Our students deserve to be and should be recognized individually for their ideas, their contributions, their expertise and their work inside and outside the classroom. Social media technologies which permit students to share their voices, to be empowered with agency to express ideas and share opinions, to publish their work for a broader audience outside the boundaries of the traditional classroom are vital. Check out the list of classroom blogs from around the world on the “Support Blogging” wiki, and add your classroom’s blog if it’s not already listed.

Technorati Tags:
blog, blogging, classroom, education, recognition, school, teacher, teaching, peanuts, linus, lucy, charilebrown, charlie, brown

Just using laptops at school, not letting kids take them home
Laptop carts are located in homeroom classes
have networked printers on carts
wireless access throughout the building
Now (as of a year ago) we have a managed network
- can take control over student browsing
- students can login anywhere to access their files

Now hearing from Kelly Goldberg:

Bonnockburn Faculty: Kelly Goldberg
- students are able to work independently or on team projects
- integration of online content
- guided instruction by teachers
- student centered learning process
- not bound by traditional organization of work spaces: learning space is flexible

Bonnockburn Transforming Classroom Practices
- simplifies computer use pragmatics
- promotes student responsibility
- familiarizes students with laptop skills
- offers immediate / spontaneous research opportunities
- enhances in-depth online research skills
- develops internet savvy

When I asked my computers why they like using their own computer, there were 6-8 reasons that overlapped

It is hard for me to remember when my students didn’t all have their own laptops

pragmatics of computer use are simplified
- you don’t have to plan way in advance to reserve the computers
- spontaneity, opportunity to learn NOW
- is really a big deal to not have to coordinate early

Many students said they feel very responsible with their laptop
- they know it is a big deal
- they sign a serious technology agreement / commitment letter
- esp lower end kids who struggle with organization in middle school years feel really proud of how they have their own laptop and take good care of it

So kids house their laptop in a cart, but they have their own laptop

SO THIS IS A REALLY BIG DEAL IN TERMS OF OWNERSHIP AND THIS PERCEPTION OF RESPONSIBILITY ON THE PART OF STUDENTS

When we are studying a topic in language arts, and I’m reading a story to my students
- example: Whales, 3 days ago
- a student who has ADHD asks if I know how many cool sounds whales make, and if he can research that
- so he does that research during the lesson, and shares those cool whale sounds during class

Another example: question about George Washington’s wooden teeth
- is it a myth?
- another kid who wants to do something different, s/he does that research and shares it with us
- immediate research is a fun and pertinent part of what we can do now as we are learning

1:1 laptop makes it possible for in-depth research skills to marketly improve
- using websites we recommend for students, and for websites they find

Epsco database is a great place to do research

My kids use websites like Spelling City, Sandra Day O’Connor’s website “Our Courts”
- kids can individually explore and play games on sites like this
- Reading “The Giver” kids are exploring different utopias on 12 different websites

I want to emphasize how much WRITING skills are improved with our laptops
- I have students also handwrite their assignments, not just type them
- students often feel with a typed report they are created a cleaner, more professional product

Laptops really encourage creativity
- the fun the can have with multiple programs, integrating their photographs, creating multimedia products: really good for creativity

Student quotations:
- “Allows me to be responsible.
- “I am really good with my laptop.”
- “I am confident as an editor of photos…”
- …more…

Now from Dr Jenny Wojcik: superintendent

We are a small, 1 school building district north of the city (CHICAGO)
- have been doing 1:1 for 4 years
- we have moved to 1:1 with our 6th graders
- we have instructional clusters
- 6-8 are 1:1, with laptops assigned and students can take them home
- this year we’ve instituted a “digital driver’s license” (after 4 years, we’ve learned a few things)
- we see this as an opportunity to revise and transform the curriculum

We went to a AALF conference years ago
- most of what they are doing now is online rather than F2F
- Cincinnati Day School, Texas Schools, Maine Schools: shared their lessons learned
- all our teachers have a laptop, they can take it home
- we are wireless, that has been essential to make this work
- our K-2 and 3-5 are close to 2:1 with computers, have banks of computers near their classrooms as needed to integrate computers
- we got rid of computer labs several years ago, this 1:1 initiative creates the opportunity to learn at any time, any place
- we are moving away from technology as a separate subject

Atomic Learning has a new evaluation tool online that students can use to measure the skills they’ve developed

We don’t have a tool to assess where staff are with their skills, but this is a sensitive subject
- we don’t want this to be a threatening topic
- we have all teachers using technology
- using the Danielson model for redesigning our teacher administrative tool

Kelly:
The culture at our school HAS changed so we rely on each other for help and technical assistance

From Janet:
Cluster design: I used to be the reading teacher, I have been there 20 years, now we really are a team and rely on each other

Jenny:
I wouldn’t recommend starting there with tech assessments for teachers

Now Andy Marks:
- laptops kept by grade levels
- executive functioning with technology
– times to charge
– being responsible for your computers
– accessing saved documents
– saving in multiple places
– learning to navigate a network

From a participant:
Based on Stillwell Minnesota model: we are going to let students trade in their battery after each semester

Andy:
- make sure the laptop is fully plugged in, break down the steps and go through each one
- we’ve learned over the year how important

You will find there are LOTS of user errors with laptops!
- learning to troubleshoot those errors, eventually independently, is a big deal

at first we didn’t label different pieces
- that is really important
- like socks in the washing machine: so remember to label!

We can’t filter and block everything
- preparing for those situation is important

What do I do when my computer breaks?

Addressing printing issues: When, where, how, why, waiting “in line”
- have specific times established for printing homework
- computers that go home can’t go online, so kids can’t print at home
- we’ve learned to make everyone put headings on their papers, with page numbers
- addressing problem of multiple print jobs sent

This year: Driver’s license

integrated examples of embedding the laptop into daily practice
- language arts interviewing / taking notes / making presentations
- bringing in cross-generational links with people

With our STEM project we are woking with the Thornburg Center for Space Exploration
- teachers are becoming more comfortable with technology by recognizing that we don’t know it all

Kids are programming with Scratch, based on Lifelong Kindergarden project and Dr. Mitch Resnek
- very creative stuff
- none of the teachers really know how to do the stuff that our kids are doing and programming

We have used the PicoCrickets and the kids LOVE them

Did a “Barbie Bungee Jump” activity
- collecting data using barbies, scatterplots, then brought in the computer and graphing calculators

We now have a lego robotics club activity

As teachers we find that the computer now is our paper, we don’t think about it and plan for it
- it is most disruptive when it [the computer] is NOT available

Top ten uses of the computer users by students in one of the presenter’s classes:
1- internet access
2- MS word/word processing
3- unlimited source of info
4- email access
5- research
6- iTunes
7- social networking sites
8- Online books
9- Google Images
10- Google

MY COMMENT: I THINK IT’S INSTRUCTIVE TO LOOK AT THESE WAYS KIDS REPORT THEY ENJOY USING THE COMPUTERS, AND CONSIDER THE IMPLICATIONS OF THINKING ABOUT LAPTOP COMPUTERS AS “IMAGINATION MACHINES,” AS GARY STAGER ENCOURAGES. I REFERENCED THESE IDEAS IN MY CLOSING KEYNOTE TODAY AT THE ONE TO ONE INSTITUTE’S CONFERENCE. IT IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC THESE TEACHERS ARE PROVIDING STUDENTS WITH OPPORTUNITIES TO USE SCRATCH, CREATE WITH LEGO ROBOTICS, AND WORK WITH PICOCRICKETS AT SCHOOL. I WISH OUR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WAS DOING THESE THINGS WITH AND FOR CHILDREN. I’M INSPIRED TO CONTINUE THINKING ABOUT HELPING START AN AFTER SCHOOL SCRATCH PROGRAMMING CLUB AT OUR SCHOOL.

