Today I am teaching and learning at the TechConnect 2.0 conference in Sacramento.  Below are links to resources from my workshop and notes I am taking while attending other sessions.

• Workshop – Digital Story Telling with Google Maps & Earth
• Notes from the Day

Joe

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

TechConnect 2.0 2013

It’s bright and early, the car is gassed up, and it’s mid-March – must be time for the annual CUE Conference in Palm Springs. This year I am excited to be taking two smart colleagues from Natomas Charter with me – Jeanne Feeney (@MamaFeenz) and  Josh Landry (@JLandryPix).  So, if you see one of us in a session or networking in Palm Springs, pop on by and say hello…or just introduce yourself on Twitter (I’m @ucdjoe).  While in Palm Springs I plan on teaching a little bit, so if you came to one of my workshops feel free to check out the resoures below and let me know if you have any questions.

Joe

Collaborative Notes Taken by the NCS Team

Thursday – March 14th

• iBooks Author with Burt Lo – 3:00pm
• Session Resources

Friday – March 15th

• Get Slammed with Google – 11:30am
• Session Resources - There will be more during the session since it is a SLAM!
• Making Homework Meaningful with Video & Google Forms – 3:30pm
• Session Resources
• Getting Googley Website – Click Around, Lots of Free Information

Saturday – March 16th

• Digital Writing with Digital Kids – Digital Literacy Demands of Common Core – 12pm
• Presentation
• Link to Digital Text & Common Core Document on NWP’s Digital Is Website
• New Literacies and Common Core by William Kist in Educational Leadership

Bonus Sessions Links

Rather than standing around and waiting for the “bell to ring” and have the session start we discussed some great products for use in your classroom.  Below are the links.

• Google Earth & Maps Digital Storytelling
• Google Story Builder
• Google Art Project
• Learn Zillion – ELA and Math Videos
• Google Hangouts & Hangouts On Air
• DIY.org – Maker Resources for Kids.  Check out this video.
• National Writing Project – Find your site
• Digital Is – Inspirational stories of teachers using technology in the classroom.
• NCS Distinguished Schools Portal - Using Google Sites to eliminate the visitation team binder.

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

CUE13 Workshop Resources

If you attended the Digital Writing with Digital Kids workshop at the Placer County Office of Education Technology Conference below you will find all of the online handouts.

• Presentation
• Handout
• FCOE Technology Skills Flowchart
• CCSS Technology Resources – Stanislaus County Office of Education
• Google Earth Resources - As requested by the audience

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

PCOE Technology Conference Handouts

Please check out the resources below for today’s presentations at the CASEL Conference

• Morning Workshop – Digital Writing with Digital Kids
• Afternoon Workshop – Creating Digital Writers with iOS

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

CASEL 2013 Workshop Handouts

In a little more than 36 hours national Digital Writing Month (DigiWriMo) commences and you or your students should consider participating.  With a structure similar to another November writing celebration, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), DigiWriMo poses the challenge of crafting 50,000 words of digital text in just 30 days.  The format of your text may very depending on the weekly writing challenges, but more than likely you will find yourself composing more than a few blog posts, Twitter essays, and collaborative wiki novels.

Personally, I am not exactly sure what is in-store for the next 30 days, but even if I only write 25,000 words that is still quite a bit of storytelling and a great mental workout.  The program is sponsored by Hybrid Pedagogy and the English and Digital Humanities program at Marylhurst University (which looks like a fascinating MA program). If this sounds interesting you can join in the fun with little more than your email address.  And here is a small secret I’ve learned from NaNoWriMo – you can always just follow along this year by reading the regular emails sent out by DigiWriMo and actually put the prompts into practice at another time.  Once I have a better understanding of the writing challenges, check back here.  I will try to post a few.

Joe

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

DigiWriMo – Are You In?

I’m hitting the road bright and early tomorrow morning to head over to American Canyon High School near Napa, CA for the FallCUE 2012 conference.  It is hard to believe it has already been a year since the 2011 FallCUE Conference.  That particular event will always be memorable to me as it was the moment when I reconnected with the edtech world after a year-long hiatus as literacy coach.  And what a year it has been!  Below you will find links to the resources from the three workshops I will be teaching or co-facilitating with longtime friend Burt Lo.

