The first time I heard of Leadership Day was last year. I had only just started blogging and felt like there was not much I could contribute. When I saw Scott McLeod’s post on it this year I felt like I might have something to add to the conversation. I spent hours thinking of something brilliant to say, but there were no flashes of inspiration. Then it hit me! Administrators need to know more about the benefits of social networking and how it can be used to help their teachers stay on top of the latest developments and trends in education.

I started developing my personal learning network (PLN) in April 2008. I joined the NECC Ning and immediately started making connections with people who were attending the National Educational Educating Computing Conference in San Antonio. I also joined Twitter and that is when I really saw my PLN grow. It was not long before I was making true connections with people around the world. There are a few people in my PLN that I work so closely with that I feel like we are coworkers.

In April I decided to test the power of my favorite social networking site, Twitter. I wanted to see if it was possible for the few hundred people in my network to work together to do something good for someone. I decided to ask for donations to help send a teacher to NECC. I asked Richard Byrne to be to the “newbie” and he gladly agreed. Within two weeks we met the $1500 goal. My plan had worked!

Stop and think for a minute about the implications that this has on learning. I am a teacher in rural western Nebraska who was able to make a difference because of my personal learning network. I was able to help send a teacher from Maine to a technology conference in Washington DC. People who knock social networking need to hear this story.

Can you imagine a student at your school harnessing the power of Twitter to change the world? I would like to ask you to start looking into the positive aspect of social networking. Teachers and students who are networked have so many more learning opportunities each day. No less than 99% of my professional learning takes place on Twitter. Before you totally write off what social networking can do in your schools for your teachers and students, please take some time to explore what it means to those of us who rely on it every day.

Please read this post with the lenses that our students bring to the table. Does this post resemble your school? your grade? your child?

Hello, this is my first day in Kindergarten and I want share what happened in my day. My teacher used a flip video and filmed us as we said our name and our favorite color or number. Then we all got to watch the video, I even learned some names of my classmates. I was shy at first, but I asked my teacher if we would watch the videos again and she said each day she would record something we did such as learning about the calendar or numbers or learning our letters. I wonder what will happen next year?

In first and second grades our teachers set up our classroom computers so we can report on the weather at our school. He introduced us to another school where students have very different weather. Then, he showed us on Google Earth where we live and where our new school buddies live. It was half-way around the earth.

Welcome to third grade where we are using VoiceThread as our book talk. I liked drawing my picture of Chapter 3, my teacher posted it and now my friends are leaving me a message about what they think. I can leave messages to my friends too. When I tell my Grandpa he will leave me a message as well.

The part I like most about 4th grade is getting to practice my Internet Safety skills before we get to start our research projects. My favorite research kid site is Facts4ME . Two retired teachers started this site and when I get done with my project I am going to email them to tell them how easy their site is to use.

Finally, in 5th grade I get to work on my own blog at ThinkQuest. It is a closed site only teachers and other schools can view the pages. My teachers share more about Digitial Citizenship and how to be safe and I get to practice as I make my own blog pages and share with my friends. My favorite thing to do is ask survey questions and look at the answers my friends give back to me.

In 6th grade our projects involve using more skills and media. I really like the podcasts we made about our FolkTales, it was a little hard to talk slowly and loudly enough. I like that I could share these with my friends and family.

In 7th grade, our language arts teachers shared how to use an online writing program. That means that we type our essays or writing prompts into the program, and when we publish, the program helps guide our spelling, our vocabulary use and even grades us on our story. Before my teacher even sees it I get to fix things on my own.

In 8th grade my teachers have us answering questions in our forum in our Moodle site and we also work in a Ning. When we work online it is like we aren’t even doing school work. I like it best when I can share with my friends outside of school, we keep working on school work when we don’t have to.

In 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade my friends and I are in constant communication, even though we can’t bring cell phones to school, we do. I like to stay in touch with my friends during the day and I send quick text messages so I can find out what happens in their class. We take pictures of our classrooms and put them on Facebook. We take video with our cell phones and post them to YouTube. Oh, that is one great thing, our school doesn’t block YouTube, the bad news, they still block Facebook. If we use a proxy, sometimes we can get on our Facebook pages during the school day. I hear my teachers say all the time that I am a digital native, I don’t know if that is good or bad and I wonder what that makes my teachers. When we ask to do our projects with film or recordings, my teachers say we don’t have time, they have to cover the content, whatever that means? Sometimes I wish I could go back to my early grades, we had more time, we had more projects, we tried many different kinds of learning.

How does your school/grade/child look through these lenses?

Resources you might just want to use to transform your school!
Kindergarten- thanks to Maria Knee
Grade 1/2 - thanks to Kathy Cassidy
Grade 3, thanks to Alice Mercer
Grade 4 thanks to Bob Sprankle
Grade 5 my wonderful 5th graders and thanks WJHS 5th grade teachers Thinkquest.org
Grade 6 - a great example Frog Prince
Grade 7 wiki thanks to Beth Goodwin
Grade 8 NING, thanks to my 8th grade LA teachers, Bruce Peloquin and Julie Esch, and all 115 students
Grades 9,10,11,12
English wiki with a blog and student comments Anne Tommaso
Fine Arts teacher wiki Melissa Noack and her student gallery
Nokomis HS giving all graduating seniors their own domain name Kern Kelley

Comments for this post are real comments taken from student and staff conversations. What do you hear at your school?

With PixelPipe on my iPhone we should be able to mobile post multiple photos at once “on the go” to both Flickr and Facebook from the islands.

I decided I didn’t want to clutter my Twitter feed with a week’s worth of personal family/travel posts, so that’s why I’ll be “just” posting to Learning Signs and Facebook next week. This will be our first family trip WITHOUT laptops since June of 2008 when we went camping in New Mexico. Will we survive?! That forecast is sunny, I think!

Our bags are packed, we’re ready to go…..

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blog, iphone, ipod, mobile, post, twitter, facebook, ping

What locations / resources do you recommend for faculty to place their digital stories for use in higher ed?

Before I provide some links, I’ll suggest the first question faculty can/should address is how “public” and browsable do they want the video(s) to be? To limit the viral potential of videos as well as the distribution/dissimenation of videos, faculty (and others) can post video in a custom Ning.com website which can be created free. While people CAN browse to and embed videos posted to a Ning site, my experience has been videos posted to a Ning site do not have the viral potential of other sites like YouTube. This can be advantageous in some respects, since Ning-posted videos are therefore less likely to attract troll comments. Commenting on Ning videos is controlled by the access limits you create on your Ning site overall. We use a Ning site for our statewide oral history project, Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, and it works really well to moderate new members. Only members are permitted to comment on videos, and as a result have had virtually negligible issues with trolls.

If as wide a dissemination of the video(s) is desired, I recommend posting to YouTube. Check on the commenting options you can enable on your account and the video, and be sure to check up regularly. You can moderate comments, and in many cases that is a VERY good idea for YouTube videos. The YouTube channel of Kansas State University professor Michael Wesch is an examplar for faculty use of YouTube. His video, “An anthropological introduction to YouTube,” was posted a year ago has over 1 million views and over 1000 comments. It was presented to the Library of Congress and posted to YouTube on July 26, 2008.

I’m not sure how someone can go about posting videos to YouTube now that are longer than 10 minutes. If you know the answer to this, please let me (and other readers) know by commenting.

Other video sharing sites faculty might consider using are EduBlogs.tv, TeacherTube (though I think content there is mainly K-12 focused), Blip.tv, and Vimeo. I really like Dotsub because of the language transcription features of the site. We started using Dotsub in 2008 for the K-12 Online Conference.

WikiPedia has an exhaustive list of video sharing websites you might check out. I personally like using Flickr for video sharing, but clips must be less than 90 seconds long. Google Video was a GREAT option for higher education video sharing, but my understanding is you can no longer post videos there. Unlike YouTube, Google Video didn’t have a 10 minute “normal” limit on video length. It also let you keep videos private if desired, but you could share the link to videos with others and they didn’t have to login to access them. Bummer that ended.

iTunes University is another option for posting videos, but your institution has to have an iTunesU account and I’m pretty sure the “gatekeeping” arrangements for iTunesU portals are quite different than what you’ll experience just setting up an account on YouTube or Blip. Still, I think iTunesU portals do offer hosting for content so this could be an option depending on where you teach. iTunesU content is not transcoded to flash and embeddable, but it is readily subscribable for use with iTunes and iPods/iPhones.

Does anyone else have advice for Dr. Deihl and other higher education faculty interested in posting web videos?

Technorati Tags:
video, youtube, post, university, college, faculty, options

Today, we’re launching a feature on Image Search to help you find images that you can use for free, while respecting the wishes of artists and creators. This feature allows you to restrict your Image Search results to images that have been tagged with licenses like Creative Commons, making it easier to discover images from across the web that you can share, use and even modify. Your search will also include works that have been tagged with other licenses, like GNU Free Documentation license, or are in the public domain.

I still think I like the interfaces of CompFight and FlickrStorm for image searches better than Google, and I REALLY like the “save in my tray” feature of FlickrStorm for research use (archiving the URLs for later inclusion in a works cited / bibliography) but this is a good step forward for Google Image search.

Hat tip to Sherri Pankurst for letting me know about this.

