Conference Site: http://learning2cn.ning.com

Registration: http://www.regonline.com/Checkin.asp?EventId=177180

Need some Chinese? Check out Chinesepod.com!

Technorati Tags: Conference, learn2cn, learning2cn

Rick Pierce of Rising Sun Consultants and Andy Torris from Shanghai American School joined David and Jeff for tonight’s show.

Essential Question

What Stalls the Shift?

Take away from the discussion>

-We need to differentiate between “change” and the “transition” that follows. Administrators need to allocate much more time for the transition. Need to validate the emotions of community members as they go through the transition. Need lots of support and guidance that takes planning just as one plans the change.
-Leaders as visionaries while also working to serve the teachers, students and community. Servant leadership. Managers who craft programs and follow through.
-Even with lots of energy and time for transition, there will be some “anchors” who are stalling the shifted and must be transitioned out with grace and dignity.
-How to start the change? Form a leadership team of admin and teachers, determine what you want to do and where you are going. Set the vision.
-Have to set priorities. How to deal with all the different community members with their varying priorities? What guides you in deciding what comes first? Leadership means sticking with the carefully decided priorities which are guided by your mission and student learning goals.
-What happens after the delegation of responsibilities? Administrators need to let go but be very clear in guidance and expectations being ready to accept the work of the follow up teams.

Blog Posts of the Week:

Jeff: LeaderTalk Learning 2.008 Bring your administrators and board members to the conference!
David: 10 Principles for Principals by Ryan Bretag. Adapting to Change by Will Richardson.
Rick: Leading the Shift Leading and Managing Change
Andy: PD Success Story Who is Interviewing Whom? Rising Sun Book Review’s on Change Management

Sign Off:

* Next show will be the start of season two  as we pick up in September from Bangkok, Thailand from Jeff’s new abode. David continues to shift along from Hsinchu, Taiwan.
* We will be expand on previous discussions of teacher practitioners sharing practical methods to shift our schools starting from our classrooms. We will continue other discussions connected to the big picture process of shifting our schools.
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.

Technorati Tags: Barriers, Change, Leadership, Shifting Our Schools, Transition

As far as I know we’re the first conference to release a mp3 audio ad on the Internet for use in podcasts and other audio media. …and that’s just the beginning of firsts for this years conference. You will not want to miss it!

Register here

Technorati Tags: learn2cn, learning2008cn

Chris O’Neal, educational leader and consultant, joined David and Jeff for tonight’s show.

Essential Question

Your Standards or Mine?

David> See his blog post.

Jeff> We don’t have standards for paper and pencils so why would we need them for technology? Aren’t we working with teachers to help them reach their subject area standards with the help of technology?

Take away from the discussion> The higher order rich NETS are helping frame the conversation with administrators as they talk about learning in their buildings. What is another name for “standards” when we talk about the NETS as learning outcomes we want integrated across the curriculum.

Blog Posts of the Week

Jeff: See his 3 posts on having standards for technology: 1 2 3
Chris: Bionic Teaching
David: Practical Theory

Sign Off

* Next show is Thursday June 12th at 7 PM Shanghai time.
* Our guest will be Rick Pierce of Rising Sun Consultants, Andy Torris from Shanghai American School and Struan Robinson from International School Bangkok.
* Essential Question for the show: What stalls the shift?
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.

Technorati Tags: SOS, Standards

Show Notes:

Kim’s blog: http://hockeymomblog.blogspot.com/

Patti’s blog: http://torchgirl2002.blogspot.com

Sherry’s blog: http://shegstrom-ed5160.blogspot.com/

Collaborative Wiki project: http://etwb.wetpaint.com

Kim’s Wiki project with her school: http://web2-0andtechnology.wetpaint.com/

Kim’s Animoto project: http://animoto.com/play/IeKe6ZOXxeAy23wA9uKQiQ

Technorati Tags: animoto, blogspot, PSU, wetpaint

Kim Cofino, Justin Medved and Dennis Harter joined Jeff and David for tonight’s show.

Essential Question

How do we connect technology and classroom instruction seemlessly?
David: See his blog post.

Jeff:

Take away from the discussion-

-Big move in their library in the elementary now called the Learning Hub at ISB. Merging and bringing together many ideas and strategies for what libraries will be in the future.
-They fully integrate the technology skills into the curriculum. No stand alone technology classes in elementary and one in MS.
-Just in Time support.
-New Literacy Wiki
-21st ISB Literacy

Blog Posts of the Week:

Jeff: Connectivism Sentiments on Common Sense

David: Transliteracy: The Digital Hub

Kim: Educational Origami

Justin: Moving at the Speed of Creativity Thinking Allowed

Dennis: Always Learning

Sign Off

* Next show is Monday May 26th at 7:00 PM Shanghai time.
* Our guest will be Chris O’Neal of Edutopia’s Spiral Notebook.
* Essential Question for the show: Your standards or mine?
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.