Technorati Tags:
1to1, creativity, education, educational, laptop, learning, lego, onetoone, robotics, school, technology, gl1to109, great, lakes, institute, scratch

We have been implementing 1:1 for almost eight years now

Wynn has been teaching for 36 years

Shawn was project director for the Flint Community Schools “Freedom to Learn Project”
- certified 1:1 digital coach
- instructional tech coordinator
- MACUL board of directors
- classroom teacher

What is 1:1 Computing (according to the 1:1 Institute website)
- 1:1 learning provides every student and teacher accessed to his…

What does the research show? (Deborah Lowther and others at the Univ of Memphis)
- increase of teacher as facilitator
- increase of student use of laptops as a learning tool
- increase in high academically focused class time
- increase in student independent inquiry and research

S. Lowthian: “Curriculum is driving the 1:1 initiative. It’s not about the computers. It’s about what, how, and how well the students are learning.”

Plan with the “big picture” in mind
- curriculum
- district policies and rules (Internet access, take home policy)
- parent permission
- student acceptance of responsibility
- classroom configurations
- rules for operation and reasonable consequences

Curriculum first and foremost
- teachers must know the curriculum
- lesson planning changes over time
– paper assignments done on computers
– collaborative, creative deep knowledge

Computers are learning tools
- games must be educational and associated with curriculum
- networking needs to be curriculum centered

Story of a student who was asked to find a picture of a “marsh” to go along with the definition and asked, “Is this really what a marsh looks like?”
- students were definitely making connections and learning things they would have been able to lear

Get laptops out, get the students using them
If you keep moving forward, you will get to the place you want to be with the students collaborating and seeking creative, deep knowledge

At the start, many teachers were fearful saying “the kids know so much about these computers, more than I do”
- they do know a lot, but it is not necessarily natural for students to think of the computer as a learning tool

If my kids do have free time, I make sure the games they play are curriculum focused, the networking they do relates to classroom tasks

quotation from student, Precious: “Using laptops helps me pay more attention.”

Classroom culture certainly changed
- rules need to be specific to laptops
- getting
- using
- storing
- battery changes
- classwork: where to save, how to turn in, how to get feedback, what software to use, etc.

I have found I need to start out with these rules, if I am picky with these we can go further and students can get more creative with their assignments

Our buildings are REALLY old, very limited electricity outlets, etc
- you really need to think about your culture, your community, what norms you need to set

battery changes: had to come up with an on the fly solution for students to go over to a battery cart, get a new one, swap out their battery without disrupting the rest of the class, etc.

These foundations and norms are essential to help your students learn to function independently and functionally in the classroom
- without these norms the classroom doesn’t just LOOK chaotic, it IS chaotic

Teaching students WHERE to save their work WHERE they want it to be is really key
- issues with students accidentally moving folders into other folders is a real problem

THAT PARTICULAR ISSUE IS A PROBLEM ON WINDOWS-BASED SYSTEMS, INTERESTINGLY, NOT MACS. THAT WAS ALWAYS A PROBLEM WHEN I WAS AN ELEMENTARY COMPUTER LAB TEACHER IN THE LATE 1990s.

I don’t teach the kids ALL the skills they need and use
- I may do a demonstration as we do the activity together
- then students are on their own, but they know they can get help from each other or from me once the lesson begins

It really depends on your classroom and your school
- we’ve had a lot of schools close in our district
- many of our students haven’t quite “felt at home” in school
- so for us, structuring the learning environment has been very important

classroom configurations
beginning
- teacher centered
- see all screens
- teach computer skills and programs as needed
evolving
- more student centered
- students working in groups, collaborating

There is no set time when this happens as a shift to more student-centered work
- depends on the group of kids in the room as well

Student quotation from Jonathan: “My laptop helps me work faster and store my work. I’m more organized.”

Policies are dynamic and change as needed
- allow everyone to be successful
- celebrate creative problem solving
- ISD controls our internet access
- how to get access
- just in case: hardware accidents, accidental inappropriate Internet sites

Think of these policies actually more as practices (policies are adapted by the board – the fewer policies that come from the board, the better we can implement our project flexibility as we need)

You don’t necessarily have to tell everyone far and wide when a problem is encountered and solved, but celebrate together when problems are overcome

When you get to a website where you shouldn’t be, put your screen down partway so others cannot see where you’ve gone, and ask for teacher assistance
- that way the teacher can let our tech people know about the site (to block it)

think about how you want information to flow
- how you want to address the issues which will come up
- the more you can plan before you start the better, but realize no matter how well you plan you’ll need to make changes and be flexible as you progress

Student quotation from Bonnie: “You can find more information, so you can learn much better”

At the time this photo was taken we had textbooks that were over 10 years old
- I didn’t have resources for the students for a lot of what I was expected to teach
- with the laptops the students had much greater access to the information they needed, students could choose access means

What can you expect?
- ignite interest: authentic assignments, providing choices
- collaboration: no boundaries
- cooperative learning: important jobs

technology allows expertise in so many ways for those cooperative learning assignments (no more: “I’m the pencil collector” jobs)

kids love the opportunity to have choices about how they demonstrate their knowledge and learning

Student quotation from Thomas: “Using the laptops helps me because it’s fun and I don’t like to write a lot. It doesn’t seem like writing.”
- that student hated to write in the traditional language arts classroom, but become prolific in the laptop classroom

Sharing
- Resources: for assignments, for educational fun
- Ideas
- new found knowledge: off topic questions
- teaching: other students and the teacher

With laptops we make a list of off topic questions as we go along with our work, and when students get done with a particular assignment they can go tackle one of those questions
- then they go and find the answer to that question, come back and share that with the class later

truth be told: the students REALLY like it when I don’t know something and they can

Another student quotation: “My laptop helps me concentrate more on work and makes learning fun.”