Technorati Tags:
cc, commons, copyright, creative, creativecommons, google, search, image, images

Myth: Deleting a picture or video from your webpage deletes it forever.
Myth: Deleting a picture or video from your digital camera or phone deletes it forever.
Myth: Deleting a picture or video from your computer deletes it forever.
Myth: Nobody else can ever gain access to your private webpage.
Myth: Broadcasting from your webcam is always private and never being recorded.
Myth: Your actions while using the internet, cell phones and other digital technologies has no effect on anyone else including your friends and family.

These are very important myths to debunk related to the topics of digital citizenship, Internet safety, and online ethics. The institute defines “sextcasting” as:

… the process by which an individual(s) performs actions of a risqué or sexually explicit nature via a (live) webcam (or webcast), digital (image or video) camera, or other form of digital technology and sends and/or saves the content of their actions using digital technologies (i.e. a computer, camera card, email, social website, message board, etc).

Is a discussion of the dangers of sextcasting and the myths listed above part of your school’s health curriculum for the current school year? These are not likely topics most adults (including teachers) want to address with kids, but they are important and real none-the-less.

I don’t have any other information about this Institute beyond the contact info they provide and the info about organization co-founder and Executive Director, Richard Guerry, listed on his Ning page. The group is setup as a nonprofit soliciting contributions, and seeks to promote community alliances as well as other outreach methods. Unfortunately, to nominate your site to be listed with the organization’s “seal of approval,” you have to send them $21 US.

I agree we need to be talking about and addressing these issues in our homes, our churches, our schools, and our community organizations. I am quite reticent, however, to embrace the “our technology can give you complete peace of mind” approach reflected on the IROC2 and Meeville product page.

I definitely agree we need to promote perceptions of digital accountability and continuing conversations about these issues, but I disagree that any one product or combination of products can produce “complete peace of mind” when it comes to Internet dangers and temptations. See my posts on “OpenDNS” and Internet Safety more generally for more thoughts along these lines. My wiki curriculum for Internet Safety includes lots of other suggestions and links related to these topics.

The following five minute IROC2 public service announcement shares a vision with which I DO agree: Being proactive in our conversations about digital media and content. As the speaker says, we need to move beyond simply talking about the dangers of ACCESSING pornographic content online, and also discuss the dangers of people (including kids) CREATING and SHARING that content online.

Sexting, Online Safety & Responsibility 2.1C PSA

Common Sense Media remains my personal, favorite nonprofit organization focusing on the topics of Internet safety, parent education, media literacy, digital ethics, etc. See their newly published whitepaper, “Digital Literacy and Citizenship in the 21st Century: Educating, Empowering, and Protecting America’s Kids,” which:

…proposes eight key initiatives to develop a national digital literacy program and integrate it into our educational curriculum.

Technorati Tags:
education, ethics, health, safety, school, web2, internet, sexting, sextcasting, sexcasting

Show Notes:

1. Presentation slides on SlideShare
2. Powerful Ingredients wiki links / resources
3. Powerful Ingredients blog
4. Powerful Ingredients book chapters (in draft form, written in Google Documents)
5. Information about scheduling this presentation as a video conference with the CILC
6. Tandberg Connections Program
7. Wesley Fryer on Twitter
8. Karen Montgomery on Twitter
9. Karen Montgomery’s blog, Gomeric Hill

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1. Social Bookmarking
2. Collaborative Document Writing
3. Synchronous Conferencing
4. Online Photo Sharing
5. Minimal Click Digital Storytelling

I recorded the audio from the session and will try to publish that soon in my podcast channel. The Keynote slide deck is available on SlideShare, although we only got through half the 91 slides during the 1.5 hour videoconference.

During the class, one of the participants asked how to best cope with TMI: Too Much Information? How do we cope, and how do we help our students and other teachers cope? Kevin Washburn wrote about this yesterday in his post, “TMI! Information Overload and Learning.” He observed:

We can maintain a quick and steady pace when we enter information into a database or spreadsheet, simply pushing “return” or “tab” to move to the next entry, but the brain is not a computer. It has limits. Data funneled endlessly through the senses prevents the processing required for learning… But TMI floods the brain with data, preventing comprehension and elaboration, and thus, preventing learning. Jonah Lehrer suggests the danger of too much information is “it can actually interfere with understanding.” Why? Because the brain has a do-it-yourself attitude toward learning.

Kevin cites Daniel Willingham who observes:

Good teachers design lessons in which students unavoidably think about the meaning or central point.

Karen Montgomery and I are writing a book on “Powerful Ingredients for Blended Learning” precisely because it IS so easy to be overcome by TMI when we face the multiplicity of web 2.0 tools. Consider the current visual list of education applications from the website “All My Favs.” I’m overwhelmed just looking at these choices!

How do you deal with TMI? I certainly don’t have the answers here. I want to be a GMail Ninja, but I’m a LOONNGGG way away from successfully managing just email currently. Google Reader, Diigo/Delicious, my blog and Twitter account are my best friends when it comes to filtering, accessing, sharing and collaborating with digital information today– but I’m the first to admit things ARE overwhelming and it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the sea of information. Here are the best suggestions I came up with today in reference to TMI:

1. Start small and take small steps. Social bookmarking and collaborative document writing are great places to begin.
2. Remember not to focus on tools and jargon. As David Jakes says well, online tools provide “a new context to read, write and communicate.” Focus on the communication, not the jargon.
3. Focus on examples which can help learners experience personal epiphanies related to digital tools and collaboration. What you’re looking for are comments like, “You mean I can…..” or “Does that mean when I teach ______ we could ______?” Those are signs of “comprehension” and “elaboration” which Kevin Washburn referenced in his post yesterday. Without those signs, we may risk overwhelm due to TMI.
4. Taking time to discuss, ask questions, and have conversations is essential. There are always LOTS more topics to discuss than we have time to address in a face-to-face meeting or class. We need to be “ok” with not “covering all the material” in a face-to-face learning space. It’s better to address fewer topics and have more meaningful, personally relevant conversations about those topics than “cover it all” and leave everyone feeling like they just got squashed by a steamroller.

This is one of the best aspects of “blended learning,” we no longer have to “cover it all in class.” After class, we have asynchronous ways to share content and interact.

Dr Richard Swenson’s book, “Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives” is one of the best books I’ve read to date on dealing with information overload. I wrote about this in the following past posts, related to this topic:

1. Reflections on interruptions, stress, and craziness (March 2004)
2. Snow Days are the Best Days (Feb 2005)
3. More recess, fewer tests, structured activities, and homework please! (Oct 2006)
4. Creativity, Interruptions, Boundaries and Leadership (Jan 2009)

What tips do you have for dealing with TMI, both personally and as you work with students and teachers?

Hat tip to Shannon Force for telling me about AllMyFavs several months ago. More information about this videoconference PD opportunity (including a scheduling form) is available on the CILC website.

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blog, blogging, education, google, pd, professionaldevelopment, school, schools, social, student, tandberg, teacher, videoconference, tmi, information, overload, cope, coping, reader, bookmarks, diigo, delicious, learner

I had previously been under the impression that every iTunes account HAD to have a credit card attached to it. That perception was WRONG! By either initiating the iTunes account setup after entering the number of an iTunes gift card (which is what we did today) or after choosing to “buy” / download a FREE iTouch application from the iTunes Store (as Tony recommends) you can choose “NONE” for the payment/credit card option on the iTunes account setup form.

By not having a credit card attached to the account, my daughter can use and manage her own iTunes account funds (which come from gift cards) and we don’t have to worry about her accidentally or intentionally making credit/debit card purchases which deduct from her parents’ bank accounts!

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ipod, itouch, itunes, store, account, kids, creditcard, credit, card

Fast forward two years, to yesterday morning as my son and I drove from Washington D.C. to visit some friends living along the Potomac River in eastern Virginia. Using my Sierra Wireless 3G cell phone data card connected to my MacBook Pro laptop, he watched a video STREAMED live from Netflix almost the entire trip.

What’s happened in the space of just two years? Cell phone data network connectivity has improved in the United States - a LOT. We’re still not as fast as we should be, and I think we’re still WAY too expensive, but the connectivity has gotten a LOT better. After we crossed the Potomac from Maryland into Virginia, we lost 3G connectivity and he wasn’t able to watch any more of the movie.

Still, for most of the trip he was enjoying high speed Internet access in the car, and I found that pretty amazing.

Technorati Tags:
data, travel, wireless, netflix, car, 3G, sierrawireless, att, network

What this means is that (1) it is now the worst postwar NBER recession in terms of increasing unemployment rate but (2) not quite the worst in terms of the rate defined by the time series trough, barely. If initial jobless claims continue to come in over 400,000 per week, I would not be surprised at all by another half-point jump in July to a rate over 10 percent.

In our conversations yesterday about the economy, Tim described what we are living through economically as a car wreck in progress, in slow motion.

I think this is a good metaphor. We read headlines with pundits saying the worst is over, things are about to rebound, despite employment numbers things are getting better, but I’m doubtful we’re out of the woods. The factors which led our economy to our present recession were not created overnight, and a “resolution” to this crisis is not going to come fast either. Personal debt is clearly a huge factor, and individuals are not going to dig themselves out of the consumer debt pits which have helped fuel consumer sales in the past decade anytime soon. In his metaphor of an economic car crash in slow motion, Tim noted that cars are still colliding, the wreck is still happening, and we’re living in the midst of it like an observer watching in slow motion. This makes me think of a matrix-style slow motion collision scene.