• iAuthorship – Click, Drag-and-Drop, and Create Interactive Books – A three-hour workshop on using iBooks Author to create your own digital books for the iPad
• Creating Digital Writers with iPad and iPod Touch – A three-hour workshop on using iPads and iPod Touches to create digital, multimedia content.
• Digital Literacy and the Common Core - One of the best parts about Common Core are the new digital literacy demands.  In this one-hour session we will get our hands wet with this elements of the standards that many people don’t notice.

If you can’t attend in person make sure you follow the #fallcue feed on Twitter and when I am not teaching a workshop I will post my own notes in this Google Doc.

Joe

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

FallCUE 2012 Workshops

Earlier this week I happened to overhear a conversation about digital literacy and the Common Core.  The person asking the question was curious what exactly the Common Core Standards said about digital literacy.  As I listened to the conversation unfold I found a group of smart, passionate educators focusing all of their attention on access to digital tools.  I wasn’t surprised.

Over the past few months while leading workshops on digital writing and the Common Core I have observed similar conversations with a variety of educators.  The idea of digital literacy often stops at “my students don’t have access.”  This really bothers me for two main reasons.  In reality your students do have some access (just look at the results of our recent survey) and if we stop the conversation at access we miss the much larger challenge we will have to tackle – developing instructional models.  Simply putting a computer/iPad/netbook in the hands of a child will not meet the digital literacy goals of the Common Core Standards.  I have observed technology being used as a powerful component of meaningful instruction and then walked into the room next door and coached the teacher into putting the computers back into the cart.  Technology alone is not the answer.  To meet the needs of the Common Core Standards, we will have to focus our attention on powerful instructional practices that make strategic use of technology.

First, let’s start with this notion of digital literacy. Digital literacy actually is comprised of three components – reading digital text, writing digital text, and developing the technical skills necessary to consume and produce these texts.  Often, when the term “digital text” is used people tend to think only of word processing, but digital texts come in a variety of ever-increasing forms including images, slideshows, videos, podcasts, blogs, tweets, Facebook pages, and text messages just to name a few.  If the artifact conveys meaning and utilized digital technology to either be produced or consumed, then chances are it’s digital text.

The concept of digital literacy appears throughout the Common Core Literacy standards.  As I wrote in a previous post, five of the thirty-two anchor standards specifically call out the importance of digital reading and writing.  However, another area where digital literacy appears in the standards is in the portraits of career and college ready individuals.  Out of nine portraits one specifically highlights the use of technology and digital media:

They use technology and digital media strategically and capably.

“Students employ technology thoughtfully to enhance their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use. They tailor their searches online to acquire useful information efficiently, and they integrate what they learn using technology with what they learn offline. They are familiar with the strengths and limitations of various technological tools and mediums and can select and use those best suited to their communication goals.”

Reading through this portrait, hopefully you noticed three main parts:

• Students need to conduct effective online research;
• Students need to integrate both online and offline research into what they are learning;
• Students need to be familiar with the strengths and limitations of various technological tools and mediums and can select those best suited to their communication goals.

These three components are fairly broad, but from my experience working in classrooms, I would say that most students are receiving some instruction that might meet the first two bullets.  We still have quite a bit of work to do in this area, but we have at least begun the journey. However, the third bullet is where we really need to pay attention as educators.  Can your students make strategic decisions about when it would be most appropriate to use a blog post, video, or podcast to convey their ideas?  Do they have knowledge of any of these tools?  Do your teachers?  Do your teachers and students have access to these types of digital texts in the form of hardware, software, and networking policies?

I would argue that the third bullet actually drives the first two.  As informed consumers of digital texts, students must also be informed producers and this must occur across all content areas.  In thinking about instructional approaches that will help teachers and students meet these objectives, I’m automatically taken back to Writing Workshop.  It is an approach that has been around for decades and often makes almost no use of technology, but it’s pretty ingenious and could easily support the development of digital literacy skills across content areas.  Realize, I am hardly the first person to come up with this idea and would highly recommend checking out The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks.  Rather than focusing on some sort of magical formulaic approach where the teacher is the font of knowledge, in Writing Workshop students develop writing skills by reading works in a similar genre.  As a class, the teacher and students develop a collective definition for the genre and throughout the writing process refer back to mentor texts for strategies and ideas on creating their own pieces.  This model easily works whether students are producing persuasive essays, research reports, 30-second public service announcements, or podcasts.