What’s next
- allow yourself to succeed
- support problem solving
- keep policies simple and flexible
- keep moving forward and evolving from traditional teacher-centered learning to dynamic student-centered learning

Take home issues and procedures crafted with parents
- we came up with orientation sessions with parents and flexible times, day and night, so all parents were aware (3.5 hour training)
- we had another 3.5 hour training that parents had to attend to bring the laptop home for their children
- lots of care and feeding” help with laptops
- lots of our students are being raised by single parents, guardians, others
- we had to let parents identify an authorized person who was authorized to take a laptop home
- right now we do NOT have a lot of parents taking laptops home
- that has to do with many things: more computers and access at home, lots of school closings
- we initially had lots of parents come to these meetings, come take these laptops home

7.5 years ago we didn’t have content filtering on the laptops, but parents DID have to sign a waiver because they had to be the filter at home, an active participant in their child’s learning

the power of learning with parents and kids
- not a lot of damage on laptops in the initial years
- had celebrations with students, ribbon cutting, community involved: children and parents knew
- once we had 1 laptop stolen, it was as if the world crashed on us
- one of our para-professionals was so committed, she canvassed the community, talked about “how dare someone” take this from our children
- that person found the laptop and brought it back to the school
- the community “owned” these laptops and were stakeholders
- we are now making this work on 6-7 year old devices/laptops
- very old building infrastructure
- our lead teachers have become troubleshooters and technicians in many respects

We did “dine and dialog” meetings with our partner universities and our art institutes
- at the heart of this was networking, table-toppers and parents could discuss issues

always we celebrate: I start with a party and I end with a party
- we had a dialog, and we showcased student and teacher work

For a lot of teachers, if there is some incentive to taking the time to pull a showcase together, all the better
- it involves extra time
- there was always some fun incentive to it
- I received my presentation mouse several years ago when I was willing to go the extra mile to share ideas
- it was even exciting to have my name drawn for a big prizes: we had drawings for data projectors, electronic white boards, and also small nuggets: flash drives, tshirts, and more
- people
- we all know that food motivates teachers: “dine and dialog” was a good incentive

Our program started with grades 4-6, then 7-8, now we also have 9-12 program
- this is in 13 buildings, not across the entire district
- we have a couple middle schools that have specific teams, and one 9-12 academy
- since we’ve had to close buildings, move teachers and students, we’ve been flexible

We are looking for every grant we can get
- thus far we have been financed from outside grants, not significant funding from TitleIID (TitileIID has paid for things like batteries, smaller expense needs)

Once we get through our financial difficulties, I expect the district to find ways to help us continue to grow this program

We certainly don’t have all of the answers but are willing to share!

be willing to put yourself out as a demonstration site or a model

Mrs. D.B. – “If you take away my laptops, I’ll have to retire. I can’t imagine going back to the ‘old way’ of teaching and learning.”

Technorati Tags:
1to1, classroom, laptop, learning, onetoone, flint, michigan, basic, basics

Gary shared this presentation in 2007 at the Learning 2.0 Conference in Shanghai, and that is available as an audio podcast as well.

All of Gary’s uLearn 2009 presentation resources are available on his site. Of particular interest to educational leaders implementing or considering the implementation of 1:1 learning initiatives are his papers/presentations, “Optimistic outcomes for teachers and students resulting from 1:1 computing” (PDF), “1:1 school technology self-diagnostic instrument” (PDF) and “How to Sell the 1:1 Computing Dream in Your Community.”

I find Gary’s references to W. Daniel Hillis’ 1998 book, “The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas that Make Computers Work” particularly thought provoking. If we each consider the computer, and laptop computers in the hands of our students specifically, not as information access devices but rather as “IMAGINATION MACHINES,” wouldn’t our efforts and focus in 1:1 learning projects take on a very different flavor? We should, and our perspectives should.

Gary exhorts the audience that 1:1 computing is NOT about hardware, it is about SOFTWARE. Software determines what you DO. What you learn depends on WHAT YOU DO. Very important thought leadership from Gary on 1:1 computing here.

Another of my favorite quotations from this presentation by Gary:

The best way to keep kids from being destructive is to engage them in things that are constructive.

I totally agree with Gary’s contention that we should focus on empowering students with agency, and find ways to help students authentically become intellectually powerful. His citation of Papert’s quotation, “Does the computer program the child or does the child program the computer?” is needed today in our conversations about 1:1 computing more than ever.

Kudos and many thanks to CORE Education (New Zealand) for making this presentation (and many others) available on EDTalks.

Technorati Tags:
gary, laptop, learning, stager, elearn09, elearn2009

“Around the World with Skype – Alrededor del Mundo con Skype” by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano (presented in both an English and a Spanish version)

“You Might Be a 21st Century Leader if…” by David Wells

“Ways of Working” by Chris Betcher

“The Virtual Heroic Journey” by Kevin Hodgson

“If You Host It, They Will Come” by Jen Wagner

More teasers are coming! These are also available on our K-12 Online Conference Ning, both in the videos section and in the group 2009 Teasers.

NASA eClips is NASA’s newest program, one we’ll discuss today but we’ll address others too

Mark is with the National Institute of Aerospace
- innovative real world learning for the 21st century
- we are a research institute for NASA
- our mission: develop aerospace engineers
- consortium of 7 universities

www.youtube.com/nasaeclips

Mark is going to publish is presentation to Slideshare

We have K-12 outreach
- developing resources for STEM specifically
- one of NASA’s missions by law is education

I am personally on loan from the Virginia Beach public schools to NASA

All of these links are available via my Filamentality hotlist:
tinyurl.com/yz24fmq

Traditional NASA education products
- have 30-60 minute video clips
- philosophy was: teachers should be able to make sense of these resources

eClips are short: 5-7 minutes (7 minutes is max time)
- these are content focused, and NASA focused
- we have taken NASA missions and technology, and found the things that really tie in well to a math/science classroom
- idea is you can use these videos to engage students, answer the question: “Why do I need to know this?”

There are three people on our NASA eClips team, I am the high school person (also have an elementary and middle school educators)

4 programs under NASA eClips:

1. NASA’s Our World (K-5: compare the natural world with the designed world, illustrating the unique contributions of scientists and engineers)
2. NASA’s REAL World Mathematics
3. NASA Launchpad
4. NASA 360 degrees

big push in STEM for engineering

MARK’S DELL WINDOWS XP LAPTOP LOCKED UP WHEN HE TRIED TO PLAY THE FIRST VIDEO CLIP, SO HE IS RESTARTING. TIME TO GET A MAC, MARK!

In Middle school, we often start to lose students in math
- so we have a real push to engage students there

launchpad is a focus on technology

we are trying to model how we can effectively use video clips in the classroom
- it is more than just

Example: Real World: Farewell to the Mars Phoenix Lander

K-5 example: Our World: The Sun, A Real Star

Learn about the important relationship between Earth and the sun. Find out about the layers of the sun and how Earth’s magnetosphere acts like a giant handkerchief to protect us from all kinds of space weather.

Middle school example: Real World: Monitoring Earth’s Energy Budget with CERES

In this NASA eClips video segment learn how NASA uses CERES, a satellite in our Earth observing system, to make accurate measurements of energy leaving the Earth. Discover how NASA studies the interactions of clouds with sunlight and heat to determine how much heat is emitted back into space. Demonstrations are used to help support the segment.

High school example: Launchpad: Transits

Discover how scientists used the last Venus transit and a geometric technique called parallax to verify the distance between sun and Earth. Find out what scientists hope to learn the next time Venus makes a shadow on the face of the sun.