Our economic hard times are not over, and it seems doubtful we’ve even turned the corner on the recession. After just finishing reading “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” this week, I’m certainly thankful to not be living in the Oklahoma panhandle in the 1930s. Our economic plight today is a far cry from those dark days. I don’t think we’ve turned the corner toward real recovery, however.

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economics, economy, unitedstates, timkane, tim, kane, kauffman, recession, improvement

As spam messages go, this one wasn’t horrific since it dealt with credit cards, but still it is unwanted content that should NOT be in our learning community.

As a Drupal site administrator, after choosing to EDIT and DELETE that specific post I changed the default new user settings so administrative approval is required for all new member sign-ups on the entire site.

I next checked the Drupal user list, and saw there were a bunch of accounts which were created by spammers in the past few months. These were clearly spammers because when I clicked to view their account details, they were either gibberish or the fields were empty. People joining a learning community and wanting to actually share/participate on a legitimate basis will typically share SOME type of personal information about their contact info and interests in the site/project. Spammers usually won’t.

I deleted those accounts next.

If you’re administering a site on Ning, you can require new member administrative approval by choosing MANAGE, NETWORK PRIVACY and clicking the checkbox at the bottom of the page.

Hopefully these privacy settings will stave off further spam comments on the Storychasers Drupal site. Later in the summer I plan to set aside some time to work on both content and design for the site. I am considering using a service like Rent A Coder or Get a Freelancer to find someone to help with the coding/design work. I learned at EduBloggerCon09 that Mark Wagner successfully used “Rent A Coder” to have the application “Google Docs Mass Uploader” created. The coder he hired works in India, and the total cost for the software project was around $300. Outsourcing in action!

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learning, spam, moderate, moderation, drupal, ning, community

By default, Audioboo posts both the iPhone photo you select as well as your location on the planet (via Google Maps) on the post which is created after you post a recording. This is the photo and Google Map result from Alexander’s report yesterday from Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C.

For a recording like this, at a public venue, location information is most likely fine to share. If you’re recording with Audioboo from your house, a grandparent’s house, or another location you’re not keen on sharing directly with the world, consider deleting the location information from that Audioboo. Audioboo account settings do not presently support levels of privacy access, but this is an active topic in the Audioboo forums.

Audioboo now lets you connect your account to both Twitter and Facebook for auto-posting. I just use the Twitter feature, since I use a Facebook application to auto-post my Twitter feed there.

If you’re new to Audioboo, check out this video introduction “Walking through Audioboo” to get started.

Walking through Audioboo from Mark Rock on Vimeo.

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google, googlemaps, record, audio, audioboo, privacy, location, maps, edit, travel

The following UStream video was recorded the evening of July 3, 2009, at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. At the start we had some audio feedback for a few seconds because of a second Ustream window I had opened, but after closing that window the feedback problem was resolved.

The video runs 34 minutes. Since I had my Macbook Pro laptop and AT&T 3G data card, I figured we might as well give this a try, and I was pleased with the connectivity speed. Unfortunately the US Park Service would not let us hold an “open laptop” on the memorial at the level of the Lincoln statue, but we were still able to show and discuss the memorial (as well as other things we’ve seen this week in the D.C. area) from the platform below the upper memorial steps.

It was fun to be able to share this video as storychasers!

Technorati Tags:
#necc09, broadcast, history, iste, laptop, lincoln, mall, necc, necc09, ustream, washington, dc, memorial, national

I titled it, “Lincoln in 60 Seconds.” Video submissions for the GTA can be a maximum of 60 seconds in length. Mine’s exactly a minute long! Unfortunately I look like a shadow for the video segment from Ford’s Theater, but oh well. Next time, perhaps, I’ll bring supplementary lighting! I also said “Lincoln in 30 seconds” instead of “60 seconds” in the intro, but I realized that too late to re-record.

If you want to apply for the GTA August 5th in Colorado, you have until midnight, tonight to submit your application via a Google Form.

This video was edited from the porch of Robert E. Lee’s home (Arlington House) at Arlington National Cemetery today, and uploaded to YouTube via my 3G card. Mobile computing can be a good thing!

Technorati Tags:
google, history, gta, lincoln

(Mobile blogged with Wordpress for iPhone in line for tickets at the Washington Monument.)

We were last able to eat at Zed’s in March of 2008 during the CoSN conference.

This evening, the food and beverages were even better than we remembered in the past! Note how much better this photo taken with the iPhone GS is, compared to the above image taken with my 1st generation iPhone. Wow. The subject has gotten more handsome too!

Alexander even let me record a short video about this scrumptious food, eaten with delicious sponge bread!

Technorati Tags:
#necc09, necc, necc09, washington, washingtondc, food, zeds, ethiopian, ethiopia

Here’s the full story.

I had a wonderful opportunity last night to join about ten educators from Crescent Public Schools, which is one of the most innovative districts in Oklahoma, for dinner. They’ve just immersed (last year) all their high school students and teachers with laptops in a 1:1 initiative using Macbooks. We went to Phillips Seafood restaurant (an amazing place) and were headed back “home” for the evening on the metro. I was the last one to get on the train, and I guess I was a little slow. The metro door started to close just as I got on the train, and it actually closed on my backpack as well as my right arm.

The announcer’s voice came one saying the train was leaving, but my backpack and arm were stuck in the door. I had visions of the train starting to race into a tunnel, and both my backpack and arm being sheared off. The moment was a bit stressful, to say the least.

Finally I got my arm out of the backpack and door, and tried to pull my backpack into the train. It wouldn’t budge. Since it couldn’t come in, and I didn’t want it to be destroyed by the tunnel sticking out of the train, I decided to push it out of the train door and launch it onto the outside platform. I was able to do this, and the train door completely closed. Then it immediately opened.

I was able to jump out of the train, grab my backpack (containing my laptop) from the platform, and jump back into the train. The doors closed again, and we were off. Whew!

This experience may have been the ultimate test and testament to the durability of my MacBook Pro laptop, my Incase neoprene laptop sleeve as well as my Tripp-Lite padded backpack. The only damage my laptop appears to have sustained is a small bend in the metal to the right of my ethernet port and by my video adapter port. The video adapter still works, and it looks like the ethernet should as well, so I’d consider this a MAJOR close call with laptop damage. Disaster thinly averted. (Of course the fact that my arm wasn’t sheared off by a speeding subway train and something hanging out from a tunnel wall is the biggest good news.)

For future reference, DC metro trains have a red button above each doorway, as you can see in the image below which I snapped this morning. Pressing the button opens the doors, I think. That would have been something good to know about 10 pm last night.

The first photo in this post, btw, is a screenshot from the free iPhone/iTouch app, DC Metro Map. Hat tip to Karen Montgomery for letting me know Metro map applications are available for the iPhone!

Technorati Tags:
#necc09, iste, laptop, necc, necc09, pro, train, metro, accident, macbook, macbookpro, sleeve, backpack, closecall, stress

Wednesday’s keynote wraps up your conference experience with an inspirational look into the 10+ years’ worth of technology-supported projects initiated by Freedom Writers founder Erin Gruwell. Born and raised in California, Gruwell has been inspiring students and teachers alike since beginning her teaching career in 1994.

By fostering an educational philosophy that valued and promoted diversity, she transformed her students’ lives. She encouraged them to rethink rigid beliefs about themselves and others, to reconsider daily decisions, and to rechart their futures. With Erin’s steadfast support, her students shattered stereotypes to become critical thinkers, aspiring college students, and citizens for change. They even dubbed themselves the “Freedom Writers”—in homage to civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders”—and published a book.

In January 2007, Paramount Pictures released “Freedom Writers,” a film based on this remarkable story, featuring Hilary Swank as Erin.

2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the original Freedom Writers project, and at NECC, Erin will connect the ways in which her ongoing work with the Freedom Writers Foundation has promoted digital citizenship through storytelling and has influenced teachers and students worldwide.

Freedom Writers Foundation
The Freedom Writers Diary
Film: Freedom Writers

Story of Maria Reyes inducted into a gang at age 11
- little girls like her could care less about a number 2 pencil and a scantron
- with more money, she could visit her daddy more often in prison
- repeated visits to juvenile hall
- she saw her life path options as VERY limited

Wanting her to understand we do not live in an “undeclared war”
- we don’t have to reach for weapons
- instead we can reach for pens
- I thought about Anne Frank
- I decided we would have a “toast for change” with sparkling Apple cider

Like so many teachers in our country, I had been brainwashed to teach to a test

Maria was teaching me a valuable lesson: teach to me, not to a test
- she said she wanted to change, not be pregnant by 15 like her mom, not go to prison like her dad

I’d like to bring you into my classroom in room 203
- share how a little girl was able to find her voice

Movie of Maria telling story of how she read “The Diary of Anne Frank”
- she didn’t think she had anything to relate to in that book
- every day she brought in new questions
- started to relate to Anne when things started to go bad
- I was able to link to that feeling of knowing the outside world was out there, but I just had this small connection to it
- from then on I wanted Anne to make it

One day Maria came in ad threw the book across the classroom, asked “Why didn’t you tell me?”
- I asked what? She said “you didn’t tell me she didn’t make it.”

