discussion was the development of acceptable use policies. This all comes together at a time when I am wondering about the application of cell phone technology at the Junior High level and wondering about how to help the students develop the maturity they need to responsibly use this tool.

I entered the conversation with the following comment which I am reprinting here because I think it is an important question and because I want to highlight David’s follow up post.

“Since both cell phone use and AUP are things I am thinking about let me raise a question that I have not seen addressed in the last year or so..

The givens: We talk about teaching students to use “all technology” in a responsible manner ..we see the potential of a whole variety of connectedness like cell phones

The question: Should we have a tiered AUP? That is should Junior High students have the same AUP as 9th graders? As 11th graders? What are realistic expectations based on maturity and responsibility?
(I work in a K-8 school)”

I have a host of questions about cell phone technology but for a moment I wish to diverge to explore the AUP issue. David posted again a couple of day later a link to a wiki to explore AUP policies and to give us an opportunity to collaborate on a tiered approach. The post and the wiki have some nice resources that are worth exploring but even more important in my opinion is the concept the AUP is much more than a set of rules . that it should be part of a technology policy statement.

Join in the conversation here or on the wiki.

Just a few of my other questions include: Is the cell phone a viable technology for the Junior High Classroom. If you have a one to one program is there a need to use cell phones? What are possible applications?

Photo by compujeramey

2008-05-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

I did not know until i read Clarence Fisher's blog..

How has RSS changed things? It is not a tool just for the classroom but also a tool for administrators. What professional journals pile up on your desk? How many education trends, curriculum ideas and legal issues do you try to track?

I use Google reader to track my subscriptions and I have it on my iGoogle homepage.

Reference Materials- What do our students need?

2008-04-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Library 2.0- Print resources and web resources for student learning- What do we really need?

I recently attended a professional development day designed to help us spend our allocated funds on research materials for our school libraries. I work in the private sector and I do not have the luxury of having a librarian so the day was informative and it did get me thinking about evaluating and maintaining our library. It also raised some very important questions about today's school library which I hope you will help me to answer. In this particular instance the allocated funds had to be spent on print resources and so in choosing those books I struggled with what our students needed.

What do today's students need?

What is the balance between print and web based resources? Is there a balance? Does it matter? What if any print resources do you think are essential? I have a nice chart from the workshop that breaks down by percentage and Dewey categories the rough proportions a elementary or secondary library should follow in building their collection but it does not address the questions I have about print resources.

Please don't misunderstand. I am not against books, in fact an avid reader. But I need you to help me think aloud here... What are essential tools for research for our students and how much of the budget should go to print resources?

We have set a goal to ensure our students are effective researchers* but now I have to considerer and evaluate what tools we need to make sure this happens.

Please share your insights...

*Specifically we state: “St Elisabeth Students will demonstrate effective research and information fluency by developing original conclusions, re-evaluating and interpreting their assumptions, and assessing the reliability and validity of their sources.”

A conference , two tools and getting moving again..

2008-04-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

Just so I can restart my engine I am not going to even try to explain why my posting has been so sporadic since the beginning of 2008. Here however are a few quick notes on some recent experiences...

A Conference for Administrators

Last weekend I was in San Fransisco with 200 other principals and administrators for Leadership 3.0. You can read more about this conference in my post on LeaderTalk. The keynote address was made by Sir Ken Robinson who challenged us in our leadership to refit our schools. He addressed a particular concern which we really need to make a priority which is to address, nurture and work toward an environment which values creativity and innovation. To set this up he made an interesting observation that one would generally assume the goal of education is to discover and develop the intrinsic gifts and talents of the students, He suggests however that a great many people pass through he educational system with their talents uncultivated and he suggests that is because the educational system in the United States has ,since its inception ,had a different purpose-preparation for the industrial age. The conclusion- Refit our schools.

A New to Me Tool

Even though you have probably read other posts on this tool I have to put in a link. The Digital Vault is an easy to use tool for work with primary sources. It is a tool which will easily become transparent because its use is intuitive for most students and the primary source history materials are just what teachers need. Check it out for yourself.

I Finally Get PicLens

When I first saw it I thought it was kind of fun but wasn't sure how I would use it. Now I get it and like Digital vault it makes a lot of sense for our students. The application is simple. Once it is downloaded it allows you to “swing” through thousands of photos in an iphone style interface. ( the website calls it an "immersive view”) It works with most image collections and now instead of pulling up page after page of flickr photos to find the right one i can view literally thousands of images in a very short time.

There are a couple more posts that will follow now in short order...Time to think and write really is a critical piece of my own personal learning but sometimes “stuff” just gets in the way.

Technology is not the sugar on our cereal…

2008-02-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

In today’s faculty meeting, we watched a short video from YouTube called 3 Steps. If you haven’t seen it I think it is worth taking a look.( The tags mention NECC 2007 and David Warlick so evidently this has been around for a while but I had not seen it) I used it as a lead in to today’s meeting. It address three steps we need to take to prepare the students in the 21^st century:

1. Making our classrooms creative spaces Photo by gongus
2. Teaching students to be competitive ( with themselves), to cooperate and collaborate
3. Connecting them with their global peers.

( It is on Teacher tube also in case you can not access You tube)

It was a good review of what we are trying to do and why plus it brought home the idea of changing how our classrooms look and function. The next stop was to consider the role technology plays in education. I told the teachers, “It is not the sugar on our cereal” . Technology is the means to access information learn and connect with others. As professional educators if our job is about information and teaching students how to access and use information then our job is about technology. I believe there is no way around this basic truth. It is not about cool projects it is about teaching and learning because teaching and learning are about information.

So with all of this out in the open today we embarked on something new. Armed only with our standards and a laptop I shared a iGoogle tab with the teachers on which I had preloaded some basic resources and I challenged them to go textbook free. They picked one subject, Science or social Studies and worked together to plan all of Marches lesson only with the resources they had at hand.

The standards helped us to look at the big picture and with the help of their peers everybody was successful. They explored video resource, Google gadgets, you tube, teacher tube etc. The next step is for the teachers in 6^th 7^th and 8^th grade to build an iGoogle tab for their subject area for the students to use !

Today I think we made a big step forward….and kudos to the whole staff who didn’t even flinch! Today technology became a viable source of teaching and learning in a new way for all grade levels , Pre-k to 8!

Doodle4Google- Explore your creative side

2008-02-25T07:31:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I stumbled on this contest and I am posting it here because I think it sounds like fun. Check it out for yourself. It is open to students from K to 12.

Design a Google Doodle and have your artwork viewed by millions on the Google homepage (plus win a
college scholarship, computers for your school and other cool stuff).
Check out www.google.com/doodle4google
for official rules and ask your teacher for
details on how to enter.

Thiwalls, A Colorado conversation, and MeBeam

2008-02-23T16:04:00.000-08:00

Learning 2.0 A Colorado Conversation, a one day conference took place today at Arapahoe High School. I listened in to a few of the sessions through ustream and Clarence and I did podcasts for the opening session and participated in a live round table in the afternoon. One of the things that stood out was the fact that this conference was truly about conversation. In the words of the conference organizers… “Education is conversation. Conversation creates change. The future of education does not exist in the isolated world of theory and abstract conference sessions. Instead, it exists in conversations. It exists in creating a robust learning network that is ever-expanding and just-in-time. Learning 2.0 is not the beginning of this conversation. It is merely a stopping point, a time to talk about the visible difference that we all seek.” (You can access a great deal of the material from their wiki so use it to continue the conversation.)

For the afternoon round table we used and interesting little application called mebeam. It was very simple to use and while it worked pretty well for our round table discussion it is probably best suited to conversation where everyone has a headset. It certainly started me thinking about the classroom possibilities for collaborations like our Thinwalls classroom. It would allow groups of students to work together real time with face to face style communication. IM and skype our great but there is also something to be said for seeing each other while you talk. With mebeam you can have several people together in one room. I think this is a tool worth exploring!

I know the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time...But sometimes I forget

2008-02-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

Where have I been? This is the season when my administrative role focuses on a broad range of issues that take me away from my day to day work with curriculum. It has also cut into my time for professional reading and when you are not reading it seems that it is much harder to write because you are not engaged with new content and ideas. ( I know that is pretty obvious…but it seems important to articulate this simple truth and to own it)

In the last several days I have begun reading and I also have been engaged in some reflective work as we begin to prepare for next years accreditation. So over the next several days I am going to blog a variety of things that are beginning to percolate to the surface.

Over the last year I have been exposed to a lot of cutting edge ideas. I have been challenged on many levels to provide leadership, support, professional development, and direction to the faculty to ensure that we are pursuing best practice across the curriculum. I have had the opportunity to hear some truly dynamic and motivational speakers including Paula Rutherford and Robert Marzano. I have talked about assessment with Scot Mcleod and I have picked the brains of many who are brighter than I am. Each interaction has left me excited and with a vision for what we can do and where we can go in ensuring that we provide an excellent education. But the real task is to translate the ideas and the head knowledge into practice.

A key to learning, a key to professional development, is to find a way to break the work down into “bite size” tasks. As an instructional leader who gets very excited about the possibilities the most challenging thing I need to do it is promote and encourage change and growth without overwhelming the faculty. Compassion and fear of overburdening already busy teachers however can paralyze our growth and so today I hit on an idea that I think will work. Daily 5 minute tasks that keep us moving forward seem relatively painless and which over the course of several days will yield real accomplishments.

With the second semester just beginning it is time to review our curricular standards to take stalk of student mastery and of what standards we have covered. We need to complete curriculum maps for second semester but that always sounds like a daunting task to teachers who only have two prep periods per week. Math is our focus subject this year so one page a day I am distributing standards work sheets to mark mastery level of the benchmarks taught. By next week we will be looking at a completed standards worksheet and be ready to plan for the rest of the year.

No Longer Content to Surf the Top of the Waves

2007-12-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

No longer content to surf the tops of the waves of knowledge with our students we have been actively involved in retooling teaching and learning to dig deeper. It is not an easy task, nor is there a one size fits all solution. What I do want to share is some of our recent successes and the tools and teaching that took us there. As we have known all along technology is a tool and not an end and we are just beginning to learn how to choose and use tools to transform common activities into deeper learning experiences. Two tools, which have really affected our teaching and learning, recently are video game simulations and chats.

I have written about our experience with chats as a way to work on group projects on my blog. The gist of our experience was that as the students worked collaboratively with the students in Snow Lake Canada as part of our ThinWall classroom they used IM to plan their projects. The transcripts of these chats, often completed at home. gave us a whole new insight into the students thought processes, much more than one gets walking around a class listening to the groups talking. Because we could see their thought processes we know what skills they need. It is an absolutely incredible moment. Yes, it means we are working hard but the opportunity to give the students the thinking skills, communication skills, planning skills, and talents they will need for ….well for the rest of their lives is an unbeatable experience.

Using video games in class has become another incredible tool for deepening the student thinking and learning. In 6th grade social studies students study ancient civilizations and the formations of cities and societies. In most cases the students read about the various factors that influence the early developments of cities like geography, resources, government, trade etc. They can answer questions for an objective test but they have only "surfed the waves" with most of the information soon forgotten. Like many classrooms, you will sometimes see the students constructing dioramas or models depicting the various places they have studied. But when questioned about the model you find that for the most part there was little real thinking about what they created and it was mostly a fun arts and crafts activity( I remember having students do revolutionary war dioramas and they came in with WWII planes hanging from the top f the shoe box).. However, this year things are different. This year we used looked at several simulations like SimCity, SimSocetiy and finally decided on CivRome, which starts with the early development of city-states as a means to deepen the students understanding about building cities. Suddenly the students were no just reading about the choices others had made but they were planning and making choices. They were divided into teams of four with one student as the geographer, one as the government official, one as a farmer and one as a job specialist based on a web quest on early civilizations. They then moved on to the simulation where they continued work in their teams and dealt with all aspects of early civilizations, where to build, what to build, how to provide food and jobs, where to place roads, how to keep the citizens happy. In just three sessions where they could immediately see the effects of their decisions they had come to a whole new level of understanding. The teacher then had them build models which will soon be up on Voicethread, but this time they had to justify every decision, think through the process and make sure their city was sustainable.. These couple of days of activity was absolutely amazing. It was classroom as studio with students moving from simulation to building and back again. They were adjusting their plans and explaining their decisions and while these students may not remember the name of the early civilizations they have studied but they will understand the various factor that contribute to the development of society and they will understand more deeply the impact of the decisions made by leaders or a government on the people.

So, we are now building a library of simulations. It is one of the tools that works for us in the quest to re-tool teaching and learning to dig deeper but is also part of a whole package of technology tools we now are employing regularly as part of our commitment to do more than "surf the tops of the waves". What is working for you? How are you moving beyond technology or technology sake into new and better ways of learning?

Cross posted to Leader Talk

picture by by mrcthepc

Technorati Tags: IM, Chat, simulations, criticalthinking web2.0 class2.0

Instant Messaging for Class Makes Student Thinking Transparent

2007-11-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

The ThinWall Classroom which is predicated upon connectedness, networking and learning beyond our class walls changes everything. Over the last few days the students in Snow Lake and Van Nuys began their final projects on The Oustider . They are exploring themes related to the book like teen violence , friendship and death. I have been busy lending support and collaborating with Clarence and Terri as we worked out the details and solved day to day glitches.. I worked with the students in Van Nuys modeling how to develop their topics and teaching about Creative Commons. I have been monitoring the wiki and checking on the students to assure they completed their scheduled chats. It has been an intense time of activity, monitoring and coaching.

Today I had a few moments for reflection and I had a new revelation of just how powerful and exciting this kind of teaching/learning can be. For the first time I realized that we were doing something that we never could have done in a more traditional setting…..we could literally see the students think. When technology allows you to be connected to the students thinking and processing you can guide them to build essential skills in a way that was never possible before.

Here is what I mean. I taught at the Junior High level for many years. I did enumerable group projects which fell under the umbrella of “cooperative learning”. I was careful to make sure that each student had a specific part to complete and that the work was divided between all students. I walked around the room listening in for a minute or two as they planned,(of course while I stood over them they were very productive) I watched them work and I talked about timelines etc. But I am not sure I was really very effective in teaching any of them how to think a project through in a collaborative environment. I am not sure that they really respected one another or in some cases that the kids even listened to each other.

Now imagine you actually had a transcript of their discussions as we do with their IM chats. I not only get a momentary glimpse of what they do in school but a detailed look at all of their planning, discussion and thinking. If two students are taking over I can intervene right away. The students and I can look at the chat together and talk about how they came across and what would be a better approach and why. If they are not on target we can remediate. If they are having trouble with any part of the process we can see how they are thinking and give guidance.

Because we can see their thought processes we know what skills they need. It is an absolutely incredible moment. Yes, it means we are working hard but the opportunity to give the students the thinking skills, communication skills, planning skills, and talents they will need for ….well for the rest of their lives is an unbeatable experience.

Photo by

Technorati Tags: ThinWall,Clarence, Instant Messaging, Classroom2.0 IM

Think aloud- What do I expect from our ThinWall classroom

2007-11-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

Working on the "elevator speech" about the Thin Wall Classroom. I just attended a leadership conference and was asked to share about the project with Snow Lake. After I gave a brief overview of what we are doing another principal approached me and asked -"What do you want/expect your eighth graders to gain from this experience? What will they have learned? " It was an important moment reminding me that I need to be clear about the purpose of what at first blush might appear to be just a bunch of cool activities. So now as a think aloud I want to try to flesh out the my answers.