2 ways to access these videos:
1 – go to NASA.gov website, click for educators and on sidebar click NASA eClips
- direct link: www.nasa.gov/education/nasaeclips
2- can also access via YouTube: www.youtube.com/nasaeclips

Icons are available for topics, these are changing from “aeronautics” and “earth” to things like “algebra” and “chemistry”
- videos can be downloaded and played from the NASA website, are player independent, are all closed captioned!

YouTube channel videos have higher quality than NASA website versions, they can also be embedded (AS I HAVE ABOVE)

MY COMMENT: KUDOS TO NASA FOR MODELING THE CONSTRUCTIVE USE OF YOUTUBE IN THE CLASSROOM!

Have also started building support for these videos: The Teacher Toolbox

NASA.gov has an internal bookmarking system called “MyNASA”
- good way to deal with the dynamic nature of the NASA website, where things are changing frequently
- NASA is very conscious about having the most current information available online
- lots of the older resources that referred to Pluto as “a planet” are not available now, because those resources have been taken down until they are updated

Also: Engineering Design Guides are available for K-5 and 6-12 to help teachers introduce students to the engineering design process

Keeping a logbook to document your process is a key element for scientists

also has a rubric to help you assess what students can build

Use Google for an advanced search to find relevant NASA resources: example search syntax: “NASA” and “social studies”

There are TONS of NASA missions in addition to space shuttle and Apollo program!

NASA eClips™ Educator Guides: We are in the process of getting 24 lesson plans approved for using videos effectively in a lesson plan, how to tie content directly to the video
- 8 per grade level (8 for elementary, 8 for middle school, 8 for high school)
- right now there are just 3 eClips Educator Guides available now, more are being drafted now

Last thing we are doing: the Teacher to Teacher Blog
- just got approval for this last month
- is highly moderated
- trying to get teachers in the classroom to share their experiences, ideas, etc.
- not a lot of activity there yet, we are trying to get people to go there and share their thoughts

MY QUESTION: HOW DO YOU MEASURE SUCCESS

Answer: lots of web statistics gathered on hits
- is getting more attention/hits than

MY QUESTION: ARE YOU PROVIDING WORKSHOPS FOR SCHOOLS
- answer: they can, and they do when those are requested

Nortel Learn It, now “Teach It Learn It” is a program for using digital images and video in the classroom
- sample rubrics are available for assessing student projects

Other NASA resources
- click on FOR EDUCATORS in top bar
- you can click FIND TEACHING MATERIALS and choose from a variety of checkboxes now

content on nasa.gov is not embeddable currently

March 2008 contract was issued for eClips, so NASA’s use of YouTube in this project preceeded the Obama Administration’s use of YouTube and other social media websites

Most content now seems to be geared toward elementary and middle school students

The NASA “Ask an Astrophysicist” program is the only interactive part of the NASA website currently
- he does SpaceMap at NASA (worksheet activities, warmups for teachers)

Projects to get kids involved
- Star Count: you as a citizen get information about how to collect data, and you report your data in
- satellite information is validated using that information

-S’COOL: ground truth verification
- you are told when a satellite is going to be overhead, and you are asked to take land-based photographs showing what the clouds look like from the ground
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL
- Dr Lynn Chambers runs this project and actually uses that data

NASA World Wind
- NASA’s answer to Google Earth
- get world maps, and can overlay NASA data
- if NASA collects the data, you can overlay it onto the earth
http://worldwide.arc.nasa.gov/java
- you can download the software development kit (SDK) and develop your own
- someone just told me about this a month ago, it’s been available a LONG time though!

DiscoveryNOW is a 90 second video blurb podcast on NPR telling about something going on at NASA now
- can use this along with “Do It Yourself Podcasting” which NASA offers
- NASA Podcasts
- NASA Podcasting Help page

Sun-Earth Viewer shows different live images of the sun with different filters
- visualizations of the data
- realtime data

Landsat is part of NASA’s mission
- can do overlays, lots of imagery
- you own all of this stuff, because NASA is public

Internet Archive
- www.nasaimages.org setup by the Internet Archive
- thousands of available images

NASA Goddard Space Center has the largest collection of earth scientists in the world!
- lots of earth science done by NASA

Global Climate Change is out of NASA Langley

NASA centers are setup autonomously, so coordination between different websites is challenging

Because of STEM, our program is a great example of how NASA is now really paying attention to teacher voices and ideas
- it is a HUGE step forward

Career Bytes is a “Teach It Learn It” resource focused on careers and helping students connect with others for job/career learning

Do you have an idea of a career path you would like to follow or would like to learn about? The Career Bytes online interviews are short (~5 minute) videos exploring technology or technology-related career paths. Find (below) interviews that showcase diverse backgrounds, talents, and interest areas — from game creators to test pilots to rock stars! Career Bytes profile professionals discussing how they became successful, their challenges and interests, and how technology impacts their daily work.

Technorati Tags:
classroom, images, resources, science, technology, web, web2, nasa, stem

Leslie Wilson was Director of Michigan’s Freedom to Learn program and is the current director of the One-to-One Institute

Without leadership that causes this shift in teaching and learning, initiatives will not succeed

Remember the NYT article about Liverpool disbanding their program?
- that leader came out in education week 2 months ago and said, that was all about a change in leadership
- not everyone was on board when that program was implemented
- when the leadership changed, the program was disbanded

It all boils down to leadership

It isn’t about putting the hardware and software in schools
- it IS about teaching, learning, context and content in a technology enhanced environment

Fundamentally different shifts

Concept, vision and action
- purpose from research
- communication and collaboration with all constituents
- managing expectations: We’ve worked on helping our governor understand that simply having devices in their hands is NOT going to increase student achievement
- there are a host of factors

HYT, 6 Sep 2009, Alan R Mulally, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company
“The more that everybody comes together on what their real purpose is, the higher order of that, the better… and so the higher the calling, the higher the compelling vision you can articulate, the more it pulls everyone in.”

Without that vision,
- criticism of Wisconsin 1:1 project that has lacked vision
- it was corporate funded

back “the why” with research

the compelling vision
- the more we feel we are a part of something significant, and we understand our part in it, the more we can take a team approach to higher levels of performance
- this is about leaders’ ability to articulate a vision so others can become believers, even if it takes them awhile to do it

In Michigan so many of our superintendents balked at $38 million for 1:1

The compelling vision
- connecting the vision and strategies to the outside world
- knowing technology trends
- knowing expectations for students entering the workforce
- understanding the balance of cooperation and competition in the global market

I AGREE THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT ISSUE: BALANCING COOPERATION AND COMPETITION

When we collaborate and cooperate both with people here in the United States and people outside the US

The research
- 4000 pages of research around 1:1 and technology rich schools, and what they achieved
- we found very few patterns to hang our hats on
- go to www.projectred.org
- ISTE< Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology, Rockman et Al, National Research on AAL; Univ of Memphis, CREP; Texas TIP; North Carolina; Maine

All of us have points about less discipline referrals, increased student attendance, etc.

Did you know there is increased teacher attendance in these environments?