Interestingly the morning after the conversation I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I walked into a classroom and saw a digital Writing Workshop in action.  A 5th grade class at our iPad and Chromebook pilot site was in the midst of finalizing a series of ebooks that each consisted of a narrative with embedded facts.  Historically, this teacher has had her students complete a state report each year.  This year however, with a handful of iPads and experience with Writing Writing Workshop she wanted to try something different.  As a class they read a series of stories that used a narrative with embedded facts structure and developed a common definition of this type of writing.  Working in small groups, students conducted research by collecting facts from online and print resources, as well as information provided by pen pals who grew up in their particular state.  Using this information students crafted narratives, first on paper and then on their iPads using Book Creator.  Each group selected images, added hyperlinks and audio files, and published an ebook to be read by parents and fellow students in the iBooks app.  As I walked through the classroom I heard students engaged in rigorous conversations about their narratives while debating the most effective way to display ideas and discovering features of the application .  One pair caught my attention when one student said to her partner, “I don’t think that’s how you use a quotation mark…let’s check our mentor text.”

As a class, this group of students has created fourteen ebooks while building research, writing, and technological skills.  Through this project they are modeling many of the digital literacy skills and practices called out by the Common Core Standards.  All by itself, a technology-rich Writing Workshop may not solve every digital literacy need, but it is an instructional approach we should consider and adapt across content areas.  It is important to note that access is still quite important.  This particular class has about ten iPads.  That means students have to regularly work in triads and do not all have equal access to the technology.  However, this class demonstrates that we can all begin our digital literacy journey with the resources we currently have in place while simultaneously developing plans to increase the level of technology to support every student.

Joe

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

Digital Literacy & Common Core

For the past seven years I have been surveying my students about their level of technology access at home.  Initially, my data just reflected the students in my classroom.  However, as I have moved to a district-level position I have helped teachers survey their own students.  Earlier this year, teachers from our Digital Writing and Multimedia User groups were interested in surveying their students.  We wondered, “Just how many of them do have cell phones…or MP3 players…or home Internet access?”  What started out as a survey for probably 500 students grew to a survey that has been completed by just over 1600 kids and the information is quite interesting.

• 93.3% of the students surveyed reported having a computer at home with 92.9% of those computers connected to the Internet
• 72.0% of students have a cell phone and 66.5% of students are bringing cell phones to school
• The most common type of cell phone is one that can download and install apps, such as an iPhone or Droid (47.1%)
• 77.4% of students have an MP3 player and the most common device is an iPod Touch (52.4%)

Keep in mind that approximately 47% of the students who completed the survey are socioeconomically disadvantaged (we used a weighted average to estimate this – not perfect, but the best we could do).  However, our district is located in an largely suburban community where most homes have access to broadband Internet and cellular service. The results of this survey raise some interesting possibilities including:

• Expanded Cloud Computing: Since many of our students reported having computer at home connected to the Internet, cloud-based computing resources, such as Google Apps and Moodle have the potential to extend the learning day beyond the traditional 8am-3pm school schedule.
• Blended Learning: The level of technology access at home and carried by students to school in the form of cell phones or MP3 players could provide opportunities for us to employ various models of blended learning across grade levels.  This might take the form of students being introduced to or reviewing content through teacher-produced instructional videos on their personal phones, iPods, or home computers.
• Bring Your Own Devices: The most commonly found MP3 players (iPod Touch) and cell phones (iPhone/Droid) both have the capability of installing apps and utilizing wifi connections.  As school sites seek to increase student access to online materials in the classroom, they might consider developing a formal Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program through the creation of appropriate policies, procedures, and professional learning for teachers.
• Ensuring Equitable Access: While a significant majority of our students reported home technology and Internet access, the survey does not report the exact level of access or type of hardware students have at home.  Teachers and school sites should plan for variances in the type of home access and provide computing resources at school before, after, and during the instructional day.  Schools may consider opening computer labs before and after school so that students can utilize these resources beyond the instructional day.