In no particular order :

Students will move beyond limits of the classroom and the 8 to 3 learning day -opening up new ways to learn
The students will learn how to work in a public space
The students will understand the power of connectivity as a tool for learning
The student will build learning networks
The students will expand their world view
The students will demonstrate multiple effective methods of collaboration and communication in the digital world
Students will be self-critical of their communication skills
Students will be able to track the development of their thinking and reflect on the impact of interaction with others on their thinking process over time
Learning will become a process more than a set of facts to be mastered
Students will be pushed to think about their learning

Picture : http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2047686395&size=m
by Tochis
Technorati Tags: thinWall, classroom2.0, web2.0, snowlake

When we get in the way......

2007-10-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

Who has the key?
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=414993708&size=s by spiralz

What happens when we get out of the way. The ThinWall classroom was using Moodle to create chat groups for the students. Moodle is a great tool and it has served our school well in a variety of circumstances. However in this case the students were finding it cumbersome. For some reason the chats would drop participants or just would not work smoothly. We expect some minor difficulties and we checked settings and tweaked the system but it was beginning to effect the conversation and thus the learning. Clarence suggested we switch to MSN Messenger since his kids all had accounts and then require them to email us transcripts of their chats. Here is where it gets interesting.

I okayed the switch , asked for a code of conduct and directions regarding the transcripts and we went to check with our students to see if the had MSN. Surprisingly only seven did. So now the tech coordinator and myself were considering what we would do. Should the kids set up MSN accounts ? What was involved? Although both he and I had accounts it had been a long time since we set them up so we had to check out what the kids would need to do. The problem here is we had not asked the right questions and we had not listened to the kids. We spent at least 30 minutes working on a solution before we went back and asked the kids what IM they used. It turns out that our kids use Yahoo Messenger. Now what? Someone suggested looking at Meebo which we did... but then I actually talked with the students rather than just getting one reply and running off to find a solution.

As soon as the kids understood the issue that in Snow Lake the kids were using MSN and in LA they were using Yahoo they told us that it was no problem the two platforms could communicate with each other. They knew how to add MSN people to their Yahoo chats...problem solved. Or was it?

I think the hidden problem is that we get in the way. In an effort to be the teacher we do not allow the students to navigate through the tools. We forget to listen and be learners ourselves. It is important that we teach safe and ethical behavior and monitor the way they use the tools as well as helping them see the power the tools have to help them learn. It is good that we show them new things like voicethread and that we make the tools available to them. But we also need to allow them to find solutions and use the tools that work for them. Last night before we even had officially switched from Moodle one of the groups switched on their own and emailed the transcript of their chat to Clarence

In the beginning the students were hesitant they did not know how it would work to learn in a connected network. Some of the tools we pointed them to were new to them . All of what we were doing was a new way to approach school. Now I think they get it. They see the potential and want to move ahead and so we can point out tools and we can guide the learning but we are ready to listen and to let them find the right tool for the job. Hmmm …..if I am not worrying about the tools I can focus on planning the learning.

Technorati Tags: ThinWall, tools, Clarence, IM, classroom2.0

This one blew my socks off! What a tool!

2007-10-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

Okay maybe I am behind the times but if you have never played with TouchGraph you have to give it a try. My technology coordinator just stumbled on it this afternoon and we have spent the last 30 minutes playing with this tool. The possibilities are limitless but even more to the point it seems to be a POWERFUL tool to help teachers uncover resources and to allow older students to find information and discover the way networks interact. One of my concerns as an administrator has always been supporting the teachers and finding ways of opening up to them all of the resources that are available for their curricular content. One of the stumbling blocks is the vast number of hits you get with a standard Google search and the time consuming activity of refining searches for each component of you lesson. Enter TouchGraph which provides a visual representation of resources networked around topics or URLs.

You absolutely have to try it to understand but the concept is straight forward. You create a visual network which allows you to see related concepts and a whole variety of resources in an incredibly easy to navigate interface. The visual representation is much easier to work with than pages and pages of hits from a google search and it allows you to move into the deep layers very quickly. So for example if you put in "California history" or "Sahara Desert" the program generates a graphic map of the network around these topics showing a wide variety of subtopics and related links. My test search for Sahara desert immediately revealed a whole host of hubs including images, physical characteristics and subtopics like animals of the desert. The graphic representation is interactive and by clicking on an orbiting sub topic that link then becomes a hub leading you to other linked information. When you click on the "+" in the circle in the upper left corner you will have a link to the URL and further description of that resource. It also worked well with the topic "3rd grade Math".

You also have the ability to manipulate and save a particular graphic representation. I have not been quite as excited about any tool recently as I am about this one. For students this has tremendous potential to deepen their research and assure that they do not just stick with the first things they find on Google. It also helps them to understand the power of the networked information that is now available. For the teachers it puts a whole network of information at their finger tips in a format that will make it infinitely easier for them to access and utilize the resources of this information age. Go and play with this tool and see what you think. Just for fun put in your name and see where that leads. I would love to hear your ideas about how this can be used. it will be the tool of the day for our technology playground this month!

Technorati Tags: TouchGraph, web2.0, classroom2.0, networks, tools

Color me illiterate!

2007-10-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

Becoming a life long learner and globally connected just underscores how much I still need to learn. I was perusing the K12Online schedule today in an effort to plan some staff activities when I had an aha moment. When I taught 6th grade part of my curriculum included world time zones and though I taught it and the kids more or less got it none of us really understood it. Why? Because we had no real use for it! Like I said in my previous post knowledge without context and application is not of much value. So now I am confessing I am functionally illiterate in this area and I am setting out to fix this problem. Yes, I know there are time converters and world clocks but I want more than time conversion I want to understand. I just found out that my time zone is GMT -8 now I need to learn how to use that information!
Photo Credits:by melissambwilkinshttp://flickr.com/photos/melissambwilkins/388974924/

Technorati Tags: literacy, web2.0, 21century, time, classroom2.0

Taking Flight and Learning New Lessons

2007-10-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

No time to read or blog has made me feel disconnected. The beginning of the school year has been exceptionally busy but much of it has been good stuff. The connection with Snow Lake is really moving us into some new territory. From an administrative perspective it is really exciting to read the planing going on between our teachers and Clarence on the Moodle site. It is like watching a butterfly take flight! We have worked for over a year on becoming technology literate and this year the staff is ready to fly and the students are reaping the benefits.
Today I caught up on a little reading and two blogs caught my eye. One on LeaderTalk and one I can't find now but both of them talked about the issues of Internet safety. There are lots of great resources out there and I know that almost everybody who is involved in Web2.0 with students addresses this issue. Although we used blogs some last year this year we are involved in a a year long collaboration and we are using all kinds of tools including chat, voicethreads and blogs in our work with Snow Lake.
As the year began we spent a fair amount of time on internet safety. The students did research, they discussed, they prepared brochures, and they made presentations to the parents and to all of the K-8 classrooms. We were impressed with the work they did and how well they presented the material. BUT then we discovered something, it takes practice! Our students knew what the rules were and what to say but they did not translate the head knowledge into practice. With their first few blog posts and their voicethreads we began seeing risky practice. They just had not taken the lessons to heart . We then had them read all of the blog posts and rate them for risk factors. It was a most interesting exercise and many of the students had to edit their blogs. The lesson that I took away from this was how important it is that they have the opportunity to work in the digital world and use their knowledge. It would have been easy to pat ourselves on the back and say "Wow the kids gave great talks on Internet Safety" . But what good is talk without a personal context and practice. At the Junior High level the concrete reasoning skills are just beginning to develop and so we will spend the whole year learning about digital citizenship as they continue their work. It is really pretty exciting to consider how important these experiences are to their formation and their future.They just do not get it until they really use it in a setting where someone is helping them to evaluate along the way. I for one feel strongly this is our responsibility. Yes, the parents are the primary educators and they need to be involved in guiding their children, continuing the lesson at home, but connectivity is the portal for learning and so we have to teach them how to enter that world- it is an essential learning space.
Technorati Tags: Web2.0, Safety, Blogs Connectivity

Connectedness is Transformative

2007-09-11T20:32:00.000-07:00

Web 2.0 in education is powerful on many levels. It opens the door to education outside of the box. It creates corridors and highways of learning that have not before been available. It requires new skills and thought processes. It promotes new sense of what it means to be a citizen of this planet. And it levels the field allowing for anyone to be a contributor and creator.. Konrad posted a very thoughtful commentary on this is mid- August with some great examples of moving beyond collaboration and into contribution. I admire his work and hope to move forward to embrace much of what he talks about..... however recognizing that we are all at various points in the process of redefining teaching and learning I am struck by the notion that connectedness is the portal of transformation.

School has been in session for 9 days now and during that time we have used skype in one capacity or another almost everyday. We have had 3 skypecasts, 2 with students and one for professional development ( with another one which we had to postpone because of connection problems). As part of the Thinwall Classroom several of us have had almost daily chats with Clarence. And starting a little later this week we will be skypecasting first grade for about and hour a day because one of our students will be out of school for six weeks with a badly broken leg.

Despite living in large metropolitan area it is easy to be incredibly insulated, isolated and myopic. Skype has opened a portal to the world and begun to break down the walls of our school and classrooms. It has created an openness and a transparency that would never have been possible 10years ago. It has expanded our students world view and that of our whole community. Skype also adds the human face-to-face element to our connectedness. This is powerful. I can feel the excitement and the energy on campus growing.

Watch out the walls are begin to fall and good things are coming …..because we have opened the connections…..

Technorati Tags: skype, thinwalls. web20, Konrad, Clarence, connectedness

Picture credits: Uploaded on February 10, 2007
by Mark H. Baker

Synapses are Firing: Technology Playground

2007-09-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

We are fortunate to have weekly Faculty/ Curriculum meetings on Wednesdays from 1:00 pm to 3:30. This is time dedicated to collaboration, professional development and planning. This year in planning for this time I have structure a rotation of meeting topics that is repeated monthly: Technology playground, Curriculum, Student work, Assessment.

Yesterday was the first Technology Playground meeting and it was a great start to the year. Part of the idea is that there needs to be time to try new applications and to explore their application in the classroom. We focused on two “skills” to start the year and we split the staff into two groups. Jan, our tech wizard, worked with one and I worked with the other but the staff actually taught each other as they rotated through the two stations. One task yesterday was to make sure each teacher had ( and understood how to use) an iGoogle page which included at a minimum, Google reader, Google notebook, goggle docs, Google calendar and a bookmark widget for those things that did not have an RSS feed. The staff had 5 bookmarks* to start thier Google reader and we share a school master calendar and a few documents. One of the best things was the realization that igoogle could make life easier. They also saw, first hand, how valuable RSS could be. I have talked about RSS for a year now and tried to show how to use it but the beauty of iGoogle was that it brought everything into one place .

The other task was to register for Voicethread and learn how to use it. We are really excited abut this application and it will be something all of the teachers use at some point this year. In the lower grades it will be a wonderful opportunity for the students to explain their learning and develop their oral language skills. We are also considering using it as a way to connect some classrooms around the globe. Last year we started the photo-a-day for schools which was a lot of fun but hard to administer. Now we are wondering about a weekly voicethread as a window to connect schools.

Would you be interested? We are open to grades K to 8. in California the social studies standards for second grade include understanding the differences in locations and this would be a great way to help the students truly grasp this!

Thanks to voice thread, skype and Joyce, another piece of just-in-time learning that surfaced was an interest in Avatars. Each teacher is going to create one for use on their webpage and with voicethread.

*Clarence, Jeff, Darren, David Warlick, Will Richardson

Technorati Tags: Voicethread, iGoogle, Avatars, Web20, projects

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oceanflynn/309589221/

Tools, Pedagogy and Networks- How do we build effective schools?

2007-08-31T08:38:00.001-07:00

Clarence chronicled the edublogosphere's discussions over time recently as starting with tools moving to pedagogy and now needing to begin exploring the ramifications and practical aspects of learning networks. He poses some good questions about leading the students into learning networks and dealing with information flow. From my perspective however, the post also made me reflect on the whole process of school change and where we are on the continuum. ( or is it even a continuum?)

As administrators and technology coordinators work on professional development opportunities and provide support and encouragement for change how do we keep these components in balance.

Tools- There are hundreds ( thousands?) of things we can employ in the classroom. While my first inclination was to always be playing with the newest and coolest it only serve to frustrate those who are not quite as geeky as I am. There are three questions that might drive the tools we explore at school now. 1) What are the basic essentials for a 2.0 classroom? I am thinking wikis, blogs, podcasts/vcast, skype a reader(RSS), photo program/storage/sharing, and online WP like google docs. 2) In picking specific applications, what is the learning curve for a neophyte? 3) What do we need/ what will help us with this project/concept /goal? This is the category where things like voicethread and flickrphoto storm would appear. As we work with Clarence this year it will also push the envelope for both students and staff. ( Okay, maybe there are 4 questions...What are people naturally interested in learning? For example after our last faculty meeting one teacher was spontaneously showing another teacher how to make an avatar)

Pedagogy- This is an ongoing discussion. I see it as the place where visions are shared and the place that drives us to explore new tools because we identify new learning needs. This is where our growing understanding of literacy, creativity ( see the revised Blooms) and thinking skills has a home. This is also the category that lead to our new mission statement. (see previous post)

Networks- This I think is a question of accessing information and building knowledge. While the issues for our students are real and there are a lot of questions to explore so too for our teachers. My reflection in this area has a lot to do with what kind of PLN is important for educators. This is part of the comment I left on Clarence's blog (...as you can see he got me thinking about where we need to go) "From an administrative perspective the whole issue of PLN for the staff is taking on new levels of meaning. In the beginning I was looking to get everybody reading blogs in the edublogosphere. That is still part of the strategy but it is also time to start exploring subject specific sources of information. Maybe this is obvious but like it or not change/learning is incremental and the movement to have educators embrace digital sources as key components of knowledge takes some deliberate, modeling, experiences, and planning." once this is happening we will have to discuss questions about sorting information and what is useful and what is not...but learning by doing has always been one of the most effective methods.

Illustration from http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/physical/images/stages_change.gif

Perspectives

2007-08-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

One year later……..

Last year at this time the tools of web 2.0 were introduced to the faculty and staff. At that time we discussed the phrase in our mission statement which said we “educate students for the 21^st century” We were not sure exactly what that meant or what it looked liked but we were determined to try to figure it out. We did a lot of exciting things many of which I have written about in earlier posts. The bottom line was that we decided to learn by doing.

Last week we gathered once again for the request start of year faculty meetings. During this meeting, based on our experiences last year, we looked once again at our mission statement. This time however we set about writing a new mission statement. This new mission statement is meant to define more clearly our new understanding of the essential tasks we are undertaking. As with all tasks done within the confines of your own community the test of viability and clarity is to bring that work out to the community at large. So here is the mission statement we developed.

”The mission of the St. Elisabeth School Learning Academies is to provide an excellent academic and spiritual foundation that will empower the students to be moral and responsible citizens who effectively apply technology as a tool of learning and as a means to actively participate in the global community.”

What do you think? Does it resonate with you? How will it impact teaching and learning?

A Vacation Delayed Meme Response

2007-08-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

While I was on vacation both Cathy Nelson an d Clay Burell tagged me with the 8 Random Things Meme so now that I am back I wanted to take a moment to respond before the I get too busy with the start of school.

First, I am to post the rules:

List 8 random facts about yourself
At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged

My Facts:

1. I love to play board games, especially those from Germany, like Carcassone and Catan.

2. I have a life goal to visit as many National Parks as possible.

3. I never planned to go into education but I absolutely love teaching and would not trade this profession for any other.