Technorati Tags: SOS, Technology Integration

Dave Navis, a 5th grade teacher from Hong Kong International School joined Jeff and David for tonight’s show.

Essential Question

When not to use technology?

David: See his post.

Jeff: See his recent post on his screen free week.

Dave Navis: See his post.

Blog Posts of the Week:

Jeff: Turn TV Off

David C: Jamie McKenzie’s FNO 500 Mile Project Leader Talk: Shift Happens- Now What?

Dave N: Alan November

Note: Don’t forget to register for the Learning 2.008 Conference. A new EdubloggerCon segment has been added to the program.

Sign Off

* Next show is Thursday May 16th at 7:00 PM Shanghai time.
* Our guests will be Dennis Harter, Justin Medved & Kim Cofino of the International School Bangkok.
* Essential Question for the show: How do we connect technology and classroom instruction seamlessly?
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.

Technorati Tags: Dave Navis, SOS

Michael Lambert, a Middle School teacher from Concordia International School in Shanghai joined Jeff and David for tonight’s show.

Essential Question

How to go deeper in student learning? Why go deeper?

David: See his blog post.

Jeff: Engage student and allow them to be nodes of information.

Take away from the discussion-

Mike’s 5 Strategies for Deeper Learning:

1. Go one to one with laptops so students have access to information to answer their questions. Let’s students “rewind”, go back to information when they need to further their understanding.
2. Project-based Learning: cross discipline the learning in real world applications. Example: Mike’s class visited a bike shop which connected economics, science, math and community building. They also went to a landfill, about learned alternative fuels and made further connections to being better citizens of the Earth.
3. Visuals- let the images tell the story. Strong connection to student brains. Evokes the emotion which brings attention which drives learning. Using graphs. How to filer the information, make meaning of it. Media Literacy.
4. Build in multi-sensory experiences. Get the kids outside the classroom and engage in field trips, real world–new brain experiences. These are deeper. Sometimes means making mistakes, being uncomfortable which leads to learning.
5. Teachers need to let go. Let the kids be more in control. We need to be the coach. We can be co-learners.

Inquiry. Everyone provides questions. Help students take their passions and questions to design question to research and then come up with more questions that they want to answer.

Make connections across the curriculum then lead to questions and further applications that combine subject areas. Cannot be narrow with our curriculum. Ready to go in different directions.

We need to really focus on teaching students to be learners. If they are truly going to be independent life long learners, they have to have the skills to be active learners.

What does a shifted school look like?

Jeff: What is a Shifted School? A school that understands that learning is a 24/7 activity and engages students in THEIR spaces to learn. A school that instead of forcing student to come to them to learn, they go to them and create learning opportunities where the students are. They use tools that are familiar to the students, that engage them in the learning process and allow them to not only connect nodes of information, but also always them and teaches them to be a node as well.

David: What shifted looks like see 21st Century Schools & his post on the topic. School 2.0 wiki by Steve Hargadon as a place to read opinions on what shifted schools look like and add your opinion. And listen to episode 8 where Brent Loken talks about Hsinchu International School.

Mike: If you are using strategies for deeper learning and helping kids make connections, you are really focusing on learning which is what shifted schools are all about. We need to look at our pre-service teacher programs to shift them where teachers learn teaching 2.0 strategies while taking part in mentoring programs to get them up to speed.

Blog Posts of the Week:

Jeff: Remote Access A Difference Mark’s EdTech Learning is Messy

David: See Margaret’s comment for SOS episode 3.

Sign Off

* Next show is Wednesday April 30th at 8:00 PM Shanghai time. Note: This is a different day and time than our usual show.
* Our guest will be David Navis of Hong Kong International School.
* Essential Question for the show: When not to use technology?
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.

Technorati Tags: Deep Learning, SOS

As my time winds down here at SAS I find myself reflecting on the past three years and keep asking myself:

Did I leave a mark?

I think we all go through this and we all want this on some level. We want to know that our institution is better off because we were there. That somewhere we left a mark on a student, on the organization, or on fellow teachers. I think it’s a natural human feeling to reflect and hope that you have had a lasting positive effect at your workplace.

Last year I introduced blogging to SAS. A year later we have close to 700 student blogs/web sites and we’re closing in on 200 teacher blogs/websites. I say blogs/websites because I do believe the two are different and the way in which a user decides to use the space they have been given is up to them.