I would never claim that the results of these surveys are statistically perfect and there is variation from school site to school site, but they do provide a glimpse into student technology access. Each year I provided the survey to my own students, I was always surprised by the findings.  This year is no different.  I am reminded that in order to appropriately plan for technology programs we need to spend time surveying our students and listening to their voice.

Joe

Photo: Power User by Alec Courosa on Flickr

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

Survey Says!

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to attend the CUE 2012 conference. I ran into former coworkers, reconnected with friends from the past, and also cultivated new relationships for the future. It was four days of meaningful teaching and learning. I chose to drive this year since the price for a plane ticket to Palm Springs seemed quite ridiculous and that afforded me about 7 hours of quiet reflection time driving through California’s San Joaquin Valley. As I passed through the miles and miles…and miles of farmland a few thoughts began to emerge about why events like CUE matter:

Take Control of Your Professional Learning

Let’s face it. We live in austere times. Districts are laying off teachers, eliminating key services, and looking for any cuts which could assist in making budget projections for next school year. Often, as part of this process district-provided professional development opportunities can quickly evaporate. However, I still want to grow as a professional. I want to improve my practice and test out innovations…and based on the conversations I had this weekend I know I am not alone. First, however, I think each of us has to find that community where we can grow. I am fortunate to have stumbled into two communities – CUE and NWP that both continue to push my thinking and help me refine my practice. Once we have found those communities we have to look for opportunities to actively participate. CUE provides two annual conferences, as well as many other professional learning opportunities both through the regional affiliates and partnership organizations. Most NWP sites provide local teacher-lead workshops through Super Saturdays or Summer Institutes. Additionally, both of these communities also have an online presence through websites, social networks, and Twitter groups. Spend some time identifying what is close to you and within your budget or interests.

Conferences = Conversations

I used to think I attended conferences to attend sessions, but a few years ago I realized I really attend conferences to engage in conversations with colleagues from across the country. Yes, we communicate through Twitter, Facebook, blog posts, and email, but there is still something said for sitting down together, face-to-face, and sharing ideas while also sharing the same space. Similarly, the most meaningful sessions I attend are the ones where I can engage in conversation. Like our students, I want to do the work as a learner. On Friday I co-faciliated a three-hour workshop on iBooks Author and at the end the room erupted into spontaneous applause. At first I couldn’t figure out why, but a few hours later one of the participants saw me in the hotel lobby and expressed his gratitude for being able to “take the time to publish a book with a knowledgeable coach and talk to my colleagues about how I would use this in my classroom.”

Present, Present, Present

Long ago, I adopted a personal rule. Anyone can attend a conference once, but to attend a second time you really should submit at least one conference session. Each of us tends to think that we don’t have anything to offer. “Oh, I’m not smart enough to present. Who would listen to me?” Unfortunately, in both of my professional learning communities I have observed some conference behavior by a small minority that might perpetrate that belief, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Unlike many other professional groups, all of us are teachers. We have the ability to teach. Find something your passionate about and develop a session where you can share that passion. After attending a fair-share of workshops I do have four guiding principles to suggest:

• Focus on Instruction – We don’t care about the 50 shiny things and will likely get lost at about the fifth one. What did you do and how can I do it too?
• Make Us do the Work – Five minutes after sitting down in conference chair our rears start going numb, so get us cognitively and even physically engaged in doing the work through conversation and meaningful activities.
• Bring in Students – One of the best parts of the CUE Conference each year is the Student Technology Showcase, where kids from all over California share what they have created or learned using technology. If you can bring your students to your workshop, every single one of us will be hooked and never want to leave. If you can’t physically bring your students, perhaps they can join us via Skype, FaceTime, or pre-recorded video?
• Post Everything Online and Tweet Out the Link – Often there are three great sessions all at the same time. If can’t attend your workshop I will review the resources and Twitter is often the tool many use to catch those resources if you use the conference hashtag like #cue12.