4. I have read all the Harry Potter books and all of the Tom Clancy books and all of the Tony Hillerman Books to name a few....

5. I sketch and paint when I camp.

6. The Logan County Historical Society Museum is located in my mother's childhood home.

7. I like to geochache.

8. I found my first bookcrossing book in Yosemite this year and have since released two books.

Now I am tagging:

Patrick Higgins
Janice Stearns
Clarence Fisher ( Whoops - he already was tagged)
David Muir
Greg Carroll
Steve Hardagon
Kelly Whobbes ( Kelly has already been tagged too..-guess Iwas on vacation too long)
Tom Hemingway

The Trees that Rewrote History

2007-08-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

Back from a wonderful two weeks in the Eastern Sierras and the high country of Yosemite! My first stop on vacation was a day trip into the White Mountains of California, home of the "trees that rewrote history". This was a fascinating venture into the world of the Bristlecone Pine Forest and the science of dendrochronology. The Bristlecone Pine Forest in this region is home to the world's oldest known living tree which is 4,776 years old. However in this region deadwood has been dated to be as old as 11,400 years old and the scientific community is continuing to explore the deadwood. in this area. Any other place in the world wood 3,000 years old would be an incredible find but in this location it has to be at least 7,000 years old to create any ripple of excitement.

The whole story of dendrochronology and the rangers explanation of the process of dating trees was captivating. It was amazing how low tech the procedure is and how much of the work like counting rings is done essentially by hand. I was also intrigued by the way that these trees have changed our understanding of history. The ranger, Christine, explained how through dendrochronology they have been able to date some of the Native American ruins by taking core sampling's from the wood used in the lintels. She also explained how the bristlecone helped to calibrate radio carbon dating and caused a shift in some of the dates assigned to historic events and locations like the great pyramids. I tried to record her talk as a podcast but I did not get a good quality audio. Therefore I have had to rely on bits an pieces to provided this abbreviated explanation. It was previously assumed that Radiocarbon was created at a constant rate and so by measuring the carbon present an object could be dated. With the discovery of the ancient bristlecone it was possible to count the rings and sample the level of radiocarbon present and thus calibrate the dating more accurately. Generally speaking it was discovered that in many instances radio carbon dating was too "young" and it was established that the level of radiocarbon created is not constant overtime but rather it is effected by a number of factors. Thus the bristlecone pines became known as the trees that rewrote history.

Another part of all of this that appealed to me was the sense of dendrochronology as a puzzle waiting to be solved. The ranger spoke about how they establish a timeline and look for overlapping patterns to establish a fixed timeline. If you know the date of one sample you can count backwards to date the others. This is all explained and illustrated much more eloquently, as in this example at the right, on the website for the Ancient Bristlecone Pine.

What a great opportunity to walk among these ancient trees and oh how painless learning is when we are choosing our path and involved in real work with others who are passionate about what they are doing. Truly both the ranger and scientist I spoke with were so passionate and animated that you were drawn into their world even if just for a short while.

Balance

2007-08-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

I am taking off for some time outdoors! Sitting in a place like this has a way of putting life into perspective. When I get back it will be time for school to start and there will be a lot happening but for now it is time to simply enjoy life and look for the balance that will see me through the new school year. While i am camping my only technology link will be my geocache hunting. If you have never heard of geocaching it is definitely worth checking it out. It is a great hobby and a great way to teach students about physical geography!

BCL07-The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited. Plutarch

2007-07-28T00:50:00.000-07:00

The wonderful thing about physically attending conferences is that they force you to take time to focus, Since I have been home from BLC I have been constantly busy with work and home leaving little time for reflective thinking. In the back of my mind ,however, I have been mulling over Darren Kuropatwa's presentations. BLC, as so many have said, was a wonderful opportunity to spend time with some great minds and getting to talk with and listen to Darren was certainly one of those opportunities.

I have read Darren's blog for over a year and I have always thought that the way he uses blogs and the creative assignments he used were great examples...But they are so much more than that.

A couple of days ago I was skimming the slides from a recent presentation by David Warlick and suddenly i understood in a much deeper way what Darren does and why it is so effective. Darren embodies what I read on the slide from David's presentation....

Stop integrating technology, and instead redefine literacy and integrate that."

When I read that I realized that not only did I agree with it but that Darren is doing just that. In his field of mathematics he has chosen to teach literacy and that in so doing he is enabling students to become mathematical thinkers who can do much more than recall content. They can construct meaning using mathematical concepts. In Darren's presentation he strove to reveal the pedagogy that facilitates this kind of learning. He is very cognizant of the need to create learning environments that are not dependent on big personalities or heavy lifters and as he walked us through his process there was great emphasis on sustainability, and scalable activities.. I encourage you to take the time to look at his slides and listen to the podcasts of his presentations. ( I think at this point only first talk is up but I am sure the others will follow soon.)

Classroom scribes shift the focus and the responsibility on to the learners. It provides an annotated record of learning and a resource that serves more than the immediate community. It allows for mentoring and the addition of expert voices beyond the traditional voice of the teacher. Darren's wiki for the Scribe Hall of Fame is open to all classrooms and all subjects that use scribes so we can both view exemplary posts and provide motivation for students to strive for excellence. Darren also described how this is student driven and how he hands over the selection process for exemplary work to the students. It is all about encouraging the students to take responsibility for their learning. I missed Darren's second talk but the third one was on assessment. It was a powerful look at assessment for mastery, and assessment of mathematical literacy. The slides with examples and rubrics are on slideshare.

Technology, be it blogs, wikis, flickr rss,or de.licio.us all play a role in Darren's classroom and as he discovers new tools he incorporated them also but not as an end but as means for him to effectively engage the students in mathematical thinking and creatively applying that thinking within the context of redefined literacies.

One of the questions that Darren asks and that we all must ask is .....What will your student's remember in 5 years? It is time for us to look seriously at the revised Bloom's taxonomy and to remember that......

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited' Plutarch

Photo: Sidewalk algebra http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=sidewalk+algebra&m=text
by hen power
Technorati Tags: BCL07 Kuropatwa literacy Warlick blooms classroom2.0

BLC Weaving together one little bit of what I learned.

2007-07-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

I am home from BLC but I have not quite left the conference yet. On the plane I was reviewing podcasts and at home I have been reading others reflections and the skypecasts of the various sessions. I am not very effective at blogging conferences because others are able to record the content much faster than I am and it takes me time to figure out what I am taking away. As I was reflecting on my BLC experience once again (as at NECC) the personal face to face conversations had a big impact as did the skypecasts conversations because they continue to form and inform my personal learning network (PLN) which will sustain my work and my growth. ( Of course it also just plain fun to hang out with people from all over the globe who share your passion).

As I continue to sort through everything I heard and saw one idea seemed to keep resurfacing in different contexts. That was the concept of place. We often talk about things like global connections, flat world, spikey world and the breaking down of walls in classrooms/schools. But I heard something a little different at BLC, something more fundamental and more foundational about redefining how we think about place. Fittingly the first presentation I attended was by Dean Sharenski titled “Moving Beyond the WOW Factor in Google Earth”. It was a great presentation for me on both a practical and theoretical level. But in terms of place it served to remind us that the access to physical locations is almost limitless and the wow was the application called unype which mashes GE and skype and allows for 3d walk arounds.

This practical look at places is an essential starting point but it is only one dimension of place. Ewan McIntosh challenges my sense of place asking about public and private, implicit and explicit at once challenging our judgments and our ability to be transparent in our work/our classroom/our schools. The keynote presentation by Dr Zhao challenged the concepts of world and place looking at virtual space, cultural space and economic space. Joyce Valenza challenged the concept of library as place and talked about being available where and when she was needed by students. Finally all of this came together in Chris Lehman and Christian Long’s discussion of the creation of SLA. The question of design was a question about essential purpose of this place/space.

When we think about knowledge in relationship to place the traditional concepts of the last few hundred years has centered on books, libraries, scholars or teachers and schools. These are relatively static places and we have now entered a dynamic age. The challenge which Ewan left us with and Chris and Christian raised was that in thinking of “school” we need to reinvision our sense of place. We need to identify our goals, our essential purpose and then we need to design a public, explicit and transparent place which allows learning and the process of learning and creating to take center stage.

In the skypecasts of Chris and Christians presentation I pondered: Can we empty our rooms before school begins and challenge ourselves to start from scratch rather than automatically putting in 30 desks 2 file cabinets etc. I was challenged by David Jakes: Empty rooms, but also empty ourselves, use the empty room and starting over as a metaphor for improved teaching and learning.

If anything has and is changing radically in our world it is this sense of place and as we struggle with how it forms and informs our world I need to struggle with school as place and it begins with our goals. Schools must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate .... it should be a place of performance, invention resourcefulness, and networking . It should be a space that encourages us to negotiate and explore new places and that is what technology enables.
Technorati Tags: BLC07, Ewan, Google earth, Skypecast, chatcast, BLC

Real World Math ( PS Librarian Needed)

2007-07-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

Since NECC I have come to appreciate the importance of the role of librarian. Unfortunately we do not have a librarian and so I find myself trying to fill the role of research assistant along with my job as principal. I have already begun looking for the money to hire a librarian because based on Joyce's talks I see the role in a whole new light. The librarian is an essential resource to support information literacy for teachers and students alike.

In the meantime though ...I spend some of my time looking for resources and I stumble don this website today for Real World Math. I have not delved very deeply but I like what I saw and maybe it will be useful for you too! PS- The link is to the front page which includes some other things- for Math check out the left sidebar "Algebra in the Real World"

Hats off to all the 2.0 librarians out there!

Technorati Tags: Math, Libraian, Classroom2.0

NECC Take Aways- Setting a direction

2007-07-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

One of my great finds on the exhibit floor was actually a T-shirt. It is not that the T-shirt is so fashionable , although it is better looking than the big yellow bag, but the message on the shirt is truly worth pondering. The shirt came form NetTrekker and the message was crafted by a group of educators...It reads as follows-

21 Skills for 21^st century learning!

Can your students....	Make complex choices?
Benchmark a process?	manage a negotiation?
Communicate clearly?	Motivate others?
Connect globally?	Organize information?
Cope with change?	Read a digital map?
Demonstrate innovativeness?	Resolve conflict?
Distinguish fact from opinion?	Respond to a blog?
Frame problems and solutions?	Sell ideas to others/
Give an effective presentation?	Set priorities and goals?
Lead a team?	Use technology well?
Learn outside the classroom?	Work effectively in teams?

One of my take aways from Edubloggers and NECC had to do with clarifying the goal. Our school will be revisiting our Student learning Expectations (SLEs) this year. They represent our unique identity and our understanding of what students will know and be able to do when they graduate from our school. We wrote our current SLE’s 5 years ago and they were very content oriented, reflecting pretty discreet packages of knowledge we would impart to the students. A lot has changed since then. The questions above can form the framework of some great discussion for all of us. They reflect a shift in pedagogy, at least as I see them, from information to skills. Not just any skills though, essential skills requiring much more that mechanical mastery of a process.

I also think the new NETS are an essential framework for this discussion. I will spend the summer with staff members reflecting and collaborating on what they will look like in the classroom. By definition they too represent a shift in pedagogy and focus much less on the tools and much more on the requisite learning/thinking skills. The broad framework of creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking problem solving and decision making, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts may well become the organizational structure of curricular content.

This whole exercise will give us an opportunity to think outside box. Can we unpack our content areas and move the modules around to create an inter-connected curriculum that creates students who can…….

Technorati Tags: NECC2007, NECC07, NETS, Netsrefreshed, pedagogy

Technorati Tags: edubloggercon07, edublogger,

Reflecting on NECC and Philosophizing About Twitter

2007-06-28T11:32:00.000-07:00

Many great minds have blogged during NECC but I do not find my mind nimble enough to blog on the fly. I like the skype streams Jeff posted...that kind of on the spot thinking and reflecting works better for me. Now with NECC over as i sit in the airport I can start to sort out my experience and my take aways. I will l add my humble voice to the arena...partly to work through my thoughts...partly to share the things that impacted me... partly to create a record that can guide my own planning for the future.

Monday at NECC.......and everyday at NECC..(I have to say it )... is about the conversations and the relationships and that is the hard part to bring to those of you who were viewing from a distance. A few folks have skyped in for bits and pieces (of course the built -in camera in the Apple /Mac world helps here). The afternoon in the bloggers lounge was the gathering place of monumental proportion. The lounges are a great edition to NECC allowing like minded souls to congregate and find one another. At any given time in the day you can pull up a chair in the lounge and have some good conversation. And then there was/is twitter. I just read Chris Sessums beginning reflection on it educational potential. But the most powerful thing for me is the quote he starts with and his reflection..."it makes us feel good about being human." At the Leadership Symposium David Warlick talked about the digital divide having to do with being connected which struck me at the time and now seems even more empowering. Twitter has the potential to make us neighbors across time and space. It is different than most other mediums...it shrinks are world and catches us up when we drop into the "neighborhood". We will see what will be...but for now it is extending my community and my NECC/Edubloggers experience.

As for NECC...I am not sure how much I will write on specific sessions but I will try to articulate my take aways.

New friends/new voices to inform my thought and practice

New understanding of some tools and new tools- the best one being voice thread

A better sense of how to proceed minus textbooks ( this one probably deserves a post of its own)

A better concept of the need for change in the setup of our physical space

A validation of where I am going but more importantly a more deliberate plan moving into the future

Two areas were particularly impacted...

Approaching professional development and technology training through deliberately guided discussion of pedagogy and planning
This came through Karl Fisch( and team) and through conversation with Chris Lehman
Both painted a great picture of the process they used starting with identify what learning they wanted , discussing what it might look like and then looking at tools and just in time instruction. Seems simple enough but for some reason it came together for me as a deliberate strategy in these conversations
The other has to do with leadership style and thing sI need to cultivate in myself and then through that within the community. Again Chris contributed here as did the keynote with Dr Tyson and a lot of my conversations. It is that constant flow of recognition , appreciation and celebration which is so important to a community.Again nothing earth shattering but in relationship and conversation with others we can get new focus for our own practice.

I apoligize for the kind of journaling flavor of this post...but then again that is part of the blogging experience...time to collect your own thoughts. I will post more about the textbook issue and I will be interested to see how the twitter discussion develops.

Technorati Tags: twitter, NECC2007, NECC07

EdubloggerCon and NECC- In the beginning

2007-06-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

Edublogger Con and the ISTE Leadership Symposium are the lead offs to my Atlanta experience. Yesterday was a relaxed gathering with a lot of great conversations. It was kind of fun to listen to the way we greeted each other...revealing our connections...sometimes it was the blog name that made the connection sometimes the 2nd life name...aha you are the Knowclue Kid...I know you now! I have to say even in our digital world there is something great about face to face meetings that solidify relationships and friendships. Plus you can ask all of the questions you have been saving for these moments.

There were many highlights but the end of the day stuck with me. The last "conversation" I attended was led by Chris Lehman on administration in a 2.0 school. (Probably because this issue is near and dear to me...) Chris opened the conversation with the staement that "We finally have the tools to live Dewey's dream... " this statement is worthy of some further reflection. Since I am not ready to do that here you can take a look at these Dewey quotes for yourself.