Maria: I felt that same feeling of disappointment that I had felt with so many other disappointments in my life

Darius stood up and said: she did make it, because she wrote about it she is going to go on living even after she is dead
- that was real turning point
- that realization that writing makes you immortal, that was huge

Darius came up with an idea of getting lots of books in the library
- for so many kids who are transient, they may have missed out on show and tell

He learned that a woman who had helped save Anne is still alive, and thought they could write letters to her and she would come fly to the U.S. to come talk to 150 gangster students

Darius asked classmates to pony up cash to bring her from Amsterdam
- raising coins each day
- we sent 150 letters

She DID come from Amsterdam
- started talking about where she would stay, what we would feed her
- students repainted the graffiti covered walls of the school

Darius asked if he could be the MC of the event

Saw Maria holding her torn book (Diary of Anne Frank)
- she asked if we could get the book in Spanish because her mom wanted to read the book that changed her life

Darius who was so street tough, was deeply touched by this little, old lady telling this story about Anne

Most important thing she put into that attic was hope
- she looked at Darius and got very upset
- she said “No, I am not a hero. I simply did what I had to do because it was the right thing. Please make sure Anne’s death was not in vain.”

This made us realize perhaps we have a story, and someone would listen to us
- kids started talking about the stories they wanted to tell
- I made this desperate plea, my kids have no money, there are no computers in their homes, the librarian is afraid of my kids, they are afraid they will write on the keyboard and screen

If you tell a kid over and over again they are dumb and stupid, they will believe it
- so many people had stereotyped my kids they actually believed it
- that was a true until this one lady told my kids they were brilliant

If you don’t ask, you’ll never receive
- I was ready for a couple computers
- Two days later 36 computers arrived at my school
- it was like that new car smell
- My kids were wondering, “Are these for us?”

My kids wanted to have voice, they wanted to tell their story
- all of my kids could tell their story

As everyone began to write, I recognized those stories couldn’t be contained in room 203, in Long Beach

We decided to call ourselves the “Freedom Writers Diary”

Darius saw a video with the US secretary of Education
- asked if they could send their stories to them

Erin had just showed a video of civil rights leaders in 1950s and 1960s
- Darius wanted to take this message to Washington
- The sec of education would have to pay attention: this wasn’t about teaching to a test, this was about teaching to kids

I never envisioned that book would transcend our classroom, and become the #1 book
- all books sold, money was put into a fund to send all 150 of those students to colleg
- the first of their families to go to college

Right before we walked into the capitol we went into a juvenile hall
- they are treated like max security offenders
- people viewed those people and viewed them as bad because they had done bad things

Education is the only way to equalize an unfair playing field

you have a story

write your story down, give it to me, and I’ll take it there

Next thing we know, w

Being a dreamer, having that dream
- having kids who were written off, who were not supposed to make it

that blank screen gave them the power to become immortal

we walked into the halls of Congress
- Maria said, “Oh my God, there are so many old white men in here!” (with no script)

Maria was giving a face to millions of kids
- she recognized a man who had been a freedom writer
- he was a Congressman from Atlanta, Georgia
- he realized they had taken Freedom Writers as their name

If you teach 1, they will teach another

Yet again, just like the woman who had saved Anne Frank, the baton had been passed

So I wanted to create an organization that would teach teachers what they need to know, to reach and help each and every student that enters their classroom

150 teachers, from all over the nation, came to Long Beach and went through our boot camp
- Maria, Darius and others said come walk into our world
- doing bad things doesn’t make you a bad person
- if you tell a person they are dumb and stupid long enough they will believe it, imagine what will happen when you tell someone they are brilliant

THE POWER OF WORDS

last video in a virtual classroom with
- gave 150 teachers laptops from HP, software from Microsoft
- challenged them to tell their story
- we are underpaid, we are not validated
- help people realize our profession is a calling
- it could be a revolution, it is the only way to change society

These teachers realize education is not about a test, number 2 pencils, NCLB
- it is about reaching each child and believing each one can make it

Movie about the workshop for teachers, laptops provided by HP and Microsoft

THIS IS A TESTIMONY TO MANY THINGS. THE POWER OF WORDS. THE POWER OF HOPE. THE IMPORTANCE OF PASSIONATE TEACHING, LEADING AND LOVING. THE POWER OF STORIES. THE NEED TO ACT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF TELLING OUR STORIES. THE POWER OF VOICE. THE POWER OF 1:1 COMPUTING IN THE HANDS OF PASSIONATE CHANGE AGENTS. WOW.

NOW I’VE GOTTA GO BUY THE BOOK AND READ IT, AND SEE THE MOVIE. ERIN’S STORY REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF MARCO TORRES. LIKE MARCO, SHE’S A PASSIONATE EDUCATOR WHO IS CHANGING THE WORLD BY LOVING, NURTURING, MENTORING, CHALLENGING, AND SUPPORTING KIDS.

I AM INSPIRED. LET THE STORYCHASING BEGIN.

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Survey prior to the session using Google Forms

I am a former 5th grade teacher, last year as an independent consultant I visited 28 states and the US Virgin Islands

In 2001 I started using Palm Handhelds with my 5th graders
- we developed our own applications, and had applications for us
- a PBS affiliate came in and did a documentary about our class
- had lots of fun using handhelds for learning

2 years ago I spent 18 weeks working in the US Virgin Islands working with schools using iPod Touches
- palms had worked really well
- smaller devices were needed, great for smaller spaces

showing name of App from website
- http://mkaz.com/nametag/ lets you create a nametag on your iTouch!

URL shorteners are great, esp when using handheld devices

tr.im is an example

I enjoy using the Google Form Summary feature (FORM - SHOW SUMMARY)

My website: Learning in Hand, click iPods

Use the twitter tag #LIH

Handhelds
- Palm technology with stylus looks so ancient!
- portable, dependable, easy to troubleshoot, ulta-cool, battery life, multipmedia
- #1 reason iPod Touch is great is ALL those apps that are available
- easy to install from the App Store application
- you can also get to apps via the iTunes Store

In the Palm days it was harder, you had to HotSync
- didn’t always work
- example of contraction timer for pregnancy
- teacher who was pregnant had a funny

iTunes Store has a ‘as seen on TV’ section

There are LOTS more apps now
- it took Palm 10 years to get 30,000 apps
- today there are over 50,000 apps for the iTouch in less than 3 years
- this is AMAZING application

148apps.biz keeps track of app activity each day on the store
- perday 238 apps are added to the app store!
- 3,514 education apps today in the iTunes Store with that education category

18% of all aps are games/education entertainment

Way to NOT have a credit card in iTunes
- log out of your account
- go find a free App in the store
- click GET APP
- you will be prompted to create a new account
- THEN and ONLY then (when you are signing up to get a free app) you can get an account without putting in a credit card

THAT IS A HUGE TIP!
- you can also just use iTunes gift cards in the future to buy paid apps without a credit card

Another bugaboo: trying to understand syncing
- iTunes account syncs to 1 computer and iPod, that makes sense
- what about the classroom: multiple iPods?
- you can sync as many iPods as you want to 1 computer
- then you can sign in on up to 5 computers with 1 iTunes account
- Apple has this setup so if you buy the software once, you can sync it as many times as you want
- the system is not setup to take multiple payments for multiple devices

Web directories for apps:
- mobxlix
- AppShopper
- iEducation Apps Review

On my site I’ve setup Google Moderator site, now have 38 ideas from 31 people

tr.im/appvote

right now gFlash and Stanza are top

iPod Touch graphic

Google Application: you can use your voice if you have an attachable mic

Let’s see these Apps in action

For Language Arts
- Whiteboard
- 2 devices can share 1 whiteboard
- similar to an app we used to have on the Palm

For language arts I like to do a game called crosstalk
- write a word on the whiteboard
- another student thinks up a different word that is a synonym, perhaps better for elaboration

If you want a stylus, you have to get a special stylus for the iTouch

YouTube has tutorials about how to make your own styluses on the cheap

Next demo: Quickword
- good Word processor, still not fantastic on the mobile devices but this one is pretty good
- peer review together
- have students trade handhelds
- this apps lets you highlight words, make some bold (highlight HOT words red, highlight words that could be revised blue)
- then when we trade handhelds I can see what my peer reviewer thought was awesome, and what I need to improve
- in this case my peer reviewer hasn’t changed anything

Dictionary.com is a huge dictionary, several megabytes in size
- all downloaded, doesn’t require active Internet connection
- Thesaurus too!
- More than 275,000 definitions
- WARNING: they have those words that you know students will look up first!

Social Studies apps

great videos online that you want to put online, YouTube may be blocked
- you can install and sync videos
- if YouTube is accessible there is a YouTube app right on the iTouch

To get it off of YouTube and convert to MP4 so iPod touch will use
- example: Schoolhouse Rock video
- Trick: just add the world “kick” in front of “youtube” in the URL
- on that website (KickYouTube.com) I can directly download the site
- be aware this could be against Google’s terms of service
- then go into the Videos app to watch it

Another way to get videos, get them from iTunes

Let’s talk about Safari
- you’ve seen the ads: this is the FULL web
- this is probably the application students will use most

Teachers may want to create their own homepage
- mobile homepage: my favorite is a web editor too: wirenode.com (kind of like a wiki, but ideal for iPod Touch, accounts are free, you can pick out your URL)
- my site: http://lih.wirenode.mobi/
- fonts are big
- I can link to different things
- can put direct links to podcasts (audio and video) to download

Social studies app: Inflation
- 99 cents
- I was wondering about Presidential Pay
- inflation tables just go back to 1913, President’s salary was $75,000
- today he makes $400K plus expense account of $50K

Google Maps
- let’s find the President’s house
- I am using the iPhone 3.0 software, I paid $9.99 for the update
- it allows Google Maps streetview in Googe Maps
- can add a drop pin to the map, and go right to Google Street View right on the iPod Touch

WOW THIS IS GREAT

Can take a screenshot of ANYTHING on my iPod Touch by holding down both buttons on the device
- it took the picture, now it is in my photos
- great geography links here!