Leadership basics: ideals and beliefs
- vision: what do we know about the future that affects planning?
-- trends, research, blending vendors and educators and university work

we can't hang our hats on grants and soft money

technology will be used by all students and teachers to increase the efficiency and quality of work
- planning for using budgets and resources for short and long term planning

Where there is the leadership will and the compelling vision, you will define your action steps to implement 1:1 successfully

Must have objective, third party evaluator look at your goals and how you are going to achieve those

We fired our in-state university as an evaluator because they were not giving us student level, classroom level data comparing that with traditional classrooms
- so we went out with an RFP and found a university that would give us this data (Univ of Memphis)

How are the behaviors of students and teachers changing in this new environment
- those are the specifics you want to focus on in your study

All stakeholders
- don't wait till you have 85% of support
- you want all stakeholders to be part of the dialog, the process, the Q&A
- there need to be stakeholders involved in the process across
- budget must come through general operating expenses
- solid infrastructure with tech support
- process for computer upgrades, replacements
- consider leasing

Imperative Steps

ongoing professional development
- internal capacity: train the trainer
- tech integration coordinator
- cadre of teacher leaders
- cadre of principal leaders

school board
- board members are going to be the ones who get the phone calls
- share and seek support for technology vision
- supports investment in technology
- many school board members DO "get" the fact that we're overdue to have tech-rich teaching and learning environments in our schools

ensuring a shared vision
- it makes sense to go with low hanging fruit, right?
- principals and teachers
-- begin with those who believe
-- examine research and agreed upon expectations

- Partnerships
-- frequent interactions and communications
-- be an ever present resource

We are not going to turn the desert into an ocean: so let's start where there is at least a trickle of hope

Teacher's Association support is key
- share the vision
- share the research and expectations
begin with volunteers

Instructional tech dept
- share the vision
- ensure a spirit of service: won't work without them
- change roles from repair to networking

community
- presentations at proof of concept schools
- majority support for technology
- school and district communications
- FAQs
- availability and accessibility
- town halls, coffee klatches, church meetings

Leading change in the 1:1 environment
- first order versus second order change (switching grocery stores is an example of first order)
- second order change: has to do with how you define yourself, your identity: that means for many people we work with, moving to this collaborative, networked environment IS a second order change proposition

challenge prevailing norms and require teachers to learn new knowledge and skills
- REsearch from MCRELl: 21 leadership responsibilities
- 11 leadership responsibilities are associated with second order change

second order change leader "musts"
- ideals and beliefs
- change agent (challenge status quo)
- flexibility: define the negotiable and the non-negotiables
- monitor and evaluate: how do you know it's working
- intellectual stimulation: professional learning, presentations
- knowledge of curriculum, instruction, assessment (research)
- optimizer: cheerleader

as a leader, I need to be sharing ideas and learning opportunities with you all the time
- encouraging everyone you work with to be continually sharing

I will celebrate every step you take along this path

culture: cohesion, shared vision, purpose
technology
- share research and developed common understanding of the expectations
- develop system for sharing successful lessons
- share successful lessons and projects at:
-- faculty meetings
-- administrative council meetings
-- board meetings
-- rotated teachers and buildings

Communication: easily accessible, open lines
- technology examples: show them!!!
-- monthly meetings, email, website, frequent classroom visits

Can't rely on just 3 or 4 people do do all that work for support
- develop team-based approaches

order: routines, structures, rules
- technology
- establish rules and procedures together
- communicate through website
- lesson explanation for parents / caregivers
- more...

ongoing input by teams involved in decisions is key
- administrative decisions made in concert with 1:1 principals
- we don't take textbooks away from kids when they mark on the textbooks, should we do this with laptops?
- some schools in Michigan felt strongly that they should: ultimately the campus needs to make that decision

shared leadership: building capacity
- lead principals
- lead teachers
- lead technology support
- more...

sustainability
- vision into action plans
- revisit annually, at a minimum
- troubleshooting game plan
- budget alignment
- reiterating the compelling imperative
- walk the talk

Having a plan for troubleshooting is critical: where do people go with their tech problems?

lesliew [at] 1two1.org

Michigan's 1:1 program happened when the Republican speaker of the house visited a rural school selling Christmas trees, and saw things on that trip that convinced him that schools in the state needed 1:1

In Wisconsin: they were given $14 million to go 1:1 in a district, and it was NOT anyone's idea inside the district

So we are not seeing

America's Digital Schools: about 4% of our schools per year are implementing

Technorati Tags:
edtech, laptop, leadership, learning, politics, school, technology

History of the Illinois technology immersion bill
- was to allow 7 school districts in the state of Illinois to put laptops into their classrooms
- my late husband had been a champion of this bill
- that started my journey with 1:1 learning and advocacy
- you had to be technology/IT ready
- many of the schools were not ready

Calhoun County Elementary is one of the schools I’ll talk about today
- Calhoun County on the Illinois/Missouri and Mississippi River boundary, about 5000 people in the country
- you have to take a ferry to get there, there is 1 bridge
- they were IT ready
- when computers arrived, it took 8-9 months to go through RFP process

Also in the room, Donna who works on strategic initiatives with Apple computer and worked with
- Springfield went with Apple
- our school in Calhoun County went with Gateway
- we had 140 students getting laptops in this program, the vast majority of families did not have computers in the home with high speed access
- they have had a difficult time with what has happened with Gateway computer
- during this time, their scores, ACT, state scores, have increased and blossomed
- kids took the computers home, shared this with their parents
- over last 3-4 years, we have had significant results in terms of parent involvement
- combination of sharing everything you have with the community

In Springfield they have about 1400 computers, scores have gone up
- State Board for Illinois really touts Springfield schools, what they are doing and have succeeded in doing
- World War II exhibit

As legislators in the general assembly, we are going to have to take stock as we look at our schools, looking at controversy in student books
- is a task force out there led by Senator Garrett
- looking at textbooks generally
- digital connectivity and content is now available

Comment from Donna: Senator Demuzio has a perspective on what digital content can mean for kids

Calhoun County schools are struggling now, not because of content– but because of hardware / software issues they have
- when you walk into the classroom and kids are so excited to show you what they can produce on their machines

Illinois legislature reforms
- we all have laptops on our desks, following our bills on the Senate floor and elsewhere
- we know as adults how important access to digital content is

Now discussing financial / fiscal challenges for schools, especially in small, rural schools with limited IT resources
- dollars are not there for Calhoun County schools to maintain their 1:1 program
- we are looking at “Race to the Top” dollars to fund these initiatives

Now comment from Kathy Barnhart, who is with Illinois State Board of Education
- talking about mobile devices like iPhone / Blackberry being the next generation 1:1
- mobile devices are the future

Now comments again from Senator Deanna Demuzio
- in the legislature, we are going to have to educated about these devices and tools

I was told I am one of the few Senators who is texting
- many of our legislators are probably not as up to speed as we should be with technologies (and often with other things!)
- we need to be educated into what the schools are asking for, our students, our parents

Now Donna talking about iTouch applications accessible for visually impaired students

From Senator Deanna Demuzio:
- as we look at a global world and get our students ready for a global market, the computer is a big part of that answer