. John Dewey believed that “learning is a product and reward of occupation with subject matter.” He believed that good teachers give their students something to do and not something to learn. He also believed that education takes place indirectly through the medium of the environment. I believe that Dewey’s words could be interpreted today as an encouragement to create online environments - online extensions of our classrooms - where students can explore ideas that they find personally meaningful and relevant. ( from Konrad)

During the conversation we identified a number of kep components involved in supporting and encouraging change. Among these we discussed the need to make time by re-examining prioritiies and tasks, teaching schedules and daily schedules. We also discussed efining data- the way we collect it and the way we share it.This was a recurring theme in several strands. If we do not address this issue other will define this for us and that could have a serious impact on what we are doing and where we are going. Even this morning in the Leadership Symposium when we talked about what the refreshed NETS will look like in the classroom the data issue was ever present. My thinking returned to the classic "t" graph......What will I see and hear when I visit classrooms that will rveal the integration of NETS. I think the refreshed NETS are clearly accessible to all curriculum areas but defining a picture of them in action will be part of my summer task. okay now i am thinking aloud...Maybe (just maybe) I can get the staff to join in a collaborative document that can flesh this out. This morning ISTE launched a survey which will be open all week to genrate lesson plan ideas for the refreshed NETS. I am assuming it will be posted to their web site eventually.

One final note for the conference so far... In David's talk for the leadership Symposium this morning one thing that really caught my attention was something he said about being connected. The gist of the comment was that the digital divide is not just about having technology it is about being connected versus being alone. This to will take a little reflection...at least on the surface it is a powerful concept. certainly the global connectivity we have redefines relationships. Finally to end on a light note David also used a phrase that I had not heard and had a nice twist to it. in talking abut tagging and the ability to file things in multiple places he said , "that would be hard to do in the molecule world". I like that the digital world ve the molecule world.!

Technorati Tags: edubloggercon07, edublogger, necc07, warlick, web2.0, NETS,NETSrefreshed

A Red Letter Day : Today we jumped in with both feet and the water is great!

2007-06-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

This school year is winding down but not our brave, tenacious, digital immigrant teachers! Remembering that in August our computers had two inches of dust on them, no one had used an LCD projector and blogs and wikis were a foreign language...Today we celebrate a true red letter day....

11 to 12 year old students, after a full day of classes went home, put on their full dress uniforms (includes ties for the boys) and came back to school at 5:30 to go back to class. What you asked could motivate these students to do this....their teacher of course! How you ask? With the promise of an opportunity to do something they had never done before... make a video phone call using skype to have a real time conversation with students in China. ( Special thanks to Jeff who helped make this happen even though he only has two days left in his school year!)

The kids were unsure what to expect and even a little shy as we gathered this afternoon, but once the connection was made and the other class appeared before us everybody was captivated. After the introductions the kids took turns asking questions and we all chatted for about 30 minutes! By the end of the conversation the students had a new interest in China and might even go there someday. Suddenly the study of China was real...not just some strange place in a history book...it was a real place with a school and students and through the miracle of the Internet it seemed to be just around the corner! They got a first hand account of Chinese New Year, the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and they have deepened their understanding of what they had learned. Today I can say without any hesitation that our students are moving toward a deeper understanding of our global community and our connectedness! As we discuss this experience in class ( and with our extended community) we hope it will help us construct a deeper and more robust idea of what it means to be learners in the 21st century!

At this time of year when we are making plans for next year and reflecting on this year it is my goal to assure that we end the year celebrating our accomplishments and in full stride so that we hit the ground running in the Fall. Today's experience was one giant step; students, parents and teachers were all actively involved in a whole new way of learning and in the end it was really so simple, so easy...

This post would not be complete without a special thanks to all the support we have received this year. Thank you to Don Kenzek and ISTE for getting us started with the ISTE Institute. Thank you to all of the educational bloggers who have provided ideas and inspiration. Thank you to all the members of our school community who have embraced change and sincerely are seeking ways to meet the needs of 21st century learners!
Technorati Tags: skype, globalconnections, classroom2.0, 21stcentury

Online Conference in process- Join in!

2007-05-31T06:22:00.000-07:00

Live from New Zealand... Time 4Online ! I just ran across this link in my aggregator ( from Greg's blog ) for an online conference currently in progress.The resources are growing and their ubiquitous availability means that the opportunity for all of us to receive training, mentoring and support is just a click a way all of the time. Spread the word...make this available to other members of you staff and drop in yourself on a session r two............

"I use not only all the brains I have but all I can borrow." (Woodrow Wilson)

Technorati Tags: time4online, professionaldevelopment, classroom2.0

Let your voice be heard!

2007-05-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

I am posting, in its entirety, a message I received from Steve Hargadon. I think it important that our voices are heard so I invite you to either respond on the ed.gov site or come on over to Classroom 2.0 and join in the discussion there.

For those in the U.S., Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has asked for ideas on the integration of technology in education. There is a form on the ed.gov site, but no ability to dialog or even leave your contact information if you fill it out. Therefore, I have created a forum thread for each of Secretary Spellings' questions, and propose that we discuss them at Classroom 2.0 and invite her office to view the dialog on our network and even participate.

This is a terrific opportunity to not only respond but to also show the benefit of Web 2.0 technology in addressing this kind of issue.

The questions are below. Each has its own forum thread, and there are special links on the Classroom 2.0 main page. Please invite your friends and colleagues to join Classroom 2.0 and participate in this important discussion.

1. In what ways has technology improved the effectiveness of your classroom, school or district?

2. Based on your role (administrator, parent, teacher, student, entrepreneur, business leader), how have you used educational data to make better decisions or be more successful?

3. In what ways can technology help us prepare our children for global competition and reach our goals of eliminating achievement gaps and having all students read and do math on grade level by 2014?

4. What should be the federal government's role in supporting the use of technology in our educational system?
About Classroom 2.0
Welcome to Classroom 2.0's social networking site! This network is devoted to the practical application of Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in the classroom.

Click here to visit Classroom 2.0! �

Technorati Tags: classroom2.0, education, government

Choosing Tools Wisely to impact Teaching/lLearning

2007-05-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Back from the Google Academy
Google's hospitality was wonderful and two long days passed very quickly. We looked at a lot of applications some new to me, some I had used but the theme that was ever present was the collaborative nature of all the tools. By the way not all of the tools were Google tools the focus was truly on how to support effective teaching/learning in the digital world. It was also about connections with other educators, inspiration, and encouragement!

I still have to "unpack" some of the tools and put them through their paces but one tool that will absolutely be part of our classrooms is Google Docs. Below are some of my notes. This tool along with Trailfire which I talked about in a previous post have the potential to transform and organize constructivist learning in very powerful ways because for the teachers and the students the technology will become transparent and that is exactly what we need. It is so easy to keep trying to learn the newest tool ( and I will always keep learning) but i think one of the ways I need to change my focus is to begin to decided what are the most effective tools for the job ...( effective at this point means powerful, free and easy to use so the learning curve does not become a stumbling block for any of us)

Docs (some advantages)

Can't forget to save (it is saves automatically every few minutes)

Work anywhere- does not matter whose computer ( Dad's house, School, Mom's House)

Teachers are added as collaborators on all writing and can always see what students are doing at any point - all revisions are saved and viewable on the tabs across the top

No more questioning whether any revisions are being made or who is making them

Collaboration- easy for peer collaboration too- just add the names

No more stacks of papers to review/ cuts work time and can be done anywhere there is Internet connection

Very Useful Tips

All students should name their documents by their first and last name and class period..Example 2Brown, Catherine: Of Mice and Men

If I can't find your essay you do not get a grade

Students must list you (the teacher) as collaborator - they can also list other students as collaborators so they can work/edit together.

There is also a comment tool ...all comments are automatically removed when you post to a blog

Use tags to sort list
Must upload not cut and paste or you will use formatting

To print use icon not the file menu

Technorati Tags: Google, GoogleAcademy, Goggledocs, 2.0tools, trailfire

A Cool New Tool for Collarboration

2007-05-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

Trailfire a nice little free tool
I have not fully explored this but I like what I see and I can already think of lots of ways to use it... Make sure to click through to the wiki entry so you can see examples of this in action....the concept is simple but hard to explain.. it allows any collaborative group to use sticky notes look at resources and talk to each other about them... okay that was confusing...Just go take a look!
The excerpt below was from a comment left on my blog.

We did not originally envision Trailfire to be an application that would be used in education. We are, however, seeing a number of teachers beginning to use it for that purpose. I am looking for a few teachers who are interested in using technology in the classroom to take a look at our application and tell us what we can do to make it a more effective tool for teaching.

A complete explanation i and examples are found on this wiki

Technorati Tags: trailfire, 2.0_tools classroom2.0 collaboration

It is an ongoing process

2007-05-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Wednesday and Thursday of the this week I will be at the google offices. I am really looking forward to this hands on learning and to spend time with some great educators. Summer is for learning and this will be my jump start into a summer full of learning.
Though I haven't been writing much I have been reading and doing some thinking. One of the things on my mind is the need to always be ready with the story. Recently online I was questioned as to why it is important for teachers to have technology skills if they already posses good teaching skills. It is actually a difficult question to answer because there are so many underlying issues that are implicit in the question. Many things ran through my mind, hundreds of quotes about the skills necessary for digital world , the year long process of discussion and discovery that the staff has undertaken at school about teaching and learning in the 2st century, the digital divide and how it will effect our community etc. Also several posts I have read recently give glimpses of an answer and I will quote a couple of them here...
Jeff wrote...

"The oppressed in the digital divide:

Those without access to tools of global conversations.
Those without skills to contribute to global conversations.

pg. 64

I like Siemens definition here at the end of oppressed. What does it mean to be oppressed in a digital world. Those without access and without the skills to contribute to a global conversation are at a disadvantage.
Siemens, G (2006). Knowing Knowledge. "

I lost the link to these two my apoligies to the author...I will look for it andupdate the post..it was a user error with google notebook)

We use blogs, wikis, podcasts, and many other Web 2.0 tools to help students understand that knowledge is an active process of construction and not something that arrives in a textbook, neatly compartmentalized into chapters or units.

How can we possibly help our students be co-contributors and researchers if we ourselves don’t engage as learners and experience what it means to construct knowledge?
Cents Worth » What’s go...

the 3Rs are no longer enough. They are merely elemental — compared to the rich and exciting information skills that are absolutely critical to not only our children’s future, but ours as well. ..and gaining this new information skills can only happen from within this new information landscape. It’s why every child should be walking into their classroom with a computer under their arm, every classroom should breath with the global information landscape, and every teacher should trained and practiced in the life-long-learning literacies of the emerging future.

Technorati Tags: google google_academy, 2.0 teacching

Kudos to the Whole Staff!

2007-05-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

In August of this year we began our exploration of 21^st century teaching and learning. We took our first look at the National Technology Standards, we began talking about blogs and wikis, and we talked about the digital world and the skills it would require of our students. This was all new information for us and we were just beginning to scratch the surface of what it might mean in terms of teaching and learning.

Every member of the staff has worked hard this year to increase their comfort level with technology and to grapple with how all of this should impact our teaching and learning. The last couple of faculty meetings have been highlighted by some excellent professional sharing. We start each meeting by sharing the professional reading from blogs or online magazines with a focus on things 2.0 and discoveries. This is constructivist learning in practice and the discoveries, questions and ideas highlight the growth we have made this year.

Among the topics of conversation at the meeting were:

Andy Carvin’s article that talks about when laptops “fail” it is because we are not using them for anything more than fancy pencils. The purpose of laptops according to the article is 4 fold equal access, mobility, individual creativity and collaboration. ( The digital divide is a real issue and we have an obligation to assure all students have the advantages ( and skills) needed for today’s world)

As a extension of our definition of literacy the question “ What is text in the 21^st century?” was asked…

The issue of understanding vs. learning- Are we teaching for understanding?

The role of the teacher …we are no longer gatekeepers of knowledge…

The description of an effective 2.0 classroom in this article Mend it, Don’t End It

It is interesting to note that much of the discussion was about pedagogy not the tools. Hats off to the staff for deep thinking and for constructing meaning.

In addition to these highlights we have also spent two weeks on defining literacy for the digital age. It too is an important discussion and it helps us to focus on the skills that must be imbedded within the curriculum.

Key components of our constructed definition are:
· Communicate effectively
· Utilize various forms of media
· Find , evaluate and utilize information in a moral and ethical manner
· Read fluently, write, communicate, and analyze effectively both written and digital text
· Create and participate in a global community

The following definition was also offered ( from wikipedia): “The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has drafted the following definition: "Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in the wider society."

Looking back we have grown tremendously and looking forward we know that the needs of our students are complex. While the basic skills involved in learning are still the foundations of education they are not enough if our students are to succeed in our digital and globally connected world.

Technorati Tags: literacy, 21stcentury, professional_development, 2.0

It is not over yet! Keeping on, keeping on....

2007-05-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

(Cross published to LeaderTalk)
We are in the last 6 weeks or so of school. There are multiple special events interrupting the school day and the weekends. The 8^th grade thinks the year is over. The teachers who are moving on next year are torn between their present and their future. I am trying to juggle all of my normal responsibilities and do interviews, hire teachers for next year, set the calendar and class schedules and keep spirits up. This is the hardest time of year for me to find time to reflect and yet it is the time of year that gives me a great deal of insight into where we are and where we need to be going. In keeping with this kind of disjointed season here are some disjointed ponderings of a K-8 administrator as the year winds down and the level of activity increases.

Classroom walk-throughs: Inspired by the post on Walk –Through Observations by Alan on April 19 and the article Crayola Curriculum I have started my own data collection. It is never too late to get started! I want to make sure we have some good data to reflect on for our August meeting as we set our goals for the year and I want to make sure that all of the teachers also have good insights to reflect on their own practices as they go into the summer holidays. I read a post recently on Classroom 2.0 that said summers are for working and there was some real truth to it. It is the time we do our reflecting and can try new things but we need to have solid information to base that planning on. So I am diligent about doing at least 10 classes a day and I am just collecting basic data what are the students doing, how many are on task , what instructional strategy is in place. I am actually excited about looking at this information right before we break for summer. A side benefit is it reminds us that even in the midst of all the end of the year activity our focus is still on learning.

Hiring and classroom assignments for 07-08:
One conundrum of the hiring season for a school headed toward embracing all things 2.0 is where to find tech savvy teachers? Even recent graduates are just on the edge of the digital age and their grammar schools and high schools were 1.0 schools so that is the style of teaching they know. So what qualities am I looking for? I am looking for self-motivated learners with some understanding and appreciation of things 2.0. But then what about teaching skills and experience? Certainly they are important but for now I am going to weight my decision more on openness to and knowledge of 2.0. Without a vision for digital literacy and the role technology must play across the curriculum our classrooms will remain set in the 1.0 world and our students will be left behind. 63% of our students live at or below the poverty level and the digital divide is a reality in their life. If we do not step up to the plate and give them the skills needed for success and literacy in the Information Age they will be a step behind before they even get started.

Keeping the conversation going:
As I said above vision for and openness to 2.0 is an essential condition is the transformation of teaching and learning. So in our May/June faculty meetings we are returning to our beginning of the year discussions. What does it mean to prepare students for the 21^st century? How is that different than preparing them for the 20^th century? So last week the question we tackled was to define literacy. It is important for the staff to construct their own meaning and understanding and so here is what happened. They worked in groups of three and had just a few minutes to define literacy. The definitions basically reflected the following: Read, write and communicate effectively; effective written and oral communication; comprehension; and fluency. Next I asked them if historically the definition of literacy has changed overtime. They identified that originally to be literate meant being able to write your name and then over time came to include being able to read and write. Then as a group we discussed the Industrial Age vs. the Information Age and I provided some basic statistics on adult’s connections with technology vs. the 4 to 17 year olds. I then gave them a short handout “Extra! Extra! The World is Different” from NCREL and asked them to reconsider their definitions for literacy. The new definitions included global communication, finding, evaluating and using information, and understanding digital media. I could have given them articles that said all this or summarized it for them but the process was essential for this knowledge and understanding to take root. Internalizing the vision and constructing understanding of what the students need to learn is what motivates us to try new things and confront our need to make changes. It is my hope to continue this conversation until the last day of school to facilitate a summer of self directed learning, a sense of urgency and even more great ideas for next year!