I like to

LifeStrips ($5)
- vocabulary is great
- can be used to create comics
- some people will decry the lack of a camera
- two fingers to twist and stretch images where you want them to go
- double tap to add text
- screenshots from Google Maps, combined in LifeStrips

Comic touch also lets you make

Ali’s Jigsaw Puzzle
- save comics back as photos
- turn any photo into a jigsaw puzzle

Tip:
- extra power
- can use an iPod Touch connected to computer or power (Apple chooses
- battery back can give you about 3/4 of a new
- Get one that takes the same dock connector, so no cable is required

You want a powered USB hub to make your own inexpensive charging station

Hilarious photo on EdTechBytes with chargers

You can sync on a Mac more than 1 mac at a time
- for some reason on Windows, you can just sync 1 at a time

THAT IS HUGE! NOT AN ACCIDENTAL “FEATURE OMISSION” FOR WINDOWS I’D BET

Earbuds: Walmart has them for 99¢ each
- get earbuds for everyone
- they get tangled constantly: get adhesive hooks and put numbered tags on the wall

Another management tip: email
- Apple would really like you to get info with email
- so you can issue each iPod Touch its own email
- start a free GMail account for each iPod Touch

ACTUALLY I THINK YOU CAN CREATE AS MANY SUBACCOUNTS AS YOU WANT WITH 1 GMAIL ACCOUNT, THO IF YOU CHECK THE ACCOUNT I DON’T THINK THEY ARE DIFFERENT

My podcast “Learning in Hand iPods”
- don’t leave an iPod in your hot car! That diminishes the battery big time.

Have an App called “Beard Me”
- now using app “Talking Heads”
- commercial example Billy Mays style!

Power down your iPod by holding down the top power button for 6 sec

Math Applications
- lots of drill and skill
- research shows students who are using a handheld will remember their math facts better than if they are using paper
- it is more engaging

Math Drills
- they also give you visuals
- has a light version

Make Num Lite
- also called “Sum It Up”

Lemonade Stand (99¢)
- practice supply and demand, make the posters
- same algorithms from the Apple II days, but updated graphics
- you can actually go back to the Apple II graphics if you want to

Science Apps
- there are cheap thumbtack microphones
- I have a Belkin one
- for science, do a “sound seeing tour” when you are on a field trip
- come back and research it, add more sounds with an audio editor on a “grown up computer”

Flipbook
- Sketchy was my favorite palm app
- full version is $10
- old style Palm
- draw directly on the screen
- make it animation
- anything my kids made an animation about they remembered it forever
- they would watch it over and over, show it to their friends
- they turn out with a great product
- Flipbook

At flipbook.tv you can see lots of examples

Now ready for an unbelievable example: made by an amazing artist using Flipbook (Foodchain)
- you can pinch in and zoom in to make changes

You can make your own database with HandDBase
- can use for observations
- checkboxes
- any types of notes
- once I save it, it joins my database, can be synced back to the desktop computer
- doesn’t have to be bahvior, it can be what did you observe

Something I miss from the Palm days: the fold-out keyboard
- currently there are not any attachable keyboards for the iPod Touch, but I hope we might see those

Now for each student: iPod Touch for $229 or Netbook for $289
- tradeoffs: battery life, portability, all the apps, cool factor

http://handheldlearning2009.com/
- Oct 7-9 2009 in London, everyone gets an iPod Touch!

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#necc09, 1to1, apple, education, ipod, itouch, necc, necc09, onetoone, school, technology, touch, tutorial, tonyvincent, app, apps, itunes

Julie Lindsey: I covet the learning connections and networks which I make now as a result

Darren Draper: I use the Internet as an extension of my brain

Steve Hargadon
- is this a passing fad or a sea change? How big of a change is it?

David Jakes:
- it has potential to be a sea change, but if we just focus on tools it won’t amount to much
- citing article “Have you considered the Internet as literacy, as a context for reading, writing and communication”
- those things are timeless and we understand as
- better to talk about a new context to read, write and communicate, rather than talking about “web 2.0 tools”

Chris Lehmann:
- the notion of a collaborative, participatory culture is definitely out of the box
- no one is going to give that up once they’ve realized/experienced it

Sylvia Martinez:
- first step is to define web 2.0
- dictionary would say: a very specific way webpages handle entry and access
- what we have done is expanded the definition
- that is dangerous because we’ve expanded the meaning, to the point now that it can be meaningless

Darren Draper:
- evidence pointing to the idea it’s not a passing fad: this panel
- we have public and private, U.S. based and international

Steve Hargadon:
- audience, is it here to stay or passing fad?

Audience: “Here to stay”

Steve: “Cool.”

MY THOUGHT: HOPEFULLY THAT IS NOT THE INTELLECTUAL DEPTH OF THE CONVERSATION WE ARE GOING TO HAVE HERE. (I.E. WEB 2.0 IS COOL. WITH THE PANEL HERE I KNOW THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE, THIS IS GOING TO BE A GREAT CONVERSATION

Chris Lehmann:
- we need a defined pedagogical conversation about this

Jakes:
- should focus on the skills: writing and collaboration, not the tools
- the tools are going to come and go

Julie Lindsey:
- web 2.0 has changed how people change their strategies for instruction in the classroom
- allows you to communicate, collaborate and create at different levels
- is transforming what we can do in the classroom

Darren:
- web 2.0 focus can bring in sharing, collaboration, and digital citizenship which may not be on our state core curriculum standards yet

Jakes:
- we are having those conversations throughout our school community
- we focus on intersection of literacy and technology, and what that means
- I like to ask, “What does it mean to be well educated in the 21st century?”
- we have moved away from information fluency, information literacy
- what does it mean for instruction when we are focusing on what it means to be well educated today?
- what changes does that invite/require in curriculum and assessment?

Lemann:
- transformation is taking ideas from Dewey, Connectivism ideas from Siemans, is a new paradigm
- what do these things mean for how we teach and learn?

Darren:
- interesting that I learned about Michael Jackson’s death via Twitter first
- our students are learning with these tools NOW whether we like it or not
- it makes sense to integrate and implement those technologies in the ways we teach

Sylvia:
- we have to fill the vacuum with appropriate ways to use these tools, or students will fill the void with inappropriate ways
- we need to point out the glib ways web 2.0 tools are sometimes “claimed” to be used (SMARTboards are not web 2.0 tools)
- ask “how is that student centered?” and “how does that empower the child?”
- web 2.0 can enable that renegotiation of the relationship between students and teachers

MY THOUGHT: AREN’T WE TIRED OF SAYING “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE TOOLS YET?!”

Vicki Davis:
- why do we need to have a Ning workshop to use Ning?

I AGREE WITH THAT. CELEBRATE OKLAHOMA VOICES IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF USING TOOLS CONTEXTUALLY TO ACCOMPLISH A TASK.

Workshop on “here’s how to use this tool” is less powerful than a workshop on “here is a core value of our school, and here is a way we can/are using tools to accomplish that” is better

Question

Jakes:
- what do you do when the walls around you become permeable
- this is a climate and culture issue
- how comfortable is the school letting students step outside those walls as they produce and publish content
- connections for schools begin locally
- learning community begins first, not just in a social way but also in an academic way

THIS REMINDS ME OF THE GORE-TEX CLASSROOM ANALOGY I DEVELOPED AWHILE BACK. GOOD METAPHOR.

Chris Lehmann:
- our kids need mentors. badly. We need to be and provide mentors for our kids

Sylvia:
- you can’t convince others with words about the value of web 2.0 tools
- there is not a way to fight this in terms of trying to fight liability fears directly
- best way is to make these models of success as visible as possible

I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. AMPLIFYING SUCCESSES IS THE KEY. EXAMPLES ARE THE KEY.

Jakes:
- this is a school community issue
- this involves a group we don’t talk with often: the kids
- recently asked adults at a panel about how many have recently had conversations with their kids about what they know, are doing, etc online

Lehmann:
- simple things we don’t yet do: it’s mind boggling every school in America doesn’t have a listserv of all parents to send out the daily announcements
- we wrote a Moodle hack so parents could go to our website and find out the homework each day
- at EduCon conference we have students
- give students small reasons/steps to come into the school
- going from “I grew up in this community” to “my kids at school are talking to someone in Belize” is a huge leap

Sylvia:
- sometimes the horrible, legal AUP is the only thing we send home to parents
- messaging of technology has to be positive, constant, to the students
- if you are not bringing your students in as allies, you need to
- if kids are going home with the message you want to send, that will trump your AUP every time

Darren:
- asking what kind of efforts we are doing to try and teach our parents

THAT IS A GREAT QUESTION. SOMEONE SUGGESTED DOING SMALL, SHORT COFFEE CHATS FOR PARENTS AT SCHOOL VIA THE PTO/PTA.