Question:
- first thing they are going to tell you is, “We don’t have any money”
- we are behind the 8 ball on this, we should have done this a long time ago
- when you look at the dollars we spend on education and we’ve spent on other things, if we don’t spend the money on education

In Ohio, student fees range at some schools fro $30 at elementary to a couple hundred dollars for high schools (those are student fees)

Now discussing textbook costs, and how to use those funds for digital content

another participant: going with open content sources, and coordinating that at the state level

IT WOULD BE GREAT TO SEE STATES ENABLING STUDENTS AND TEACHERS TO PUBLISH AND SHARE CURRICULUM MATERIALS WITH OPEN LICENSING

TWO KEY QUESTIONS:
1- ARE YOU CHANGING THE BELL SCHEDULE AT YOUR HIGH SCHOOLS?
2- ARE YOU CHANGING THE FOUNDATIONAL MEASURE OF HIGH SCHOOL COMPETENCY FROM THE CARNEGIE UNIT

Race to the Top is just 10 of 50 states

From Senator Demuzio:
Next year ARRA is gone, we will go back to regular funding schedules for schools

many of our rural schools have out of date textbooks, schools can’t afford to replace them

Schools need to invite legislators to come into the classroom
- we have a “Principal for a Day” program with the Illinois administrator program
- I do that in elementary schools, doing the announcements, cafeteria duty, putting kids on the bus at the end of the day
- at the end of the day when doing this, you really have an idea if that school is clicking, things are working
- make sure legislators see what your computers look like, show them your library

Have students send notes to their legislators
- asking them to keep computers up to date
- asking them to come visit them at school

THIS IS ALL ABOUT MAKING A CASE FOR MORE DOLLARS FOR EDUCATIONAL SPENDING. I’M INTERESTED IN WHAT CAN HELP EDUCATE AND OPEN LEGISLATOR’S IDEAS

Senator Demuzio has asked different groups of kids to present in front of the state board

Kathy Barnhart’s comment:
If you can get with a Senator to Skype to a school, you will open a new communication channel

Senator Demuzio: Students in a classroom used computers to create a photo book for her about a visit she made to their school, they signed the book and wrote personal notes

I JUST ASKED ABOUT RURAL BROADBAND INITIATIVES IN ILLINOIS

Technorati Tags:
1:1, 1to1, conference, illinois, laptop, learning, politics

Alex in 6th year of 1:1 at Whitfield School in St Louis
- ran a 1:1 project before that in Milwaukee at University Lake School
- also works with Educational Collaborators

to date now, I have helped over 100 schools with their 1:1 projects

First experience: Alex was asked to put together a 1:1 plan and “do it right”
- his proposal was turned down as WAY to expensive
- no money was provided in the end for servers, training, infrastructure, etc.

New school: business manager said we had a 10 year business plan in place that didn’t include 1:1 learning
- so for various reasons, I have learned to be creative in seeking funding and functionality

Understanding 1:1 Costs
- acquisition cost
- operating costs
- opportunity loss costs
- total cost of ownership
- value of investment

Gartner says acquisition cost is just about 25% of your total 1:1 costs, so if you just focus on that (how much is that laptop) you are missing 75% of your cost

BYOL can make your operating costs VERY expensive (students bring their laptops)

opportunity loss costs: if you buy a technology but no one knows how to use it, there is an opportunity loss cost (you can’t actualize the value / potential of that technology
- any new technology has opportunity loss costs
- the space between when you put the technology in place and it is used well

Get familiar with the COSN site: they have a TCO calculator for total cost of ownership calculations
- developed with Gartner

ROI = return on investment (that is what businesses do that are selling something)
- profit is ROI

We don’t do this, we make kids who are contributors to their families, communities, and our democracy
- a VOI (value on investment) is an analysis that helps you analyze and quantify the reasons why you are doing a 1:1
- this answers the value and return questions about your 1:1 project

It’s more than just acquisition cost!!!

There are COSN white papers on how these things have worked in schools: Those white papers are NOT very good
- you have to know what to plug into the formulas for these to work
- some of these examples don’t have annual MS licensing costs included, some don’t include ongoing expenses like this
- be careful with some of those examples, and when you put your own numbers in

Comprehensive One-to-One Planning and Implementation Engagement
- this is the approach we take with schools

Your one to one goals and objectives must align with WHO YOU ARE as a school / district
- if you have a teacher who acts directly against your school mission statement, are they going to stay with you?

Other elements:
- financial planning
- device procurement and deployment
- end user support
- curriculum integration
- marketing communication
- faculty development
- infrastructure development

Planning is a first way to save some dollars
- one of the most expensive ways to do 1:1 is when a single individual decides to go 1:1, and that effort is not supported well by the organization
- mission and focus are key
- professional development
– admin
– faculty
– IT staff
- infrastructure

20 – 25% of TCO is hardware
- if you are

Leadership is one of the BIGGEST keys for success
- so many admins then refuse / don’t go to continuing PD
- focus on assessment of teachers is vital
- communication and marketing is key, how does 1:1 fit into those conversations?
- community buy in is so important, esp in communicates where there is lots of unemployment

The reason we are doing this is the same reason why moms and dads in our community does not have a job today: we need to provide those skills so our students

There are very few colleges who are teaching teachers today how to teach in a 1:1 environment
- classroom management is DIFFERENT in a 1:1 environment
- teachers are typically trained to be the content organizers, but now every child has access via their device to more knowledge and information than the entire faculty does all together
- this has to fundamentally change the role of the teacher!!!!
- secondary and higher education teachers should take their lead from the elementary / primary age teachers who are already facilitators for learning

IT Staff has enormous changes with 1:1
- stock for your IT staff goes up BIG TIME
- in the past, expectations were very low
- now: if you expect every day each student needs to have a functioning device to use is a HUGE difference
- turning around laptops in 15 minutes is critical now, so swappable laptops are key

Infrastructure: save money by fundamentally focusing them on your MISSION AND VISION
- the mission and vision will tell you what software to buy and more importantly, what NOT To buy
- same for hardware, storage infrastructure, etc.

Without the focus on mission and focus, you’ll be scared, looking for a technological solution, and it will meet some problem but not necessarily YOUR mission goals and focus

focus on your mission and vision!!!!!!