Reading First:
Scott posted a comment and a link to an article from the Oregonian that talked about how advance readers are bored by the scripted reading programs. I have been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks and while I understand the point the article makes I want to try to build some perspective on this whole issue of "scripted" programs. Simply put I have found some real positives in our program and I think sometimes we are too quick to bash these programs without a real understanding of them. Are there downsides? Yes, but since plenty of people seem prepared to point out the negatives I am going to point out positives.

The article says: " These days, Butler's students follow a strict schedule. Two hours of morning reading. An additional 40 minutes for strugglers. Writing practice"

First of all, while this maybe a true statement of the particular program in question, it is not the intent of the programs I have worked with. The 40 minutes are usually referred to as universal access time and they are to be devoted to differentiated instruction in accordance with each child's abilities on any given skill (not to just "struggling” students). This means that teaching to the middle is not enough. The students at both ends of the spectrum should be challenged. In practical terms it may not play out especially in areas that have high stakes testing. However, it is the design of the program and it is a solid concept. One that I wish traversed all classrooms. The problem is that high stakes testing continues to push us to spend all our time on one end of the spectrum and to not truly challenge all students.
I have seen other positive effects of these programs also. Much of what is required of the teachers is sound and re-enforces good instructional habits including on going professional development, coaching, pacing and the use of bulletin board as instructional aides not just pretty pictures. Could these happen without the programs and do many teachers do them anyway ...yes of course... but the programs keep these concepts in the forefront of our thinking and helps to keep us sharp. And so again as the year winds down and we are thinking and planning for next year the Reading First teachers have much to share about differentiated learning and assuring that all students are challenged.

Technorati Tags: LeaderTalk, school, administration, 2.0, School2.0 school_models

Moving to the Edge of Chaos

2007-04-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

(Cross posted to LeaderTalk)

Last week I attended a Professional Development meeting for principals in our area. Among the things discussed was reflective evaluation and planning for the future. One speaker presented the concept that we need a new model for thinking about our schools and how we approach administration. I did not make notes on what he suggested was the current model but the model he suggested for the future did catch my eye. He called it the Life Science Model and here is what I got down:

Equilibrium is a precursor to death
Living systems move to the edge of chaos
Self organization and emergence take place
Systems can not be directed along a linear path

Being comfortable with living on the edge of chaos is a real challenge for our educational system ( and myself as a type A personality) but I believe those of us who are embracing all things 2.0 see this as a reality. I am also struck by the fact that it is a mandate for living systems to approach that edge so we better get used to it …

I was also struck by the last statement…Systems can not be directed on along a linear path…can we substitute the word learning for systems? Or what about adding the word learning so we are talking about “Learning Systems”.

I have not had time to fully process this but I am both challenged and given hope. This is the model I am moving toward so I am on the right track but it also is a radical shift from where I (we) have been in education. It pushes my boundaries. What do you think?

Technorati Tags: LeaderTalk, school, administration, 2.0, School2.0 school_models

Long Term Global Connections- Seeking partners for a new way to teach and learn

2007-04-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

Below I have reposted in full a recent post from Clarence Fisher at Remote Access. We are beginning to set in motion plans for next year and this is his appeal to find others who might want to make this commitment. It will require tenacity and perseverance but the rewards should be very great for students and teachers alike....Clarence has already done some exciting global projects and now is looking at a more all embracing model that will push us toward school 2.0...
Think of it as team teaching or co-teaching a class without walls...

As I've watched this year turn into one of successful international projects blossoming across various spaces and continents, I find that I'm still concerned about the "specialness" of these connections. They are carefully orchestrated events working on strict timelines initiated by teachers. While I am a strong advocate of carefully crafting a classroom environment, I think its time to move beyond this. We have proved we can connect kids using the tools that are available to us. We have proved that kids can be successful working in international collaborative groups.

With this in mind, I am beginning to plan for next year. I'd like next school year to be different. I'd like next year to be a year of becoming a truly globalized classroom. I'm looking for a few partners (3? 4?) who are interested in working together long - term. While I've had the privilege of meeting a lot of wonderful teachers who I could simply email and ask, in the spirit of openness and network connectiveness, I'm opening up instead.

The best matches would be classrooms that:

- are around the same grade level as mine (13 - 14 year olds)

- are self - contained or are a group of students that are taught by small group of teachers

- have access at school to tools like wikis, Skype, blogs, Thinkfree, YackPack, etc.

- have good enough Internet access to be be able to work with technology like VOIP and exchange videos, photos, etc.

- are able to get access to the Internet on a daily basis

While I'm not looking for our classrooms to be connected all day, I would like to be connected on a daily basis (might be through blogs, wiki research, a VOIP call, etc.) on at least one ongoing unit (we would work on a math unit together for awhile, switch to a novel study, then move into a group photography project)

I'm looking for a small group of people looking to change what classrooms can be. I want to create a network of people looking to have "thin - walled" classrooms.

If anyone could re - post this call to spread it far and wide I'd be forever grateful. Email me (glassbeed@gmail.com),

or leave a comment here

Technorati Tags: flat, world, classroom2.0, school2.0 RemoteAcess

Cool New Tool for the Classroom

2007-04-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is old news but it was new to me. I was looking for a widget and stumbled on this little gadget from answer.com. I am testing it here because I can see it being very useful for students.
It will work anywhere on the blog but I thought the following paragraph might provide a little test drive... ...
(It is an excerpt I had saved from Will Richardson's blog about Wikipedia)

Just double click on any word in the paragraph

(Via Smart Mobs) So here is a research study (and I mean research, full of all sorts of funny looking formulas and symbols and stuff) about Wikipedia that comes to the conclusion that the more edits there are to a particular article the more accurate it is. Not surprising, to me at least, but since smart people are publishing quantitative results, it might add to the discussion.

Since its inception six years ago, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia has accumulated 6.40 million articles and 250 million edits, contributed in a predominantly undirected and haphazard fashion by 5.77 million unvetted volunteers. Despite the apparent lack of order, the 50 million edits by 4.8 million contributors to the 1.5 million articles in the English-language Wikipedia follow strong certain overall regularities. We show that the accretion of edits to an article is described by a simple stochastic mechanism, resulting in a heavy tail of highly visible articles with a large number of edits. We also demonstrate a crucial correlation between article quality and number of edits, which validates Wikipedia as a successful collaborative effort.

What do you think....see any applications for the classroom and course content?

How Should 2.0 Transform our Models for Curriculum Planning and Evaluation?

2007-04-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

New sources of information and new ways of learning

How do these impact our traditional models for 45 minute lessons? Should elementary school teachers still teach all subjects? How does Classroom 2.0 effect the administrative instruments designed to review and support excellence in the classroom? How should Classroom 2.0 effect teacher preparation and models of lesson planning and assessment?

These are among the myriad of questions which have been causing me to focus on the practical side of class/school 2.0. I have spent some of my timeover at Steve’s Ning site and enjoyed making some new connections and getting a perspective on the diversity of people who are interested in what is going on with everything “Deuce”.

But the more I read on Ning and read through my aggregator the more pressing the practical questions become…This is my time of year for hiring and for planning for next year and so issues of models and expectations are important and I have an obligation to my faculty to consider the impact of change and effective practices that will help us achieve our vision.

45 minute lessons and 180 teaching days

We can (and have) play (ed) with block schedules but this is not exactly the issue. The issue is deeper. As we talk about myriad source of information, constructing meaning, global conversations and students building “texts” how do we deal with the finite timeframe of school. The 180 days are not going anywhere soon and as educators we may try to look at more holistic solutions and developmental groupings rather than the traditional grade levels but in the end we have a finite amount of time in which we have an obligation to facilitate learning.

The more I work on constructing model classes the more my learning options expand. How can we encourage exploration and following interests with our students and still hold them to some kind of timeline. Clay you are building a text with your students so how do you handle the time line.

Multiple subjects vs specialties

Should all teachers play to their strengths? Can anyone teach everything well?

But even more to the point as we move away from reliance on textbooks how do we work through this time of transition and learning curves. As we ( educators) struggle with the digital learning curve (understanding and using Web 2.0) it seems that teachers would be more effective in making the transition if they were playing to their strengths. It is a time consuming task to get started using Web 2.0 to build a class even in a subject that you know but if you have to learn the content and build the class it takes a Herculean effort.

Tools for supporting and reviewing curriculum

The last two questions above are related. I am writing about this topic for LeadersTalk this week ( it will post on Friday). Basically I am asking about the efficacy of the “7 point Lesson Plan” in Classroom 2.0 and also standards for formal observations and walk -throughs. I do not believe our current models are adequate. I think we need a new model for planning and providing constructive feedback. The following is part of my post…

In some ways, I would say planning is more critical than ever because learning will not take place in discreet packages. The teacher and the students need to know they are on a journey and what the expected destination is as well as the mile markers along the way. A syllabus for K-8? Why not?

What about the plans for an individual lesson. We still need to make those 180 days count and so there needs to be a definite focus for each day but will I see an anticipatory set, review, whole class instruction, modeling, semi independent practice, independent practice and closure? Should I see this?

New expectations and new models for formal observations will also mean new models for teacher preparation which is the last question I raise. Right now I am happy when a teachers has some exposure to the tools of the digital world and sees their value. At some point however it has to encompass more than that…it will need to reflect a pedagogy that sees knowledge and learning differently.

Technorati Tags: lessonplans, classroom2.0, web2.0,

Textbooks and Curriculum- Perspectives and policy- Think aloud continued

2007-04-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

This is a great discussion about textbooks! The various voices who have weighed in have added valuable perspectives and insights and I encourage you to read the previous post with all of its comments. ( 14 comments – some are my own- but this is a real conversation). The more I reflect on this issue the more I am convinced that while we need something different it is not going to be forthcoming anytime soon. So the question is what we do in face of this reality. A discussion of textbooks is the gateway to questions of pedagogy, curriculum, course design and lesson planning.

As I stated in my original post textbooks do have a place in the curriculum and as Clarence commented learning to read formal pieces of writing is still and important literacy skill. There are two related but distinct aspects to our current textbook models. One is the message to students that this is all you need to know and the other is to the teacher this is all you need to teach. As Mr. Maher comments it is well suited to the industrial age educational practices and to assembly line thinking but it does not work well to meet the needs of today’s students.

Meeting the challenge presented by this model is a difficult task because it has to do with breaking away from the traditional mold, the traditional pedagogy. To move away from student and teacher dependence on textbooks my mantra for the last 5 years at least has been “ textbooks are not the curriculum, they are a tool…standards drive our curriculum.” I have never held a teacher accountable for moving from page 1 to page 230. However in reality it does often become the curriculum because it is in the zone of comfort and it fits the training most current teachers received.

In addition, the standards which are the curriculum have proved to be too broad and cover too much area (especially in Social Studies) which furthers the reliance on the textbook as a default approach. We have begun looking at power standards identifying critical knowledge as a means to focus instruction and empower the teachers to be authors of curriculum but it is not an easy task.

Another aspect of the textbook/course design issue has to do with grade level skills. Basic academic skills like reading, phonics, computation etc. are well served by a structured text driven curriculum. Critical thinking and knowledge skills are not. How do we strike a balance here, particularly at the K-8 level? In answering this question I believe I will approach an answer to the budget question. What money do I allocate to textbooks and what is the justification for that expense in terms of a holistic approach to budgeting?

So here are my initial ideas in trying to write a policy for curriculum resources or in more traditional terms a textbook policy that can guide purchases. It presupposes a standards based curriculum and honest ongoing discussion of course design I also think our movement toward the Moodle arena will be well served by these criteria.

All texts will be supplemented with online resources ( and perhaps with library purchases)
In the upper grades student scribes and wikis will help to build resources for future classes. Take a look at what Clay is doing with a “textbook” wiki
As knowledge based texts ( like Science and Social Studies) age the online supplements should increase and be well defined.
Purchases in Social Studies and Science will most probably be in the form of smaller, lighter more reasonably priced trade books and trade magazines.
Grade level skill acquisitioning each subject must be clearly articulated and resource provided. (Skills however can not be taught in isolation but must be applied across the curriculum)
Leveled readers in subject areas should be considered to make the curriculum more accessible.
Language Arts will encompass digital literacy.
Reading component will progressively move toward literature as the grades progress and can then employ less expensive lighter novels instead of anthologies.

As I said this is my initial brainstorm but it needs more work. What do you think? Will this work? What would you add or delete? It is my goal to put together a working document for my school and your comments will be invaluable to the process.

Technorati Tags: textbooks, curriculum, web2.0, class2.0, school2.0, classroom2.0

Textbooks- Where do they fit? A think aloud

2007-03-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

This is a think aloud about textbooks … I invite you to add your thoughts too…

Recently I received a survey from one of the major textbook publishers seeking information about our current textbooks and the cycle for reviewing and purchasing new books. As I worked my way through the questions it was increasingly evident just how much my thinking about textbooks has changed. When I first started teaching school anyone with some basic teaching skill could pick up a text walk into a classroom and be confident that they could be at least moderately successful. Every 4 years or so new textbooks were slated for purchase. Through the accreditation process one part of the discussion explored the copyright dates of the texts and schools were (and still are) often praised or dinged in part based on these dates.

I am not suggesting that textbooks do not serve a function in our educational process or that they have no value as one of our curricular tools. What I am saying is that they no longer are the gate keepers of knowledge and therefore are not in the place of primacy they once occupied. So what do we need and want?

I am not going to invest money every year in new textbooks unless there is a significant reason to make the purchase. I need textbooks which are responsive to the idea of ubiquitous sources of information. I need textbooks which are digital and accessible for all of my students. I need textbooks which respect the teacher and the students as unique learners and do not roll out a prepackaged product that says this is how you do it and this is all you need to know. I need textbooks which recognize, respect and encourage digital literacy, connections with new sources of knowledge and construction of new meaning.

So if we take a holistic approaching to budgeting and it is driven by student learning where do textbooks fit into the picture? How often do we need to purchase new texts? What criteria do we use to evaluate this question?

Technorati Tags: textbooks, budget, school2.0, classroom,

Photo A Day Update

2007-03-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

We are entering the next phase of our project and learning as we go. We have just set up a wiki complement our Flickr site in order to encourage discussion among the students. There are about five schools who are really active out of our 25 members but it is a good solid group and diverse enough to provide a platform for a global conversation. The wiki will provide the students with more access to each other and more ownership of the project.

It has been (is) an exciting ride and I invite you to visit the wiki from time to time to see what develops. We are each setting up our pages now and borrowing an idea from Clay's 1001 wiki we will be posting clocks to show our local time.

On the local front our 7th and 8 th grade students are producing their first video clips. In conjunction with a large project on family history and culture they are creating 30 second segments on "Who I am and Where I come from".... The students ( even the reluctant ones) are coming in early staying late and giving up breaks to work on this one!

One year ago this was all just a dream....