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

Reflections on CUE 2012

A few months ago I wrote a post regarding the use of Chromebooks and iPads at one of my school sites.  At that time, the teachers had grown quite frustrated by the technical management pieces of utilizing an iPad cart in their classroom and were a bit envious of their Chromebook-using colleague.  However, about six weeks later after smoothing out some of the wrinkles with Apple’s assistance, much of that had changed and continues to be the case.

As of today that first post has been viewed a little over 3400 times.  The second post?  About 200 times.  As I stated in the first post (and the second) we never set out to produce an iPad vs. Chromebook comparison, but that is what organically developed both at this school site and through the comments posted on this blog.  Currently, I have about a dozen emails from readers all over the world wanting to know which tool they should purchase.  I can’t answer that question, because it really depends on what you hope to accomplish instructionally.

Over the weekend I heard a quote that was both quite simple and quite wise, “The perfect device is the one that does what you want it to do.”  Choosing a tool requires thoughtful investigation, research, and evaluation on both the technical and instructional components of  the device.   It requires sitting down with the teachers and students who will use it and helping them articulate what they hope to accomplish.  It also requires recognizing the perfect tool today may change tomorrow and that groups of students may need different devices. Its not as simple as just pressing the purchase button for the brand that we like the most.

Keeping this in mind I thought it might be time to mention four areas of caution I have noticed working with Chromebooks.  Once again, this is not meant to infer that another tool should automatically chosen, but should serve as some of the questions you might want to add to your own growing list.

Multimedia Creation – I love Google Docs.  I think its an amazing tool and I use it on a daily basis.  Since we have a district-wide Google Apps EDU deployment I have seen it in action in multiple classrooms across the district and am regularly impressed with what students are creating with the collaborative tools.  However, I have grown concerned with the idea that there are not a ton of great web-based multimedia creation applications and that students using Chromebooks will never leave Google Docs.   I want my students engaged in all types of digital writing – recording videos, creating podcasts, developing narrated slideshows, and publishing ebooks in all of their classes.  While there are some tools out there which meet these needs, it requires research, discovery, and evaluation to identify the tools that will work well.  Additionally, these tools really need to integrate seamlessly with Google Apps EDU.  In a perfect world, the Google Apps administrator for your district would be able to turn on these multimedia tools through the Google Apps management console and have them automatically available for all users on the domain.  Asking teachers to have students create accounts on a variety of third-party websites is not really a sustainable practice not to mention the possible COPPA and FERPA implications.

Digital Textbooks – As soon as I typed those two words I could already hear some of you groan.  I get that textbooks are not the most exciting things to think about.  I my own classroom I primarily used them as a secondary or maybe even tertiary resources.  However, considering the amount of money school districts spend on instructional materials, digital textbooks may be the avenue through which many students are finally provided individual devices. Should 90% of the textbook publishers release their materials through Apple’s iBookstore, how useful does the Chromebook become?  Additionally, iBooks Author is an amazing tool for teachers to use in developing their own instructional materials.  However, the file format that provides all of the interactive features will only work on the iPad.  Perhaps Google will develop a textbook creation tool that works just as well, but also provides some of the collaborative features of Google Docs and works on any device?

Total Cost of Ownership – Initially, I had assumed that Chromebooks were cheaper than iPads.  However, after penciling out the math, I’ve realized the opposite may in fact be true.  Chromebooks can be purchased either outright or on a monthly plan over three years.  Should you choose the monthly plan you will have a Chromebook, along with three years of management console, warranty, and support for about $720 per device assuming you are purchasing the wifi-only model.  If you purchased the same device outright and then added two years of management console you’re looking at about $529, but the warranty and support will only last for the first year.

Repair – A student accidentally broke one of our screens.  After multiple attempts over two weeks to contact Samsung for repair information we found out that a new screen will be about $300.  The price of the screen plus the time it took to get Samsung to respond is a bit concerning.  The turn around time with other vendors has been much quicker. What if we suddenly have 300 devices that need to be repaired?

One of the things I do love about talking to the Google Chromebook team, is that everything is on the table and I know they are listening.  Should you be interested in purchasing Chromebooks for your students I encourage you to think about your instructional outcomes and technical infrastructure and ask lots of questions.

Joe

Another great article from: JoeWoodOnline.com

Chromebook Caution