“The Cloud”
- web 2.0
- Google Apps (we just switched over in May to Google Apps for Education)
- Web Based SIS, etc
- Cluster Servers

Story of 2 hour downtime with Google Apps last year
- downtime with Google Apps for Education is MUCH less than it was with our MS Exchange server, which we were

Change management
- I try to be careful about how much change I introduce / implement at the same time
- when we went to Google Apps, I just focused on mail

web 2.0 applications don’t require you to install software, and are very light on support costs
- you can buy these as a service

We host our own Moodle server, but this year we are moving it out to a hosted solution
- this year I’ve calculated the opportunity loss cost for supporting my own Moodle server, and those costs for being down when I couldn’t fix it, as well as new Moodle

Some districts and states are locked into a particular Student Information Systems
- we moved to a Web Based SIS, now it is WONDERFUL!!!!!
- are a host of different options

Cluster Servers used to be really expensive and complicated, it is neither now
- different servers back each other up
- much more attainable
- we use VMware’s clustering

Virtualization
- Server virtualization by VMware
- Xen (open source virtualization option)
- if you are not doing this now, you definitely should be looking at this
- software provides redundancy across server
- example: at morning login time, your domain controllers get more “juice” to handle those server loads as they are needed, power gets redistributed
- these functions can ROI in a heartbeat, if you have more than 5 servers in your environment, you should be doing server virtualization

Application virtualization
- Citrix: now deliver applications via Zen
- like an application server: instead of installing an application on every machine, you install on a server and make it available to all your machines
- can generally save money on installations and use of licenses
- Kidspiration and Inspiration is a perfect example of this
- if you start pricing these out in a 1:1 environment, it is heinously expensive to do on a client basis
- then you can license for something like 100 concurrent licenses, and make those available to 1000 machines (or however many you have)

Desktop virtualization

Microsoft changes their opinion fairly often about virtualization and concurrent licenses
- costs for MS licenses can vary
- for non-MS software, your cost savings is HUGE

I am now presenting with my $325 Netbook that we roll out to 25% of our students
- runs Ubuntu, no operating system costs

Open Source programs / applications we use:
- Moodle
- Linux
- Open Office
- GIMP
- Audacity
- Kompozer
- iTalc
- Geogebra
- Scribus
- KdenLive (like our iMovie)

On the acquisition cost there are costs savings, and we work closely with users to manage opportunity use costs

The stability of Linux is staggering
- I have 2.5 times FEWER help desk requests than my colleagues at other area schools doing laptop initiatives on other platforms (Windows or Mac)

Schools to look at
- San Diego Unified: told vendors in 3 years we are running Linux on everything, so if your applications don’t run on Linux or or on the web, you will be removed from our vendor list
- Accelerated Reader is now web-based, you can thank San Diego Unified for that

The web is THERE, vendors CAN create/port their applications to run on the web

put your money into buying a bigger Internet pipe, find ways to get open source solutions in there

MY QUESTION TO ALEX WAS ABOUT PEARSON’S WINDOWS-ONLY CLIENT FOR OKLAHOMA ONLINE TESTING, AND WHAT OPTIONS WE’D HAVE FOR A UNIX ENVIORMENT

Linux can run a good number of Windows programs through WINE, as an emulation environment (Windows licenses not required for WINE)
- could also use Terminal Services to do this
- not sure if Windows can run from a USB key

For a statewide project, you could go to WINE developers and ask for support / pay for support to develop needed client support

To make large scale changes like this, you really need to know your culture
- example might be photoshop and GIMP, importance of involving your visual arts folks in this conversation / discussion

I used run a company on Blackboard
- Blackboard is an information delivery tool
- Moodle is a learning management system
- just because it is free (Moodle) does not mean it is cheap
- Moodle is SO MUCH better compared to Blackboard, the differences are HUGE

If you can start saving money BEFORE you have to save money, go get ahead of the game, you take a piece of those savings and put them into change management processes: PD, FAQs, etc.

It’s tough to change when you don’t have to

Evolution is an open-source client like MS Exchange that works with Exchange Server

Technorati Tags:
edtech, education, linux, opensource, technology, open, source

1. We have a 1:1 project in at least 1 grade, students take home laptops
2. We have a 1:1 project in at least 1 grade, students do NOT take home laptops
3. Our teachers have laptops, students do not
4. We are considering 1:1
5. None of the above

60% of our 67 poll respondents today are in 1:1 environments. Of those, 42% let students take laptops home, 18% do not. 15% of respondents are 1:1 for teachers only, and 24% of respondents are considering a 1:1 project.

Technorati Tags:
1to1, laptop, learning, #gl1to1

If you have not already, please join the K-12 Online Conference Ning, subscribe to the conference blog, follow k12online on Twitter, and become a fan of k12online on Facebook! As teasers are created by our 2009 presenters, they will be cross-posted to both our conference blog and the 2009 Teasers group in our conference Ning.

Technorati Tags:
conference, education, k12online, k12online09, learning, technology

Podstock is organized by the amazing folks at ESSDACK in Hutchinson, and is the brainchild of the creative Kevin Honeycutt, among many others.

Technorati Tags:
conference, creativity, education, kansas, learning, podstock, school, technology, podstock10, podstock2010, wichita

In addition to not knowing the pricing schedule, I was also holding my breath a bit before seeing these bills since I used my Boingo account during the conference to log in four or five other international participants and presenters who were sitting around me and also wanted to get online. I didn’t know if I’d be charged for multiple Boingo connections, if ChinaMobile would kick me off my login (and just 1 accept simultaneous login from our location) or if I’d just be charged once for each day. Turns out each day just cost $10 US, and I wasn’t charged for the simultaneous logins. Woo hoo!

Being able to get online at the conference when no one else seemed to be able to was fun at the time, especially when I was able to get other people online as well… But if I’d have incurred a VERY expensive bill as a result that would have taken a lot of the fun out of the experience with hindsight.

I’m in Chicago this evening for the Great Lakes 1:1 Computing Conference which starts tomorrow, sponsored by the One-to-One Institute. It is delightful to not only have fast, free WiFi here, but also not have to wrangle with proxy services to bypass a national content filter.

Technorati Tags:
china, hangzhou, wifi, boingo

Obviously the two girls didn’t want everyone to see the pictures, so they posted them with the privacy controls set so only friends could see them. However, the photos were copied and eventually ended up on the desk of Austin Couch, the school’s principal.

Couch then punished the girls based on the school’s athletic code, which provides sanctions for student athletes that engage in behavior in or out of school that “creates a disruptive influence on the discipline, good order, moral or educational environment at Churubusco High School.” The two girls were barred from participating in any extracurricular activities, made to apologize for the photos to an all-male coaches board (which the complaint describes as “profoundly embarrassing”), and forced to undergo “humiliating” counseling.

Back in April 2009, a California court ruled photos posted to an online social networking website (MySpace in this situation) cannot be considered “private.” This latest case from Indiana will put this plea to the test again, but in slightly different circumstances since the posters DID share the images with privacy controls enabled.

I agree with John Palfrey’s point about online privacy on social networking sites in the article. Palfrey is a Harvard University law professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Polfrey, quoted in the article,

…said that the idea of privacy on social networking websites is merely an illusion, even with added privacy controls. He also believes that schools have a right to regulate a student’s online activities, but the court will have to determine if the two girls in this case had their First Amendment right violated.” The fact that it took place in cyberspace instead of in a classroom doesn’t mean you don’t enforce the rule,” he told the AP.

I do not agree that schools should have an unrestricted right to “regulate a student’s online activities,” however, and will watch this case with interest. We definitely have situations in some of our Oklahoma schools where officials have stepped over the line and ignored the fact that students in schools still do possess constitutional rights, including limited free speech. In this Churubusco High School case, it appears the school officials took an overly broad interpretation of what constitutes a “disruption in the school environment.” Since the photos were taken the previous summer, made no reference to school, and were not brought into the school by the students in question, it seems highly doubtful the school administration can make a disruption case following the Tinker precedent. Of course, I’m also not a school lawyer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Whatever the court rules in this case, the fact is that these photos have gone public and the girls in question are understandably embarrassed. This supports my primary point in this post: Photographic privacy is over. Whether or not you post a photo online or someone else does, it can end up on the desk of your school principal, your boss at work, or your mother. We may not like it, we can gripe about it, but this is the reality of the online, networked world in which we live.