Technorati Tags: photoaday, flickr, globalproject, classroom2.0, web2.0, school2.0

A cool tip for Word

2007-03-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

This tip was posted on Greg's blog and the original source is Window Fanatic. Even though I am not a window fanatic I think the tip is useful...

this is a cool tip:
Here is a nifty tip for selecting text in Word that many people don’t know about. Normally when you select text in Word, you do so horizontally, from right to left or left to right. However, what do you do if the text you need to select is vertical; for example, what if you want to bold the first word on each line? You can select and bold each word individually or you can make a vertical selection.
To make a vertical selection, hold down the ALT key as you drag the mouse pointer to select the text. If you want to select the first word on each line, hold down the ALT key and drag the mouse pointer up or down to highlight each word.

When you’re using this tip, remember that you can make a vertical selection anywhere in your document.

Conversations via comments

2007-03-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

I have found lately that I have done a fair amount of reading and commenting but not much blog writing. I had big plans to review my blog and write an entry about some of the key ideas I have encountered in the last year (March 15 marked my first year of writing). Maybe I still will because I know there are some important concepts hidden back in earlier blogs that I need to revisit…but for now my point…..

and Clay have been discussing on their blogs the best pedagogy in approaching blogs with students and helping them become writers. It has been a great conversation moving back and forth between comments and the blogs themselves. However it has made me wonder about the intersection between writing and conversing.

Reading to write…becoming a writer…. Commenting to converse and to be stretched and to learn....How do these concepts fit together?

This is a personal question and it also has implication for student practice. I know it is not an “either or choice” it is a” both/ and” but it requires balance. In practice that balance may not be very neat or symmetrical because there are times when our engagement with ideas may not happen so much on our personal blog as they do in interacting with ongoing conversations on the blogs of others.

What does it mean for our students?

For me? Maybe it is a case of writers block or overload....being a conversationalist has been fun!

School wide blogging: What should it entail?

2007-03-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been participating in a conversation on Clay Burell’s blog Beyond School about blogging in the classroom. It started as his think aloud and evolved through multiple post and comments to a good discussion about how to utilize blogs in a school wide setting. This issue is just coming into its own as more teachers are employing blogging in connection with their classes across a school community.

Some of the issues to consider include:

One blog per students or multiple blogs per student

In my opinion and experience one blog per students is the way to go. It allows for the students to experience cross curricular applications and synthesis of learning. It works to counter the departmentalization too prevalent in our current system of education. It also encourages teacher collaboration.

How are blogs used and who assesses the blogs/ for what purpose?

Clay has developed one option which you can read about on his blog. In essence it utilizes the blog as a journal of the students learning journey over 4 years. The blog will be a synthesis project culminating in their graduation year. One issue at the heart of his approach is a concern that using blogs in a more homework oriented fashion robs them of their power. (You need to read what he says to get a whole picture because this simplistic explanation does not do justice to his thought process) Clay, thanks for raising the question and helping me to think through my views. You are doing some great things and you always make your own learning curve transparent which gives me wings too.

I believe that writing across the curriculum is essential. It is the gateway to thinking like a scientist, a historian or a mathematician. It is the antidote to memorizing empty facts and leads to synthesis and higher level thinking. Therfore ideally it involves all teachers and all disciplines.

In addition, I think that engaging the students requires an authentic audience. Therefore my vision ( it s not a developed plan yet) is that blogs will be an integral part of all classes. I work at the K-8 level and the main focus of blogging is in grades 6 to 8. For now because the students still need to explore a variety of topics to expand their world some blogging will be prescribed. Teachers will need to help the students build an authentic audience and deliberately connect them with experts in the real world.

I also believe that blogs do not stand alone and therefore building Personal Learning Communities that reflect subject areas and course content are an important factor in creating reflective writing in content areas. I believe that a cross curricular team approach to mentoring (and assessing) the students is important so that they are encouraged to develop their voices and thinking in light of the unique voice and thinking characterized by different disciplines.

What do you think school wide blogging should take into consideration?

echnorati Tags: classrrom_blogs, Burell, school2.0, web2.0

BLC Conference Attendance

2007-03-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

So are any of you planning to attend the Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston this summer? I remember reading on someones blog that they had attended last year but I do not remember who. I will be attending and I hope I will get to meet some of you in person there. Let me know if any of you are thinking about going.
Technorati Tags: BLC, November_learning, technology_conference

Skrbl- a Cool tool/ 10 New majors-An article

2007-03-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

Recent article that showed up on my MSN account 10 Majors that Didn’t Exist 10 Years Ago. I just glanced at it but I think it maybe worth a look. It is certainly another piece of the ongoing story.

Great tool--- this one comes from Greg’s Weblog and it is called skrbl. It is still in beta but definitely worth exploring. With an LCD projector this is a great alternative for those of us who can’t afford “Smart boards” or tablets. Plus it is a good resource for distance collaboration.

Technorati Tags: skrbl, smartboards, tech-tools,school2.0,telling-the-story, web2.0

Back from CUE

2007-03-04T07:46:00.000-08:00

CUE review....it really is about the conversations and the experiences!

The two things which made me think deeply were a conversation I had with Steve Hargadon and the workshop which the teachers and I presented on our journey which was about how to implement change and what can be done in six months.

The edubloggers meetup ended up just being Steve and myself but we had a great discussion about education. One thing that I have been pondering was our discussion about rigor. What is educational (or intellectual) rigor? As we design more open ended learning and move away from distinct chunks of knowledge it is sometimes harder for the constituency to quantify learning. Therefore, as we redesign courses we need to be transparent in describing the learning. By way of example we talked about the Japan unit I was working on in Moodle. Which is more rigorous? Following the text, learning about the early history of Japan and origins of its culture and passing the book test...OR Placing it in the context of a unit on Asia ( ie not studying in isolation from China and Korea), making connections with modern day Japan students/schools and considering how Japanese culture is carried over to the US by Japanese Americans? I know this seems obvious but my point is we need to be clear in our expression of what we are doing. We need to identify base knowledge the students need in order to explore deeper and we need to explain all of this to our community.

Our workshop was a great experiences on a number of levels. Our opportunity to present grew out of our participation in the ISTE Institute last July. So, Don Knezek, the CEO of ISTE attended our session and his affirmation and encouragement raised the bar, cemented the importance of continuing to move forward and provided the courage for me to continue to embrace change. Our experience at the ISTE Institute provided us with a foundation and a direction for change which will continue to anchor us and sustain our process of growth. The two concepts that we explored at the Institute were the NETS and the Essential Conditions for the integration of technology. As an important side note here-If you have not become involved in the refresh the NETS movement follow this link and give your input before the end of March.
It had been awhile since I had spoken at a conference and as always there were things I personally could have done better but there is something very powerful about the ownership that comes from explaining what you did as a means to provide inspiration and encouragement for others to move forward. The teachers did such a great job of speaking from their hearts and giving witness to the fact that the best way to integrate technology is not to have all the answers but is to get started and to be willing to learn collaboratively with your students! Publicly standing behind what you are doing is a powerful way to create ownership and promote continued change.

I did not attend any earth shattering presentations. Nothing that stretched the envelope on pedagogy or philosophy but I did attend a number of informative presentations. The list of talks were largely centered around issues of how to use tools and that was a good thing in many ways. I knew what tools I needed to understand better and I discovered a couple of new tools. I understand the "cast" in podcasting now, I think I get Google earth and how to use it in the classroom, I learned some tricks of the trade for RSS feeds and even for searching and I learned about some applications of video games in the classroom. Perhaps the best part was that the four teachers who also attended were getting excited about the tools and deepening their understanding too.
Technorati Tags: cue, cue07, ISTE, cue2007, NETS, lesson_design, 0to60

Moral Imperative? CUE takes on new meaning...

2007-03-02T10:57:00.000-08:00

Typing on my lap and on the fly so this may not be the smoothest post but I hope to capture the highlights and maybe even some on the spot reflections. This morning I read an interesting post on Scott Mcleod's blog which raises a very important question about social justice. He suggests that we have a moral imperative to embrace what for lack of a better term we call School 2.0. (You really need to read the whole post)

"Many of us education bloggers write a lot about transforming classroom practice to reflect the needs of a new world: we often call it ‘School 2.0.’ Is School 2.0 the ultimate social justice issue for disadvantaged students? Is School 2.0 the most critical social justice issue of our time if disadvantaged students aren’t going to be left even further behind than they already are? If so, why aren’t we framing more of our technology initiatives and discussion in this way? Where’s our moral imperative?"

Scott's perspective raises the stakes on what is going on at CUE and across the educational blogosphere. I celebrate incremental change and understand that starting overcomes inertia but now I am wondering how much time we need and how to shorten the time until we embrace systemic change.

Keynote presentation: The Natives are Restless- Deneen Bowen

Digital natives or digital savages-- laugh a little at the things that are feared.. the students will take over, student wisdom an oxymoron, students to connected and distracted...
And then from the kids perspective... sorry but you had to be there ... The power of a two minute movie and …..

Great tool to hear the students voice- NetDay Speak Up – Survey of students: Tech use at school and in school, obstacles at school, what would you choose as important if you could design a new school,
Results gives you opportunity to compare to national responses

The talk was definitely experiential and hard to capture in words but one of the key components was to listen to the student’s voices.

Technorati Tags: cue, cue07, Mcleod, School2.0, cue2007

Moodleing in Palm Springs

2007-03-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

I am posting from Cue 2007. I have spent the last two days in a Moodle training session and though the actual conference has not started my head is already spinning. For those of you who may not be familiar with Moodle check out their web site .In short it is an open source version of Blackboard.

Last night as I reflected on my experience there were a couple of things that are worthy of note. First is one feature that is part of Moodle which was news to me. Within each course you can add a RSS feeder to enhance course content. This is a great feature for those of us determined to give student access to Web 2.0 and up-to-date information for their course of study!

The other issue I have been reflecting on is course design. As I struggled through my learning curve in trying to construct a course I found that the traditional elementary and middle school model of lesson planning was not well suited to this new tool. Don’t get me wrong you could put up a very traditional class but in my opinion to utilize its full capability you need to think outside the box. I have not fully thought out what this means but I have a few ideas that I think need to be examined. At the K-8 level lesson planning has always focused on daily objectives and in recent years with project based learning and essential questions there has been some movement toward looking at the bigger picture but I still believe that for the most part K-8 balks at the idea of syllabus and long range planning. The argument so often is the” teachable moment”, I can’t plan very far out. Okay I get that but I do not fully buy it. If we want kids to take charge of their learning we have to stop dishing out discreet portions and become facilitators of a bigger picture. I was trying to plan a lesson for seventh grade on the early history of Japan but how can I teach that without putting it in the context of Asia in general and modern Japan. No wonder students are not engaged and see their learning at disconnected and learn for the test. How much of the text is truly essential base knowledge? What is important? I am now more convinced than ever that we need to define power standards and focus on bigger chunks. To facilitate learning in a digital world we need to know exactly what is important for everybody ( the base knowledge) and where the students can have the freedom to explore and we must teach in context of the world in which we live. To put it bluntly for most 7^th graders in our school the customs of early Japan are far removed from their lived experience and do not engage them. But they might be interested if Japan has a name and face … a connection with their world. They know about the Philippines so another connection could be ...how are the development of these to island cultures the same and different?

We can only find time for this kind of exploration and learning if we have a clear idea of what is essential in the big picture otherwise we are tied to our textbooks, our daily objectives. and discreet bundles of knowledge which are soon forgotten after the test.

Technorati Tags: moodle, lesson-design, cue, cue2007, cue07

Bloglines..Is it time to move on…

2007-02-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

Today I read a post by Clay regarding the new image wall on Bloglines. I must admit even though I had seen it I had not looked at it very critically. Clay makes some very important points, especially in my case, since I work in a K-8 environment. I understand that we can not protect the kids from everything and I am not interested in censorship BUT I do believe we have to make responsible choices and model those for the students. ( It seems to me that the image wall just makes it too tempting and too easy for the students to do the wrong thing)We haven’t set up student Bloglines accounts but it was on the near horizon and all of the teachers are just getting started.

As my previous post indicates I have become a huge fan of Google productivity tools and so today I exported my Bloglines account to a Google reader! It was painless and now my notebook and my feeds all pop up on my homepage…How much easier can it be?

Technorati Tags: google, bloglines, imagewall, googlereader

Technorati Tags: boycottbloglines

Google notebbok a great productivity tool

2007-02-15T15:59:00.000-08:00

Okay I am the first to admit this is probably very old news to most of you but I am hooked on Google notebook. As I am preparing for CUE I started to really put this tool to the test. If you have never used this handy little tool you need to check it out.

It is a fantastic intuitive application that has made my WEB 2.0 journey a lot easier. It sits quietly in my tool bar as I read the blogs from my aggregator, But then when I read something I think is a powerful concept or an important quote it jumps to life. I highlight the selection click add to notebook and there it is complete with references and always available on my Google homepage!

For a student doing research or anyone doing research or preparing a presentation it is an incredible way to keep all that great stuff together in a simple and concise way. There have been numerous posts about teaching students to deal with the large quantities of material available and this is one tool to make that job easier. Yes, you still have to be selective and you may still need to delete something when you gather too much but at least for me, it is simpler than a clip blog or del.icio.us and it lets me take snippets but keeps the link to whole!

Technorati Tags: CUE, Googlenotebook, web2.0tools

Learning from experience and thinking about the future

2007-02-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

A week full of immersion excursions and also some thought provoking reading!

First for the immersion excursion….(Sorry, couldn’t resist) This week has been busy with the photo-a-day project! It is growing daily and currently has 13 school involved from across the globe. In my own community it has gendered quite a bit of interest at all grade levels and among the parents too. Because we are taking photos all around school I sent a letter to the parents with a permission form. The reaction was characterized by comments like “That sounds really neat. How can we see the pictures?” It is really exciting to see the parents wanting to be involved. All of the teachers also want their students to view the project too so this will be the first school wide Web 2.0 activity.

On a personal level it has been an opportunity for me to “practice what I preach”. That is to plan and carry out a project even though I was not well versed in using the particular tools we employed. To plan the project I built my first wiki and to do the project I built a Flickr group. Both of which were firsts for me. There were kinks and bumps but I feel good about how it is all coming together. And I can say with confidence it is okay for learning to be a little messy! Monday the student photographers and I will meet to talk about the project, what we have learned so far and what we can learn from the pictures posted by the other schools…. And then the next level of fun will begin with student interactions! Sooo much to learn…sooo much fun to learn!

While I was busy with all of this I have also been reading and thinking about the next level… the next Bhag…. How to have one foot in the here and now and one foot and an eye on the place we are headed. There are so many of you who are forward thinking and who keep stretching me…thank you! So these are the things that I have seen this week which have me thinking. Miguel at Around the Corner has taken up the BHAG challenge in his own way and has posted a wiki for us to answer the questions……
1. How are you building your network?
2. How are you modeling your learning?
(Source: Questions asked during Will Richardson's preso at the Connectivism Conference )
My own thoughts are centering around call for passion by Konrad at the blog of proximal development. (If you haven’t read this post you need to). Rekindling passion…. encouraging passion… about our subject matter is the life’s blood of education. If we are not passionate about what we are doing we are only half alive. So what works against passion? I see an intersection here with another topic that keeps coming up….moving away from dependence on textbooks and staying current through Rss feeds. Curriculum can not afford to be mind numbing…it must be dynamic and engaging ..it must be empowered….and my next Bhag will have something to do with kindling passion for course content through the dynamic interactions of web 2.0.
Tags: bhag, bhags, photo-a-day, flickr, photoaday, passion-based-learning

Articulating BHAGS –Big Hairy Audacious Goals

2007-02-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

I recently began reading Scott Mcleod’s blog Dangerously Irrelevant and he addresses the components of initiating and sustaining change. This in connection with my own reflections as we are preparing to tell our story, “O to 60 in Six Months” at CUE in Palm Springs at the end of this month lead to this post.