Last year we saw the blogs be “another thing” that we were doing at our school. This year thanks to some leaders in the classroom the blogs at certain grades have become just what we do.

Our middle school was been moving to a Student-Led Conference (SLC) format over the past two years. Personally I think it’s the only way to hold conferences with parents as it puts the student at the center of the learning process (what a concept). My last three years in the classroom I ran SLCs and at my last school in Saudi Arabia was head of a committee that saw us implement SLCs K-12 in our school (my lasting moment at that school).

(An article I wrote in 2002 on Student-Led Conferences as part of my Master’s Degree)

Student-Led Conference are usually built around a portfolio created by the student. This year our 8th grade team with the help of Amanda DeCardy (8th Grade Math teacher, and next year a technology integrator for the school) set out to use the blogs as a place for student to produce, upload, and reflect on work in their classrooms. Essentially creating an e-portfolios.
Early in the year I sat down with the 8th grade team for about an hour and we discussed how students could organize their blogs using categories. 8th grade was a great year to start this project as the year before in 7th grade all of the students were exposed to blogging in their technology class which was taught by no other than…..me.

The students already had a fundamental understanding of blogging before the year began. The teachers then had the responsibility to help the students create an organizational structure on their blogs. One that would work for both class work and random reflections as well as for an e-portfolio. Each student with their advisory teacher (students have an advisory class that meets every other day in which the portfolios are created and maintained) set up an organization structure that worked for them and their blog.

This was the school’s first year using blogs as an e-portfolio platform but we also realized that not everything has to be done with technology so the Student-Led Conferences this year are a blended model of using both the blog as a way to reflect and a notebook portfolio.

Yesterday I talked with Amanda to see if we could get a student and their parents to let us record their Student-Led Conference to share with others both in and out of our school. For our school this will become a training video and at the same time allows us to share the great work our students are doing at our school.

If you have questions about the set up, the format or the use of Student-Led Conferences you can e-mail me or leave a comment below. Amanda is also willing to answer questions as well.

The one thing that I ask is that if you use this video at your school, or if you enjoy watching this very personal experience for a student that you PLEASE leave him a comment on his blog. He took a risk (dragging his family along with him). The least we can do is leave him a comment knowing the impact this video has had on you and your school.

Thank you Alexi and the Msays’ family for allowing us to share this with the world.

My hope and vision for the blogs at SAS is this:

1.That they will be used as an e-portfolio platform for all students so that when a student leaves SAS whether in 9th grade to go to another school or when they graduate that they have a record of their learning that was shared with the world.

2.That teachers will continue to find innovative ways to use blogs for learning. E-Porfolios are just one aspect of the use of this very powerful and open platform. The ability to share knowledge with the world and receive feedback is a powerful learning journey.

3.That in two years time every student 5-12 has a school based blog that is part of their learning platform and is an embedded part of their schooling.

Technorati Tags: Amanda DeCardy, SAS, SLC, Student-Led Conferences

Brent Loken, the Director of Curriculum and Innovation at Hsinchu International School (HIS) joined Jeff and David for tonight’s show.

Brent has a Web site and a blog where you can read more about his ideas.

Essential Question

How to Shift?

David> See his blog post for his Top 10 list of steps to take to shift.

Jeff> We need to think about the effect of small, start up schools like HIS and how they might bypass the traditional schools to offer the 21st century learning that our international corporate parents are realizing their children need.

Take away from the discussion>

-It is usually an evolutionary approach in most schools for them to slowly make the shift to School 2.0.
-So much more difficult to shift schools with history and culture that won’t adapt. But we cannot stop our efforts!
-If you are fortunate to be at a small school or one just starting up, you have a much better chance of getting everyone of like minds and beliefs onboard to take a more radical approach.
-”Rethink everything”. “Needs to be a revolution”. “Be bold”.
-The curriculum is not fast enough to keep up with the learning community of a shifted school. Must be ready to adapt it as your school adapts to the learning needs of its students.
-Possibility of competition from start-up schools? Just like in the business world.
-Healthy competition in schools provides more choices for parents and to choose from.

Blog Posts of the Week

Jeff: New Literacy Leader Talk
The Learning 2.008 Conference in Shanghai!

Brent: Arts and Smarts article Whole Child article
A Mind at A Time by Mel Levine

David: Powerful Learning Practices
9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift
Leading the Shift in International Education

Sign Off

* Next show is Thursday April 18th at 7 PM Shanghai time.
* Our guest will be Michael Lambert of Concordia International School in Shanghai.
* Essential Question for the show: How to go deep in learning? Why go deep?
* Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.

Technorati Tags: Learning 2.008, SOS