Julie:
- we have a teaching parents Ning
- helping parents make informed decisions

Chris:
- At SLA we have a culture of laptops up / laptops down in class, we have talked about whether we need to do that at times in faculty meetings
- what do we want our kids to be able to do, and what tools can harness their ability to do those things?

Sylvia:
- to assume that kids don’t already have a backchannel in their heads already is a mistake
- having kids communicate about what they are doing, and the classroom experience, is a way to harness some of those energies
- often kids are buzzing in their heads and much of formal education is going over their heads now

Very impassioned comments by a participant (name I don’t know)
- point was: find tools LATER AFTER you set your goals
- disagree with the message “you have to use blogs, you have to use wikis”

Someone else: we are putting up walls now with laptop screens

Lehmann:
- we are focused on teaching communication skills, students are communicating with each other, organizations in our local community
- last year was “Change the World” project, last year was “Change Philadelphia” project, based on “think globally, act locally” mantra

Sylvia:
- this today is not a classroom, this is an experiment

Julie:
- I have seen this (backchanneling) work extremely well in classrooms, in conferences (for Flat Classroom conference), in different languages

Vicki:
- when you have a backchannel you need to have a moderator

THIS IS A COMMENT I MADE IN THE BACKCHANNEL:

I really push back on this idea that “we should never talk about the TOOLS.” It is ok to talk about the tools at times. We start with an awareness level knowledge of tools, move to a personal use, then go to the instructional level of use, both taking other’s ideas and inventing our own. It is a process. It is ok to talk about the tools. We shouldn’t feel guilty talking about the tools, esp with people who are not familiar with them AT ALL.

Jakes quoting Lehmann: “What is the worst consequence of your best idea?”

Technorati Tags:
#necc09, collaboration, necc, necc09, technology, web2, schools

Join Facebook group: Social Media Guidelines for Educators

Drexel University is developing courses in social media for public relations folks

Twitter for Teachers was created by Gina Hartman

Is your school providing guidance and guidelines for teachers as well as students when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media websites?

Referenced articles in the presentation, “making the case” for talking about social media guidelines in our schools

Current Facebook statistics, for:

General Growth:

More than 200 million active users

More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day

More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college

The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

User Engagement

Average user has 120 friends on the site

More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)

More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day

More than 8 million users become fans of Pages each day

Mobility:

There are more than 30 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

There are more than 150 mobile operators in 50 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

May 2009 Issue of Learning and Leading with Technology
- free article: Is Blogging Worth the Risk? by James Maxlow and Lisa Nielson
- ISTE member only article: Should Your Students Be Your “Friends”? by Diana Fingal

WI Schools Ban Facebook, IM Fraternizing Between Staff, Students
- Lauren Barack — School Library Journal, 2/23/2009

Ryan Bretag, “Should We or Shouldn’t We: Teachers and Students Friends on Facebook,” 25 March 2009

ISTE Ning forum post “READERS RESPOND: Should you “friend” your students?” (responses due by 6 July 2009 to be included in September/October issue of L&L)

Court Backs Teacher’s Firing for Online Chat By Matthew Heller - 10/21/08

Fired For YouTube Video

All schools should be in the business of “shameless promotion”

Technorati Tags:
education, social, technology, media, guidelines, public, relations, publicrelations

A new breed of visionary administrator is transforming education through technology. Learn about their visions and strategies for 21st-century education.

MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Project Tomorrow is on Facebook.

Panelists include:

1. Paul from North Schuylkill SD (Ashland, Pennysylvania
2. Ryan from Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts (Baltimore, Maryland)
3. Gerry from Chicago Public Schools
4. Brian from Digital Harbor High School (Baltimore, Maryland)

Intro from Julie Evans
- Nick Nicholson from Chicago PS: “We want technology to be almost a thoughtless, seamless process. When you go to a classroom, you pick up a piece of chalk…”

Going to talk about “Speak Up” project, review national data findings, intro report findings, hear from panel of experts, discuss new report on visionary administrators

What is Speak Up?
- polling effort for constituents on use of technology in and out of school
- started in fall 2003 because of seeing a disconnect with how schools were using technology and kids were using tech outside schools
- Oct 12 - Dec 18 is open dates for survey this year (2009)
- will have a new survey for preservice teachers this year

THIS IS THE SAME AS WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY CALLED “NET DAY”

with a new edtech plan, we’re asking for student’s ideas about designing the ideal school of the future
- received over 150,000 responses from kids
- video responses available on our website

Using Senteo clickers to get audience responses in the session

Many people are surprised by the ubiquity of access to technology to even young students, access to gaming, young girls too, not just teen boys

Kids look at technology as a productivity tool, they are constantly looking at being more productive and using tech for productivity

We hypothesize our kids are functioning as a “digital advance team” and can give us a guide about where tech in schools should be
- we are watching US K-12 students, adopting/adapting technologies for learning
- students first use it in their personal lives and bring it into the classroom

Now we are going to look at stats

Digital disconnect is alive and well at many levels

I WISH I HAD THAT SLIDE SHE JUST SHOWED, GIVEN THE “BRIDGING THE DIVIDE” THEME FOR THE 2009 K-12 ONLINE CONFERENCE, THIS INFO IS VERY RELEVANT FOR ME!

Most of our adult respondents consider their tech skills “average”

What percentage of 9th graders consider themselves “advanced tech users?”
- most people say a majority, real answer is between 22-24% do
- vast majority consider their tech skills to be average

Our paradigms for “advanced users” as adults is very different from the kids

This presentation will be fully available online!

What are kids doing to use technology for schoolwork?
- taking online tests
- using online textbooks
- taking online classes
- playing educational games
- more…

Kids are generally not very happy with technology use and access at school

top responses
- school filters and firewalls block websites I need
- teachers limit our technology use
- too many rules

Many kids report they had better access to technology BEFORE professional development was provided for teachers

Biggest things kids want
- let me bring my own laptop, mobile device, cell phone at school

Digital advance team trends
- the mobile learner
- it’s a web 2.0 world

WOW, JULIE IS WHIPPING THROUGH THESE SLIDES WITH LOTS OF TEXT AND NOT PROVIDING SUFFICIENT TIME FOR AUDIENCE MEMBERS TO PROCESS THE CONTENT. NO PRESENTATION ZEN APPROACH HERE.

Question: What are the behaviors, values and aspirations of our nations ADMINISTRATORS regarding tech use and 21st century skills?
- key finding: there is a new cohort of emerging visionary administrators who share common behaviors, values and aspirations for 21st century learning
- this is very interesting and new (these perspectives are closer to those of students than to many parents or teachers)

Beliefs of this group of admins:
- believe tech can help student achievement
- model and use tech personally
- doing lots of communications
- also doing videos and podcasts
- downloading more music, similar to how students do
- are doing some game playing

Almost 100% say tech use within instruction is a “wake up issue” for them at night about something they need to address better
- they have higher expectation for incoming teachers
- are more interested in new teachers using digital aides, incorporating digital resources
- are looking for incoming teachers to have created podcasts, have taken an online class
- they have greater intense interest: mix of operating systems and hardware is not as big an issue
- spending a ton of time on school or district websites is not as important

Visionary admins are working on:
- funding
- PD
- evaluating emerging technologies, seeing how those fit into their instructional plan
- very interested in the assessment of tech skills (most say this should be looked at from a 21st century skill focus)

We ask all participants, if you could design the ultimate school what tools or elements would you include:
- K-12 students for past 6 years response has not changed for urban and rural, across the nation: “Give me a laptop for my personal use at school and at home”

THIS SHOULD NOT BE A SURPRISE: KIDS WANT 1:1 LEARNING. WE NEED TO GIVE IT TO THEM.

students with this response are looking for control over their learning environment
- they see us having control to contacts, resources, our work destination

ISN’T IT INTERESTING HOW MANY OF THESE CONVERSATIONS COME DOWN TO CONTROL?

Visionary administrators believe their vision sets their school apart from other schools
- parents and teachers are not as supportive of the role of technology in helping prepare students for the future

Students are looking for:
- untethered learning
- new learnign spaces
- social based learning
digital resources add relevancy
- …more
- learning that is enabled, engaging, and empowered

So how do we get to that, and meet these expectations? We are going to turn to our panel for answers

From Ryan:
- we are trying to build a culture of experimentation
- I have been at Perry Hall
- we recognized we were NOT listening to our students
- we pulled together a student forum

Brian at Digital Harbor
- we select students by lottery to come to our high school
- we have 4 media pathways, like a tech-based votech
- students are in their track for 90 min per day in grades 10-12
- vision of our school began in 2002
- we wanted to give kids both the honors/AP classes as well as technology exposure, so they can have a choice about whether they wanted to go to college or enter a technology career fields
- reading skills are a big challenge for many students, reading at a college level
- tech integration skills for teachers are a big challenge
- we are one of the most popular lottery schools in the district, about 1200 students in 9th grade compete for 250 slots, as a result next year we are restructuring to a school-within-a-school model, each tech pathway will be on tis own floor, collaboration is encouraged heavily between teachers
- another challenge is state industry test, we haven’t been very successful there in the past but are working on that

Now going up to the district level

Paul at mid-level sized PA district, 2100 students
- our economy has been in decline for the past several decades
- our focus is to afford our students the opportunities they could have anywhere else in the world
- we are struggling economically, and view technology as a way to level the playing field

I AM HAVING TO LEAVE THIS SESSION FOR A BLOGGER CAFE MEETING. THIS WAS A GREAT SESSION, I’LL TRY AND LINK UP THE PODCAST WHICH WILL BE POSTED LATER BY PROJECT TOMORROW.