Last summer at NECC and in many of the edublogs there was a lot of talk about telling the story. This, as Scott says, is a critical piece It builds vision, a common language and a sense of urgency. Telling the story by ripping, reflecting and remixing was the starting point for our school community and as the year has progressed we have continued to talk about the story because it takes time to plumb its depths. However the real change that occurred this year was driven by what Scott calls BHAGS- a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.

As an instructional leader setting a BHAG drove systemic change forward. It was no longer just an important idea but an action. The BHAG for our community may not be as lofty or as big as Scott had in mind but it was nonetheless a BHAG in our context- a single K-8 school seeking to institute systemic change in our educational program. The BHAG- Connect teachers and students with Web 2.0 as an essential means of teaching and learning.

I believe that at all levels of school organization from the district to the classroom we need to identify our BHAG as the necessary compliment and call to action which should follow our story….interestingly once again, this is about education learning from business as Scott links us to the origin of the concept….

So do you have a BHAG? "A tangible, concrete target that lets us know when we’ve reached some crucial point." ( Scott Mcleod)

Just as the story has been shared, ripped and remixed I think we need to articulate our BHAGs so we can draw inspiration and ideas from each other as well as clarify our own thinking. So who is willing to take the challenge and articulate their BHAG?
Technorati Tags: Mcleod, BHAGS, new story, schoolgoals

Are you in? Part 2

2007-02-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

Ready! Set!Go!

The student photographers will be armed with cameras and roaming the campus on Monday! Hope you are joining us!

The FLICKR Group has now been created- But you need to contact me so I can invite you to join because we have a public group that is set to "by invitation".

http://www.flickr.com/groups/photo-a-day4schools/

Steps to be included in the group:
1. Set up a Flickr account
2. Search for our group - Photo-a-Day for schools or me ( Babs2teach)
3. Add me to you contacts and send me a message
4. I will reply with an invitation to join the group

Technorati Tags: pads, photo-a-day$schools, photo-a-day, flickr

Planning for a photo a day

2007-01-27T18:41:00.000-08:00

I am excited about the interest in the Flickr project. To move it from an idea to a reality I have just created a wiki so that all interested parties can collaborate in the planning.

So are you in? Visit the wiki and add your ideas and insights so that we are all on the same page and then let the fun begin!

A Flickr Activity/Challenge- Are you in?

2007-01-26T06:36:00.000-08:00

I love early morning Blog reading...it always gets me excited about the day ahead! This morning in my reading I ran across a really neat idea.

David Muir Writes about a personal project on Flickr documenting the year in pictures and then ruminates on if or how we might use this in schools. This is a spin off of Project 365 which David talks about and in essence it includes posting a picture a day to capture life or in our cases the life of a school or class. David says that at Project 365 they have included some weekly challenges to make it more fun. So what can we do? It can include some weekly challenges to so that this week we might all capture the essence of __________ ( you fill in the blank- for example maybe recess/break time) As you can see in the comment below which I left on David's site...I think this has incredible possibilities especially if we connect and make a group of schools around the globe. Talk about learning to appreciate culture and visual literacy and connections....etc So is anybody interested in setting up a Flickr group and participating???

Comment I left at David's site...
Before I got to the end of the post I had already thought about how this could be used at school. I love the idea and we are just about to start our second semester...so why not start now. I do not know if we have the energy to do public and private postings as some suggested but I want to do this.. the public aspect appeals to me the most...especially if we can connect with schools around the world..We Pre-K (3 year olds) to 8the grade (aprox 13 year olds). I will post this to my blog so if you are interested come on over and leave me a note.
Thanks for this great idea.

Need your help to work smarter not harder

2007-01-25T05:58:00.000-08:00

Leading others into WEB 2.0 always is an interesting journey and at least in my case I feel like I am only one page ahead of those who are looking to me for direction.
The staff has dabbled with Bloglines but are somewhat overwhelmed by searching for and adding feeds which leads to my question.

I work in a K-8 school and I would like to be able to point the teachers to some teachers blogs that mirror their grade levels. I have plenty for 6-8 but need some recommendations for teacher blogs for 3-5 and Pre-K to 2. Any ideas?
Maybe someone has their own blogroll sorted by grade levels?

Everybody will learn to search and add blogs but in the beginning sorting through lists like those at Support Blogging can be a daunting task.

Discovery: Two new Web tools from a great feed

2007-01-22T06:31:00.000-08:00

In my morning sojourn with Bloglines I ran across two tools that I thought might be of interest. One of my feeds is from the site Solution Watch which is run by Brian Benzinger. The first article is about a site called Footnote that deals with original source documents and has partnered with the National Archive There is a free and a paid interface depending on your needs but the basic free level seems like a great portal to help older students utilize some original texts. It allows you to interact with the sources and like any good web 2.0 tool it calls for users to create content by adding other sources.

The second tool that caught my eye from brains reviews was one called Viddler. While we are not ready to use this yet I know many of you are busy with video creations and so I pass this one on for timed tagging of videos so you can show sections. I have bookmarked it for future use and hopefully some of you will put it through its paces and let me know how it works.

Even if these tools do not work for you check out Solution Watch. It is definitely worth and RSS feed.

web2.0 tools

Pedagogy and Practice

2007-01-18T16:52:00.000-08:00

I am catching up now on my Bloglines reading and a couple of ideas are resonating with me. I have been thinking on and off about the issues of pedagogy and practice as we embrace Web 2.0. There have been various posts at various times that have opined for more development of pedagogy in the application of Web 2.0 for the classroom. In reflecting on this I found myself wondering about the old conundrum which came first the chicken or the egg. In this instance I think that two posts, one By Jeff Utecht and one by David Warlick have pointed me toward an understanding that works for my reality.
David writes about a recent workshop he gave and he quotes the reflections of Doug Hyde who writes....

"What particularly impressed me was his[David's] 3-E’s: Exposing the information, Employing the information, and Expressing ideas compellingly. These are supported by the invisible ‘E,’ Ethical use of information. In short we need to encourage ourselves and students to look for the truth, find relevance, and create value for information; all the while keeping the information honest, unbiased, and personal by citing sources."

For me this says it all. Dictionary.com offers the following definition for pedagogy "1.the function or work of a teacher; teaching." No matter what subject we teach our goal, our work, our function and our purpose is well defined by these four E's.

The practice, the practical dabbling, learning and changing that teachers embrace as they move into the 2.0 world will reflect the pedagogy only in the doing. Jeff states it so well...

"Not every teacher ‘gets’ the power of these tools, how they really can be used to change the way we teach and the way students learn. Right now, I’d say we are building School 1.5. Using the technology because it’s there, not really looking at how it impacts learning. But, for now, I’m OK with this.

Because …(this for me is one of the key things I need to remember)

We have to use the tool before we understand what it can do for us. When I started blogging I had no idea where it was going to lead, 16 months later I get it!

[Of course if Jeff thinks he is only at 1.5 then I have not even left the starting blocks- but that is another discussion]

So at least for me the practice and the pedagogy develop simultaneously….. as long as we dialogue about our practice and continue to stretch and try new things.

Blogmeister- The students are getting started!

2007-01-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

We are getting started! The students have begun posting their first blogs. We are having some difficulty with the scribe posts but their individual posts are showing up so you are invited to encourage their efforts. Click on over to Blogmeister

New Year, New Perspective, Off and Running

2007-01-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

First, I apologize for the long break in my writing. I had hope over the holidays to begin to post but I have been processing a lot of information and struggling with where we are and where we are going to the point of feeling overwhelmed. I did not even read any blogs because I did not want to get excited over another idea that I might not be able to implement.

Finally though I have regained a perspective and I am ready to look toward the future.

We have reviewed our growth over the last 4 months and there is much to celebrate. We have said that we are on a journey from 0 to 60 in 6 months. While my vision may have included “lassoing the moon” ( thus my frustration) the faculty and staff have accomplished truly great things . I invite those who might visit here to celebrate with us our journey. It is a long journey and every so often we need to look back to see how far we have come. Any comments or encouragement will be passed on to the teachers!

July of 2006

4 members of the staff attend NECC and the ISTE Institute

August 2006

Faculty in service-

What does it mean to teach and learn in the 21^st century- Is it fundamentally any different than in the 20^th century?

Watched Thomas Friedman’s MIT lecture on The World is Flat

Reorganized our K-8 school into learning academies

Primary Learning Academy

Intermediate Preparatory Academy

Junior High Information Technology Preparatory Academy

Sept. 2006 to present ( some of what we have done)

Computer lab reconfigured to a classroom layout
We disposed of our Pentium Computers with either 32 or 64 megs of ram and 3 gig hardrives were replaced with industry cast offs that are Pentium 3 800 meghertz with 10 gig hardrives and 256 ram—These at least are adequate for our needs----
Went from computers gathering dust to a full utilization of the lab by classroom teachers (tech support but no lab teacher)
Purchased to LCD projectors and two lap top computers which are in constant use by teachers and now students. Who are learning the ins and outs of good presentations.
Introduced open source software- specifically Open office
All teachers have read educational blogs and left some comments on student work from around the world
All teachers have been introduced to RSS and have written at least one blog entry
A classroom has signed up for e-pals
Grades 5 to 8 have worked on internet literacy and talked about the validity of web sites
6 to 8 are beginning scribe activities
Students in Grade 7 have tried their hand at creating a wiki
Grades 6- 8 have been given online access to their grades and homework through personal passwords
Grades 6- 8 each student has a blog and they are just beginning to see some action as of this writing
Teachers in 6-8 have designed a cross curricular unit based on Romeo and Juliet which will encourage blog activity across the subjects
We established a Moodle site and we are beginning to build content..
5 Teachers attending California CUE conference in March

Keeping up with the information flow

2006-11-29T09:55:00.000-08:00

I only have about 15 blogs on my bloglines account and of those I probably only read 6 or seven almost every day. Today I was reading Remote Access, one of my regular reads and as always I found myself both encouraged and challenged. Clarence writes aMini-Manifesto for the Web 2.0 Classroom which I think I want to adopt as a kind of mission statement. In the manifesto one thing he says….

“The Gatekeepers are Gone
Giving kids textbooks that are ten years out of date is not only wrong, but it is bordering on negligent. Students can access information online that is racist, hurtful, or perfectly false. They also have the opportunity to post information online and gain an international audience. As one of the grade seven girls in my class told me last year, “you don’t have to be a rich old guy from New York anymore.”

I think he is right on the point but it also raises an issue that has been bothering me. Many people are writing in one form or another that we need to teach the kids to deal with large quantities of information. I agree that this is an essential literacy skill however I am at a loss as to how we do this. I am struggling myself and constantly feel that I am on information overload and that I will never keep up.

Any ideas about how we are going to master and teach this skill? If I am overloaded my teachers are feeling even more so because most are not naturally inclined to the technological world. This issue has been troubling me for a while because it is a skill I also need to teach my staff to help them manage the rapidly changing landscape of education.

Jeff’s recent article in the Techlearning Blog on the stages of the digital immigrant is another important reflection for on going professional development. It helps us identify where we are and where we need to be…. I have left both Clarence’s article and Jeff’s for the faculty meeting today. I will not be there so I will be very interested in hearing about the ensuing discussion.

Alan's Final session

2006-11-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

At the final session Alan spoke about important components of leadership for supporting technology integration. He stated that fear of losing control is a greater problem than the technology learning curve. When an adult is invited to do something new the first reaction ( at a brain response level) is fear.

A leader acknowledges and validates fear.
What are the fears and the hopes? Will technology take away social interaction and will students loose social skills or in does it allow for connections across the globe creating empathy…every fear has a correlating hope.

Remember it is not about technology…
It is about critical thinking and communication……

Alan suggests that as one starting point every elementary school should connect with a convalescent home…. Alan’s earlier quote about two culturally diverse schools who connected online also applies here….“We met them on the inside before we met them on the outside”.

Alan also suggests - Get started with podcasts
The place to start is Audacity = free software for audio recording
The teacher does not need to know how to do the recording they just need to know where the opportunity is to make a recording AND then use this as part of creating an audience even if you start with family and friends.

Students developmentally NEED an authentic audience….your school alone is NOT enough…..they need to engage in social discourse. This will provide results because whether it is a video presentation, a podcast or a blog students are more willing to accept criticism from and anonymous teacher rather than the teacher in the room.

Finally videos and video conferencing are other important tools
Video can be broken down one channel at a time to provide feedback….audio only visual only….

Finally with every thing you do there is a time quality balance…you have to decide…do not spend more time if the pay of in quality is not there….

With all this said and done Alan stresses the One requirement for everyone is that ……you will learn how the internet works and teach children how to learn in this media dominated environment. All educators should be users and doers on the internet. In our paper world we all know how to read and create…Today in the digital world we must teach the same literacy skills…how to read the internet and how to create….. critical thinking first and publishing second

An important part of these essential literacy skills is that we must teach students how to deal with the flow of information. An important resources Alan shared with regard to literacy Wayback Machine which allows you to see historical views of a site and compare how a website has changed over time.

In closing Alan asked….Are you teaching your children that money controls the internet? Can you imagine if you did not know the difference between an ad and an article in a magazine?
Then he showed us how key terms are up for sale at Overture

Technorati Tags: AlanNovember Novemder Web2.0 Professionaldevelopment digitalliteracy

Alan Continued

2006-11-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

Check out this wiki created by John in Bolton England. We talked with him in the seminar via Skype.
http://www.wikiville.org.uk/index.php/Main_Page
Students blogging- Kids had interviewed over skype a buisiness who was out sourcing and then interviewed people in China who were recieving the outsourcing.
This is a more rigorus activity than reading an article and repeating what it says.

Motivate the unmotivated

How do you meet people? http://www.epals.com/index.tpl E-pals.com

Teaching literature....within the classroom you have a limited perspective...what if you connected with people from South Africa or England...How would the perspective be different?
Type into alta vista "To Kill a Mocking Birg: uk to get the perspective from England

Gave another example of British version regarding orgins of the American Revolution
Then suggest a debate via skype with someone in England...It is about capturing the imagination of the students.
Break time

AlanNovember Novemder Web2.0 Professionaldevelopment classroom

Live post from Alan November Leadership Conference in Los Angeles

2006-11-16T14:16:00.000-08:00

Snipets and notes typed on the fly...
Boomerangs- Liberate them Right now 65% of kids return home between 19 and 28

What does it mean to be globally competitive?
Is there more economic opportunity in India than in the US—the question asked by an immigrant who is moving back ( students can not get into an Indian university because the US standards for Math and science is to low)
China has overtaken the Boston region in developing the upcoming companies

Russia etc recruit elementary teachers with math and science degrees
What are this countries expectations regarding what it means to be educated….

You can get a Stanford degree sitting anywhere in the world
Stanford on line high school 12,000 a year and you will have 3 years of Stanford credit.

Stats
17% to offshoring…
70,000 for a programmer in US vs 8,250 in India, China 9,000

When you are desperate you will learn
Should you feel a sense of urgency?

Michigan requires online learning to graduate from high school

Elementary – recruit teachers with math science degrees
HS start requiring online learning

A Whole New Mind- Daniel Pink a very important book.
3 things you need in a technology society
art, music, and social skills
Teach people to be creative and innovative – art and music are the road in to these areas

Think beyond the technology
Globalize the curriculum, create learning communities

Teach students to deal with massive amounts of information ( do not spoon feed small bits of content)
Globalization- teach empathy…think globally they will work in a globally connected world- are you teaching them to understand people across the world… if you only do one thing with internet teach social justice

Alan led a great skype demonstration of building global understanding.

AlanNovember Novemder Web2.0 Professionaldevelopment classroom

Moodle Blogs- Are they blogs?

2006-11-15T18:52:00.000-08:00

Moodle a one stop WEB 2.0 environment or is it? Let me start by saying I think moodle is a great program and I look forward to using it in our school. Martin Dougiamas has done us all a great service with the development of this open source tool. I am however perplexed, confused and a little disappointed by a recent discussion I read on the Moodle Forum. You can read the entire threaded discussion for yourself but I also hope you will weigh in here about your perceptions.

We have been looking at Moodle for about a year and we waited for version 1.6/1.7 to come out before we installed Moodle specifically because we were looking for the blog functionality. Here in lies my consternation. The blog function within Moodle does not allow for comments which to my way of thinking undermines the entire purpose of blogging in Web 2.0. There is much discussion within the forum about blogs vs forums and other moodle class activities. The way I understand the underlying statements almost everything seems to center on interclass conversations or teacher /student conversations. Certainly these have a place. Blogs, however are about global connections, expanding access to “experts”/teachers, forming personal learning networks, and connections….Without that capability, without the possibility of comments they become simply private journals that are publicly published.

“Blogs - finally Moodle has blogs for ongoing personal reflections, viewable by course, by group, by individual etc”…(description on the moodle forum) Is this a fancy personal notebook???

A forum by its very nature is intrinsically different than a blog. A forum tracks one subject. Entries are generally short in length and do not lend themselves to in text links to further information. They do not allow a person to easily track the development of any one individual’s thoughts. There are so many differences it is hard to list them yet it seemed in the Moodle forum that it was suggested they are interchangeable.

What do you think? What are the essential Web 2.0 elements related to blogs? Why/how are they important to learning? Did I miss something important in reading the Moodle forum?

Moodle is great…But is is not a one stop shop and for now we will continue to use Class Blogmiester or Word Press in conjunction with Moodle.

Technorati Tags: Moodle, blog, forum, web2.0

Personal Learning Networks for Every Teacher a Worthy Goal

2006-11-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

Life is making it difficult to find time to read and consequently it becomes difficult to blog. This month (16, 17) I will attend a two day conference with Alan November and so I hope I can blog life from there. This weekend I got a little time to catch up with my bloglines account and one of Will’s posts struck a note with me. ( Clearly it did so for many other because there are 45 comments and I did not get a chance to go through them)

Will says…

“We go back and forth in this community about whether teachers who use blogs should blog, or podcast or read RSS feeds. I’ve always hesitated to come down on one side or the other in that debate for a variety of reasons. But it’s become clear to me that the answer has to be yes. If you are an educator, I think you have little choice but to choose option 3 in the Marco Torres mantra: “You can complain, quit or innovate.” I know in many ways it stinks to have to be an educator at a moment in history when things are changing on a glacial scale. But what you signed up for is preparing kids for their futures. You have little choice but to deal.”

Further on he writes

“you have the “greatest library in human history” at your fingertips. You have a billion potential teachers. You have an opportunity to learn in ways that you or I could not even have dreamed of when we were in school. And you have an opportunity to shepherd your students into a much more complex, much messier, and much more profound world of learning in ways that will help prepare them more powerfully for the world they face.”

Will’s words ring true and are a great source of encouragement to me. They have renewed my zeal to continue the project I started back in September. I am struggling with having the staff populate their bloglines accounts and write in their blogs. We started this activity, building Personal Learning Networks, over a month ago but it has not yet taken root. It seems that there is always something that keeps us to busy. Right now it is Report Cards and Parent Teacher Conferences. Because I understand the workload the staff carries I have tried to build time into our scheduled faculty meetings for them to read and blog but alas it has been hard. My hope is that if I can make it a regular part of our agenda it will become a habit and as it bears fruit it will take on a life of its own.

I think maybe Will’s post should be required reading….

Technorati Tags: Will Richardson Teachers PLN

From the classroom - Student Work

2006-10-30T12:57:00.000-08:00

As promised, I am also posting about student work. I have been team teaching in the 8th grade and we are working on search techniques and the validity of web site information in preparation for a social studies project. ( There are some nice resources at Kidz Online)
Even though the technology of IMs, music downloads and My space are used frequently at home, the students do not have a grasp of how to make a search engine work for them or how to separate fact from fiction when doing research. We started with the basic exercises to prepare them to do some research for our current election propositions.

About two weeks ago now we went into the computer lab to apply the ideas we had learned about validating a web site. The students were put in groups and given random topics. Their task was not to write about the topic but to find three websites with information about their topic and make a decision about the validity of the information. Then they had to write a short paragraph for each site and explain whether it was a reliable source and explain how they checked its validity.

Well as with many lessons it did not go quite as planned. their search techniques were still a little primitive aand so most groups only were able to evaluate one or two sites. BUT the moment we all long for came from one corner of the room where a student tentativley raised their hand. "Mrs Barreda we found this site ( they had stumbled on Wikipedia) and we were wonder about it because it says anybody can sign in an edit it! Well from this point I will let their words speak for themselves...Following is thier paragraph...

"For our researdh we used wikipedia. We thought that this website was useful in some situations, but in others it was not. The reason we thought that was because if you have an account you can write what you think and change what the information is saying. We thought that the website was useful because it gave us links to other websites of where they got their information. Wikipedia is a type of encyclopedia that helps you find information on a lot of subjects that you want to research about. We also learned more about wikipedia and what it was all about. We found out other pages to research about and how wikipedia is used and what it is used for."

This is what it is all about.....

This morning I caught up with some more blogline reading and Clarence also has a post about website validity with a link to a nice worksheet he used.

Technorati Tags: information verifying web/tech

Catching up with K12 Online

2006-10-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

Catching up with K12 Online

I listened/ watched a number of presentations this weekend andnow I feel a little more like a conference participant. In the process I have learned a “new” online skill. I’m sure for most of you this seems obvious but it was a great delight for me to realize that with a word processor open I could jot notes as the presentations were made- kind of a first step to live blogging that I want to do later this month when I attend an Alan November workshop.

So here is a look at the points that resonated with me this weekend.

First I re-listened to David Warlick’s keynote address which I will view again with my staff this week. This time around I zeroed in on his discussion of the four types of people who will succeed as described by Thomas Friedman. The point that the future experts will be adaptable and able to learn, unlearn and relearn is particularly poignant. It points to the needs of our students as they prepare to participate in the global market place of the future but at the same time I think it is an interesting comment on our educational systems and on us as educators. To be able to learn , unlearn and relearn are essential conditions of our own success.

I also listened to Vicki Davis's presentation Wiki Collaboration Across the Curriculum. I did not get to take notes on this presentation because I was cleaning my garage a the time. It was a great presentation though with straightforward steps to utilizing wikis. One thing that was very interesting is the interaction she described between the high school students and the 8th graders…this put a local spin on the idea of learning communities. I also appreciated the rubric she shared, her guidelines for wiki entries and the explanation of how she sees the relationship/ purpose of wikis and blogs.

Clarence Fisher’s presentation, Globally Literate, helped to pull together the specific skill sets the students need. (Clarence I loved your introduction…I did move to a front row seat!) He also put the literacy issue in its historic perspective. One of the thing I appreciate about Clarence’s presentation was that he presented skills in a hierarchical which is particularly important in the K 8 environment when foundational skills are being taught. He outlines teaching access skills and all that entails, comprehension skills and moving into thoughtful responses ( which entails production skills). I also appreciated the description of the factors involved in reading a web page and a teacher’s responsibility to provide direction and instruction for the students. (Questions raised include the multiple representations of information , links to more information, comments etc.) It was one of those things I knew in an intuitive way but have never taken the time to consider implicitly.

I also go through about half of Mark Wagner’s presentation on Web 2.0 and 2 Way Teaching before life interrupted me. On a practical level I came away with several things that I want to look at more carefully. One was an off handed mention of Google scholar which I had never heard of and now I want to explore. I also want to explore the wiki hmtech because our primary teachers had been considering making a wiki for Reading First. I hope to get back and finish listening to this presentation soon.

Tomorrow I have some student work to share.

Technorati Tags: k12online06 k12online Warlick Wagner Davis Fisher Globallyliterate wiki web2.0

The Dream and the Gap

2006-10-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

I didn’t mean to let so much time lapse between my posts. I have been doing some co-teaching over the last several days and setting up a secondary mini computer lab for the intermediate academy. We have gone from a school where computers often collected dust to not being able to keep up with the demand.

The K12 Conference is offering some dynamic content. The challenge with this on line conference is that I want to “attend” every session and I am finding it hard to keep up. Plus because I am not in some strange city in a hotel all of the daily demands on my time keep me from focusing on being present to the conference. I know the beauty is anytime anyplace but you are all doing do much I get worried about being left behind.

I did find time to read David Warlick and David Jake in Techlearning regarding what I term the Dream and the Gap.

I agree with David Jake that the climb is steep and there is a gap. I think all of us in the trenches recognize this fact. What does this mean in practical terms? One of my favorite sayings when faced with difficult and overwhelming situations goes like this... Do you know how you eat and elephant? One bite at a time. And so I also appreciate David Warlick’s vision because I believe we can eat the elephant.

As I indicated above, between June 2005 and today we have gone from a school with computers collecting dust to teachers fighting over the available technology. This includes teachers who range in age from their mid 60's to their mid 20's. Some who have just started teaching and some who have 15+ years of experience. It is all about a vision for the future and someone willing to lead the way. David Warlick dreams big and that is what we need. Dreamers, leaders and visionaries who will help us work smarter not harder. When David writes…..

"Ms. S keeps a regular blog where she writes about everything from homework assignments to reflections on course topics, with a full description posted each Monday morning on the how, what, and why of course material to be taught in the upcoming week.”

I suddenly had an insight into the work smarter concept. Teachers turn in lesson plans every Monday and we all know that even in an ideal world, many times they are an empty exercise to complete a requirement. Several of my teachers are currently establishing blogs so what if I said no more lesson plans on Mondays I will just subscribe to your blog.

As an administrator I have a lot of hats to wear but I also have to set priorities and make decisions. This year curriculum and supporting technology are at the top of my list. Along with this comes the fact that I have learned to say “no” to many of the daily distractions that come my way.

Thank you, David J, for grounding us in reality. There is a hard work ahead and we need to be willing to stay the course. Thank you, David W, for giving us hope and encouraging us to try.

Technorati Tags: k12online Warlick Jake Techlearning

K12 online, Skype and Cool stuff at School - Who can ask for more?

2006-10-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

Okay this week has been a roller coaster ( in a good way)! ( gee its only Tuesday okay now its Wed. )
K12 online
Monday morning I was up early in anticipation of the David Warlick’s keynote address. I started it at 5:30 am but with life’s interruptions I didn’t finish until 2 pm. It was a a great introduction to the online conference interface. The only problem so far are the distractions of daily life…I need to mark out the conference time of my planner.
The image of learning as side trips was powerful. How does learning happen? What are the most memorable moments even in a traditional classroom. I would hazard a guess that it is often the side trips. The teachable moments…the moments that follow the students natural curiosity and interests. These are not random moments however they are often the product of a creative and skilled educator. In David’s keynote we get a renewed glimpse of the wonder of the early technology age and a sense of excitement about what is to come.
In writing about K12 online Clarence writes…

“I am trying to convince my division to download all of the sessions when they are available and put them onto CDs or DVDs as a professional development library. Free, high - quality sessions,…”

This is truly open source at its best… Professional development that every school can afford ,that is flexible and available across the limitations of time and space.

Skype
I also go started with Skype this weekend. One of the high points on Monday morning was a short skype call with Alan November who was giving a keynote in New York. What a rush to have my first ever skype call in this context! In that short call ( maybe 60 sec?) Alan gave me a great idea for using skype at school. We have an outdated intercom system and most classrooms do not have phones so we are now setting up every room with skype. Rather than spending thousands on updating the intercom I invested $9.00 per room in headphones with mics!

From the classroom and the Faculty meeting arena this week this was a great week too. The 7th grade began using a Flickr toy, trading card maker to define and illustrate vocabulary for their unit on poetry. Look for my pos of their public posting! Some are really cool and they wil love you comments. Most have you have probably seen Titltv (Teacher's Improving Learning with Technology)but in case you haven’t check it out. It is a nice site for some beginning tech skills for teachers. Episode 10 gave every teacher a positive experience in excel today and they are ready to use it immediately even in the primary grades. I think one of the challenges for digital immigrants can be setting foot on the land. Success always provides encouragement for more adventures.

Technorati Tags: k12online06 k12online Keynote Warlick
Technorati Tags: Flickr

Tips for Writing a Good Blog- a resource for our classrooms

2006-10-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

I just stumbled on this blog when I was wandering around de.licio.us. It is a list of criterea for writing a good blog entry. It covers among other things choosing a good title, using the pyramid format common in journalism and considering foriegn readers. I think the reason this post on how to write a good blog entry resonated with me is that it has a direct correlation with the needs of our students and ourselves to be able to skim quickly for information. As Clarence writes "Reading is different online. We need to teach kids to skim through vast amounts of information, marking off some pieces for later, more careful consumption, while clearing off everything we don't need." This in turn says something about how we need to teach them to write so that other will be able to skim their work.

Textbooks

2006-10-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

David Warlick has been invloved in an interesting conversation regarding textbooks. In a recent post he asks....

The question is not, do I use textbooks or do I chuck them for the Internet. The much more interesting question is what will the textbook evolve into as the conditions of the information landscape change so dramatically? And, will the textbook industry have the vision and courage to drive this evolution/revolution or will it come, like so much else, out of the open source community?

One thing that struck me in this post was the parallel to an article from my local paper which I wrote about ilast week. It was about publishing scholarly scientific research online. One side felt that it would elicit more peer review and allow more information to be made available and broaden the number of experts who could weigh in on any given research project. The other side argued that the traditional peer review before publication was very important to protect quality.
Textbooks as a source of authoritative information have value. They are an educational tool but so is Web 2.0. As Dave said it is not either/or. However if the way we teach is changing then by necessity the tools must change. Will the textbook companies respond? I would guess the answer is slowly…..There are really very few textbook companies because they all have common parent companies. I agree with the scientific scholars who are pushing for online publishing. It will encourage peer review and allow for these wonderful tools (textbooks) to be remixed to reflect todays learning enviroment. I hope the open source community will push the envelope because we need that push to jump start this.
Textbooks are a big part of our yearly budget and so I have to seriously evaluate what we decide to purchase. The days have long since passed where the textbook was the curriculum. Many primary source are already online, as well as many authoritative works. Will it be the work of our students under the watchful eyes of the teachers who in the end draw on the vast store of authoritative sources to put in play a digital curriculum accessible to all ?

A great idea!

2006-10-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

I just ran across this post from Susan this morning. WikiPlaces: the Essence of Your Favorite Places Check out this great idea for a simple but meaningful project that can be used in an age appropriate fashion from K to 12. It has all of the components I have been looking for to help get our technology integration rolling. It is teacher friendly - that is relatively simple. The concept works well with a variety of objectives. It allows for instruction in a variety of Web 2.0 skills. It is scalable. Finally, as Susan points, out it does not require parental permissions because no student names are used which makes it great for the primary grades.
Thanks again Susan!
echnorati Tags: wiki education