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Disruptive innovations are game changers

to understand Christiansen’s thinking here, we need to understand two different lines

the “more than needed” line
- plain ole phone line was fine for most people for many years
- phone companies tried to convince people they needed more

second line: the good enough line
- remember when first bag phones came out
- over time it got better and better, lighter and lighter
- at some point it crossed the “good enough” line

Sustaining innovations continue until the disruptive innovations cross the line

I’d like you think about K12 education
- what is living in the in this “not good enough” area today?

It is important to recognize when an organization is confronted with a disruptive innovation
- when it first comes out, it is never good enough
- so existing organizations sneer at it, it isn’t good enough or taken seriously

As the new thing gets better, eventually it totally replaces the old model

What school leaders need to know:

1. Good organizations with good people will disappear if they don’t understand the ‘natural laws’ of disruptive innovation

many educators are trying to retro-fit disruptive innovations into the old system, and that doesn’t work well
- the current system has been fine tuned to do A, and now we are trying to do B
- this doesn’t work well because every time you make a decision about resource allocation, organizations tend to invest in their existing processes and infrastructure rather than the emerging/developing models which are not yet viable yet
- present day demands mandate this
- we have very difficult time doing the new thing, even if the leader of the organization believes it, persuading people in the organization is hard

3. It is much easier to create a new organization, or buy one, than it is to turn an existing organization around

IBM is big example Christensen uses

It is very hard to evaluate the unknowable
- example is online education: it is not yet good enough for the mainstream public

Look at the seismic effect the Internet has already had just being 10-12 years old for most of us
- so much is unknown: it is very hard to know how to allocate resources

think about kids who are being underserved today
- those are the ones to do pilot projects
- the mainstream kids will buck that system, but underserved kids and their parents will embrace new opportunities

Where is the alternative to online learning NOTHING
- those are the groups to embrace for pilots

We also need to use different metrics for success
- old metrics often don’t make sense
- it is hard to access creativity and innovation with bubble sheets

think of other ways you can insert disruptive innovations
- get rid of textbooks
- give everyone 1:1 learning

as IBM did, allow the disruptive innovation to compete directly and proceed unfettered with existing organizations
- delaying tactics don’t stop the inevitable

What is going to push the paradigm forward
- severe teacher shortage is coming because of aging baby boomers
- how are we going to come up with other kinds of efficiencies to meet learning needs of students
- students wanting more technology options
- stresses on government budgets
- are going to have to find other, alternative ways to meet needs given accountability pressures

Big takeaways
- things seem stressful today: but today it is still “business as usual”
- disruptive innovations are continuing to mature
- either we are going to change and get replaced, or we need to move now

Scott sees that kids don’t need us for content yet: they can get it elsewhere
- teachers can facilitate that process

We are never going to walk away from standards entirely
- at the start of the standards movement, we defined them in exhaustive detail
- what makes sense from a learning standpoint: what are the big ideas in the discipline or grade level
- what are the key ideas or focus skils

Iowa Core Curriculum project is focused on this
- it is not like open education models of 60’s and 70’s that were too unstructured, “go learn anything you want”
- currently we are too broad, without enough depth

Question from the audience: “Problem when we train the teachers is they learn hands-on with help, but they go back to their room and they are on their own with no support”
- Scott’s answer: it is a leadership issue with resources and support
- it is also a problem to just send teachers back into their existing paradigm

New York librarian wants a “tech guru” Assistant Principal focusing on full-time, on staff technology integration coaches

Scott says there is research supporting that

Virginia is the first state to mandate those instructional support folks: ITRT program

Book “Nudge” - we can change a few defaults and make changes that are unexpected
- organ donation is an example

“The Implementation Dip” is research finding that when people adopt a new technology, they lose some productivity and efficiency learning the new technology

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Several distinguished educators will offer actual examples of 24/7 learning approaches to educational practice. Can these technology-based, best practices inform your classroom teaching?

Presenters are: Michael Searson, Kean University with Judith Beaver, Andrew Gardner, David Gibson, Kevin Jarrett and Elaine Wrenn. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. FOR MORE RELATED TO THIS SEE MY APRIL 2008 PODCAST, “Transformative Project Based Learning in a 1:1 Laptop Initiative: 10 Years of Lessons and Best Practices at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii”

Comments from Judy Beaver, Punahou School in Honolulu, HI

Looking a lot at language acquisition and Marzano’s strategies for our intensive summer PD
- using Garageband
- when the kids heard themselves, they raised the bar and challenged themselves to try again
- focusing on how to reach kids that are hard to reach
- using Kidspiration to record ideas/answers to questions
- using tech to capitalize on student’s natural observational skills
- outside: what do they see, hear, smell, feel
- using cameras to capture what they experience, using those photos as prompts for later writing

Research shows providing audio books for students really helps
- students who were groaning at reading time, are now groaning when it is over

After school literacy is a part of our normal year programs
- not a sustainable program year after year
- these are kids whose reading level is not up to grade level
- Using “Read Naturally” and Lexia

Now have a Robotics program that has moved from an after school program to an elective
- the teacher reports he sees very different uses for robotics programs in the during-school versus after school

Also have an “Entrepreneurs in Residence” program
- last year 2 of the entrepreneurs in residence are film directors, and together they put together a school film festival

Student travel opportunities
- also have opportunities for faculty travel that have greatly impacted our learning in classrooms
- this summer is the first time we partnered with summer lab school to offer credit for student
- working with Earth University in LeFlore, Costa Rica
- focus on observations and developing research questions, and sharing those with the University
- outfitted students with iPod Touches, GPS units, photo here is a “practice hike” in Manoa
- doing a Google Earth project prior to their trip to Costa Rica

Next comments from David Gibson

What would happen if we didn’t have a school anymore, we just had the web?
- would students work for several months in a collaborative project
- yes, thousands of kids do and have gotten involved with projects like this

www.globalchallengeaward.org

Core units involve students and adults
- our goal is to reach high school students worldwide through the web, who are interested in having an experience collaborating together in global teams focusing on a single problem: solve global warming before you go to college
- many of them have very good ideas, many of which are globally scalable
- we use open ended problem solving, leverage advanced technologies, applying knowledge, designing and implementing climate change solutions

We organize activities into things that look like webquests and then organize those into tracks
- we are trying to get a key concept out of kids that they want to turn into a project and a business plan if possible

Students decide and take actions based on interests
- spread awareness: take action / design a solution
- schedules, collaborators, and products
- game and simulation-based online learning experiences
- work is evaluated by scientists and educators

this will be the largest data set on the supply side
- project was student initiated
- students can take it to the level of a global business plan
- projects being done by 14 year olds

We use a lot of games and design our own
- we have A CD coming out in July
- very interested in having more students, we have about 4000 now
- we’d like more adults aware to support student success

We have final products
- my background started in performance assessment
- critical feedback from the scientific community also at the end

Global challenge bridges informal and formal learning
- easy to implement with flexible units of study
- self-directed, open-ended, problem-based, guided inquiry
- interdisciplinary
- action-oriented, authentic, community engagement

4 ways to bring us in:
- curriculum enhancement
- elective courses
- independent studies
- productivity centered service learning

Have linked up to state and national standards

Comments on “Game Design and Social Networking: Learning Outside the Walls”
- Andrew Gardner
- works as 3rd - 5th grade technology integrator at the School at Columbia
Twitter: agardnahh

I had a university background in game design
content question: what interests students?
context: what do we provide to facilitate communication, collaboration and continued conversation away from school?

PLAY really interests students
- playing out their social situations
- so we wanted to give them something somewhat play-oriented

How are we going to let them connect outside of schools: with new media tools

Gamestar Mechanics
- Afterschool
- GLS conference: Games, Learning and Society, associated with Arizona State University
- Gamestar Mechanic is a web-based game that teaches you about game design, game design principles
- social network powered by ELGG

Institute of Play in New York

At my school we have our own social network we host on our own site, our own Flickr, our own YouTube, (based in Drupal)
- all walled-garden applications we run ourselves

GameStar Mechanic: Five core design elements you have to “fix”
- rules
- core mechanics
- components
- space
- goal

We are seduced by goals, we need to have some

When you are in Gamestar Mechanic, you become aware meta-cognitively of these complex, interconnected pieces
- this is a very authentic way for getting kids thinking with a “systems approach”

Gamestar Mechanic was in beta and went down, so we went to Plan B
- deconstructed the turn-based game: Ayiti: The Cost of Life
- we deconstructed the game and physically created an alternative

New Media Server: 100% open source

newmedia.theschool….

Social network
- academic context not social
- accountability
- documentation
- communication

Now comments from Westley Field

Skolaborate: global project
- 40 schools from around the world
- collaborating with a variety of tools, virtual worlds, meetings
- exploring how you can engage students in learning, change your practices
- creating global curriculum

showing map of our virtual world

anyone can contribute curriculum and content, we end up creating units together

in our virtual world we have rules and structure
- kids said they didn’t want structure and rules
- so we created a “Lord of the Flies”

Kids will say they want structures from adults

future strategy: start looking at structures you have in place that are holding you back from the future you want
- need to get rid of those which are obstacles

Unexpected outcomes
- when kids are given freedom from their avatar: students are more disconnected from their Avatar
- less peer influence in the virtual world for students, they seem to share and follow their own ideas

Now comments from Kevin Jarrett
- media and journalism/newspaper club
- school struggled last year to use iWeb and publish a newspaper
- my thought was: why should kids be held back by technology
- I proposed to the education foundation that we use web 2.0 tools and

The T-Bird Times: The Northfield Middle School Newspaper / Multimedia Club!
- http://tbirdtimes.org

Kevin did an animoto on the way here, just showed it:

Find more videos like this on The T-Bird Times

Kids did an interview with Bob Webb, who knows the history of their school

Find more videos like this on The T-Bird Times

Did with a Flip camera, public version of “When September Ends” in the public domain, and Windows Moviemaker

My question is: When do our kids have chances/times to learn these things and do these things?
- they do NOT during the regular school day
- this is why after-school programs like this is so important

At end of they year, student used website Wix to create websites with a Flash-based drag and drop interface

Now entire class is producing animoto videos

Tools used by Columbia for open source walled garden apps:
- Elgg
- JetPhoto (For photo sharing)
- Drupal (for YouTube, also powers school website)
- Blogs (use mostly Blogger, don’t use home grown blog much)
- also use iWeb for student blogging
- Google Docs also used

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discussing motion sensors in physics and the student’s own data
- there is real power in this, the relevance of the student’s own data
- students comparing and contrasting data from when they were on the trapeze

Paradigm shift we are living in now: we have the ability to record and share anything we want now
- the delivery of information no longer has to be syncrhonous

HE IS SO RIGHT! THIS IS A KEY SHIFT/CHANGE IN OUR LEARNING LANDSCAPE TODAY

Most schools in this country do NOT let students install new software on their laptops
- we do
- we have students sign an agreement, have

some of the best software being used in our school now is software that was discovered by students

iFlash is an example (flashcards, you can share virtual decks of flashcards)

the idea of locking computers down so kids cannot mess with them is so 20th century

I am passionate about software that helps with student production
- can be in many, many forms

Production is generally what teachers assess in terms of what they have learned
- too often we give kids 1 way to do it
- even with technology often we constrain their choices

what we see as we give kids more opportunities to express how they are learning, we are getting better information and data about what they are learning
- example: letting students do oral composition (instead of written compensation)
- in one example, a student was nervous communicating in class and was a horrific writer, but something magic happened when the student was in their room by themselves and able to record their voice
- is an example of a teacher who has found a way to reach the kids

Another of my mantras: apply the same tools and techniques that we use and apply to students who are defined as “disabled” and apply those for other students

There is magic for many of us as deliverers of knowledge as we verbally express it
- 1 on 1 in a small group it is harder for me to express myself with writing
- I am becoming a better communicator because of the ability to verbally express it

My project I am most passionate about, which is the pinnacle of student production
- Telling Their Stories: http://tellingstories.org
- entire interviews are recorded and transcribed by students using their computers
- you can click on any part of this story and listen to it
- there are now about 100 hours of video on this site
- this is an example of the far end of what you can do with these tools with vision, to enhance and extend what you were not able to do previously in the past

this is a community service to the world
- these interviews are being used across the country in history classes
- students are doing “authentic doing”
- publishing of Internet-based video is now essentially free

Example of a class who interviewed others and researched environmental issues, the audience for their report were environmental experts in the San Francisco area
- now there is dialog as a result of the research and interview work that was done by students and posted to this website

search for “greening SF” - very impressive student wiki

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Links and resources from this session are available
- Handout of PowerPoint is available in PDF format

Dr Chris Moersch on HEAT walkthroughs

- identifying similarities and differences
- summarizing and note-taking
- reinforcing effort and providing recognition
- homework and practice
- nonlinguistic representations
- cooperative learning
- more…

Digital Age Learning Best Practices
- promoting shared expertise with networked collaboration
- bolstering inquiry through student questions
- making authentic connections
- more

Do we see HEAT taking place in the classroom?

Near the end of the session Chris showed the EduTopia video “Dollars and Sense: Kids Invest in Funds — and Their Own Future”

What continuous improvement plan are you using to promote digital age teaching?

may the LoTi be with you

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My big lesson from Rock Our World: One person CAN make a difference
- the power there is in these kinds of networks, at NECC, your local area, there is power in our networks

Video by David and Cameron Barrett
- only civilians that can dress in fire garb and take videos of burning buildings
- got a grant from someone who wanted to help RockOurWorld with a video

parent of filmmaker is showing this video to President Obama next week

project “Rock Our World” is centered on music and sharing
- every country starts a 30 second drum track, and that track rotates to another country
- then keyboard added
- then guitar track added
- strings, vocals, jazz, free choice

By the time my drums travel around the world, it has been added to multiple times by kids in different countries

Kids LOVE talking to each other over video in different countries
- asking each other questions about their countries

Stories of food exchanges, Vegemite from Australia

Carol Anne’s husband, speaking about the relationships which are created
- kids not just sharing information to learn, also to work together

Sept 2008 Rock Our World conference, John Couch VP of Apple sharing an address telling about “Rock Our World” project

What do kids really need to be learning, and how can technology be leveraged to help provide those kinds of experiences for kids

Rock Our World for the past 5 years is about learning, it is curriculum-standards based
- students in Portugal singing
- partnering with NASA, Apple, others
- started working with National Film Institute

Study for the sun, get an expert from NASA on loan for 4 months for the project
- can contact him and ask questions

Story of teacher in Israel developing relationships with teachers in Germany, in Palestine
- Israel dept of education called: You’re promoting peace in our country, how are you doing it?

Harmony is a good word to use for this project
- how children collaborate in core content areas, and in music
- brings cultures into a harmony with each other

I want my students to know harmony is possible, and it is within their hands to do it

I have shared Rock My World across states, region

We are always standards-based, we pick a central topic or theme
- we are in our 11th round
- I never thought that would be possible

Projects
- getting to know you
- resource and aid gathering and sharing (operation compassion)
- what is for lunch
- rock and soul partnering with NASA
- finding things that are common threads between these schools

Entire project culminates in a family night
- started off as a TV show
- talk about the GOOD things happening in education, what did different people learn as a result of this project, and what can they share with others
- this really solidifies the international team
- we don’t have 3 days to film all the teams
- we have 1000s of teachers following us on our Moodle site
- all our lessons we create as an international team we upload to our Moodle, so all teachers can have access to those resources
- then when we have a family night as a live webcast, any school in the world can log into that family night and connect

We have been on all 7 continents
- 1 classroom next door had just started talking about Shackleton, and Carol Anne’s students wanted to share their knowledge, their photos, and information about Antarctica
- it was because of that connection with scientists they had that knowledge

The world has changed
- we need to capture and engage our students
- in ways we didn’t used to have to do (we didn’t have TV channels like we have today, Nintendo, etc)
- as teachers we have to compete with these outside influences, we need a new hook, reading the chapter and answering the questions at the end of the chapter is not enough of a hook

When kids study today like Macy, they have TV, are online, texting, etc at the same time
- our learners are changing, the way they get information is fast
- kids are all connected and doing these wonderful things

Shift happens
- as teachers we need to make that shift to a digital age

Now daughter, Macy, is going to share some of the videos from the project which were very impactful
- New Zealand example
- solar car example: Australian summer sun was the most intense and took top honors
– our kids were checking worldwide weather during the race time
- example of video from Antarctic scientists

This project has shifted thinking about addressing racism and discrimination
- possibility, appreciation, tolerance, respect, compassion, acceptance

This is the video that was put together for Will Smith’s acceptance into the Museum of Tolerance, in cooperation with Rock Our World
- there are human dynamics/pscyhology to squash others, be cruel to others: these were addressed through the project

If you create a tolerate home, we hope our children will go out and desire a tolerant classroom, a tolerant workplace, a tolerant world

Biggest hope: people will see the potential for us to have dialog, recognize situations in a grade school classroom before it gets to the streets
- definition of tolerance

“Shine Your Light”

First connection with Peru, Carol Anne hadn’t told them they’d be talking with Will Smith

If you have the opportunity to bring the world into your classroom in any kind of way, do it
- start connecting
- start little
- start connecting with others across your district
- you will learn so much more than you ever thought you could
- we all have so much to learn from each other

We all hear a lot about education “being bad” in different places
- these stereotypes are often wrong

Audience question: where do I go to connect with other educators

Answers
- ePals
- Taking It Global
- Global Nomads
- Magpie has lots of good videoconferencing services
- Global Education Collaborative Ning

Summer technology camp called “GADGET” to get teachers inspired to get technology into the classroom

I feel like I am learning again, I feel like a brand new teachers all the time

Question: Can a PC school participate in Rock Our World?
- yes or no
- it would be difficult to do a GarageBand project

Sony has asked to partner with Rock Our World
- until a person materializes to answer PC questions, we can’t move forward with Windows-based participants

MY COMMENT: I’M THINKING WINDOWS-USERS COULD USE M-AUDIO SESSION INSTEAD OF GARAGEBAND? ROCK OUR WORLD WOULD NEED A SOFTWARE EXPERT ON SESSION THO.

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