In contexts like this, it certainly seems wonderful NOT to be growing up as a teen today. With all your friends armed with digital cameras and camcorders on their cell phones, how many different incidents from your youth could have landed you in the principal’s office if the school district took the same posture towards those photos as school officials in Fort Wayne, Indiana have in this case?

Technorati Tags:
facebook, myspace, photo, photos, principal, privacy, school, administration

Our culture practically mandates time online, he (Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis of the Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development, in Seattle) says, with Wi-Fi connections in coffee shops and BlackBerries and iPhones that allow Internet access almost anywhere. “It would be as if we mandated that everyone drink two beers every day or everyone gamble for an hour every day,” says Christakis.

Are you addicted to the Internet? Is hyperlinked reading and writing consuming more of your time than is probably healthy? How about online games? How many people in your family are addicted to Farmville now? This article and cited study provides a definition of Internet addiction:

Definitions vary, but an Internet addiction usually includes symptoms such as spending a lot of time on the Internet (especially more time than intended), an inability to cut back on usage, a preoccupation with online activities, and symptoms of withdrawal such as anxiety, boredom, or irritability after a few days of not going online.

A technology fast over the upcoming holidays may be able to serve as a personal litmus test for Internet addiction. Whether or not you think you are addicted to online activities, this is a good conversation to have with your family members, students and others in your sphere of influence. Balance is essential, and online destinations are more alluring and engaging than ever. We all need to likely grapple with these issues of time spent online and balancing those activities with other priorities in our lives.

Technorati Tags:
cnn, conversation, family, health, internet, technology, balance, fast, addiction, study

Bud Hunt also has it right, in the comment he left for Chris Ridgway on the NYSCATE presentation wiki. Bud wrote:

Dear Chris,

I wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I find this session title and the frame that you’re using to sell your services to be offensive and beyond the pale. Our students are not our enemies and their behaviors are not rooted in violence. So long as you make them out to be, though, you’ll certainly be doing our schools and our students a great deal of harm.

I suspect you’re a smart dude, wise about networks and the Internet. I hope you’ll hear what I’m saying here and, in the future, when speaking and teaching about the actions of our children, you’ll do so in a way that doesn’t make them out to be criminals. Because they’re not. No more so than vendors are scoundrels that prey on our worst fears.

All the best. I’d look forward to your response.

- Bud Hunt
http://budtheteacher.com

I look forward to your response as well, Chris, and the response of the NYSCATE conference organizers. The title of this session should be changed immediately, and the change should be acknowledged in a transparent way on the conference wiki as well as conference program so conference attendees as well as other vendors can understand the change and why it was made. This is a great teachable moment. Seize the day.

I suggest students living near the NYSCATE conference (in Rochester, New York) up the ante by engaging in a social media protest. It would be great to see a group of students show up at Chris Ridgway’s presentation during the first concurrent session (12:30 – 1:30) with protest signs saying things like:

Students are not the enemy.

or

Trust us and partner with us as students, don’t wage war on us.

or

CIPA doesn’t mandate IT department wars upon students.

or

If we aren’t living in China, why is our school IT department filtering us like we are insurgents?

A social media campaign could also be easily organized using Facebook and Twitter, and an online petition could be started using a tool like PetitionOnline or PetitionSpot.

Clay Shirkey, in his book “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,” observes that social media technologies can be used in a continuum of ways: from simple sharing, to collaboration, to collective action. This proposed session by Sophos representative Chris Ridgway justifies the third level of social media use: collective action. As educators and students, we SHOULD speak out against offensive ideas and philosophies like that represented by Chris’ NYSCATE presentation title.

Students are NOT the enemy, and we should not stand by idly while professionals of any kind (vendors or educators) make public statements which demonize students. The oft quoted words of Edmond Burke come to mind in this context:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Words matter. Let’s hope the organizers of the NYSCATE 2009 conference, the directors of the Sophos company, and Chris Ridgway are listening. There is still time to rename your presentation and acknowledge the error of your ways, Chris. In any event, your session title and these circumstances provide a natural invitation for a student social media protest campaign.

Unfortunately, I can’t make it to NYSCATE this year to storychase this event. Anyone else want to pick up this torch?

Technorati Tags:
content, education, filter, media, network, protest, school, social, student, students, technology, NYSCATE, NYSCATE09, sophos, chris, ridgway, it

(Full panorama: 2758 x 870)

(Full panorama: 3770 x 970)

These iPhone panoramic photos were created using the $3 app Pano. I’ve shared seven panoramic photos from Shanghai and sixteen panoramic photos from Hangzhou in my Flickr collection, 21C Learning @ Hongzhou, China.

My favorite is this one of the Chenghuang Miao area at night, in Shanghai. This is a panorama composed of thirteen different images, again using Pano.

(Full panorama: 6899 x 964)

Technorati Tags:
china, pano, shanghai, travel, dumplings

Show Notes:

1. Welcome to the Future by Brad Paisley (full music video on YouTube)
2. Bob Sprankle’s Bit by Bit 100th Podcast
3. The NOW Generation by The Black Eyed Peas
4. The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape by Harm De Blij
5. The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman
6. Creativity and Innovation in Chinese Society and Schools (my post 3 Nov 2009)
7. The dilemma presented by China’s content filtering of my current handouts website (my post 1 Nov 2009)
8. Center for Digital Storytelling
9. My notes for Joe Lambert’s 21st Century Learning @ West Lake Conference: The Place of Story
10. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
11. Unmasking the Digital Truth Project
12. CCC in the 21C: Create, Communicate, Collaborate
13. Contact Wesley
14. Follow Wesley on Twitter

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

Receive an email alert whenever a new Speed of Creativity podcast is published!

Here are four different panoramic photos I’ve taken this week entroute and in Hangzhou, China, with this fantastic $3 application. Click on the full-size images links below to see the “big picture” in Flickr! You’ll need to scroll horizontally to see the entire image in each case. Anyone know if there is a fast/easy way to make a QTVR movie with images like these?

This is a photo taken with Pano on our Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo.

(Full size version: 1600 x 239)

This second panoramic photo was taken in the lobby of our hotel in Hangzhou, located near West Lake.

(Full size version: 3844 x 734)

This is the photo of our hotel presentation room yesterday, where I presented with Joe Lambert about digital storytelling. (This was a humbling honor to present in the same room with Joe, btw. He is THE GURU of digital storytelling, internationally. A few of my notes from his session are available.)

(Full size version: 3828 x 732)

I snapped this final panoramic image this morning walking around the lake near our hotel. This is a 360 degree panorama, including 11 different landscape images with the iPhone stitched together with Pano.

(Full size version: 7494 x 674)

I published a bunch of additional photos from around Hangzhou today to a new Flickr set. Tomorrow we are going to tour two different universities here, in this city of approximately six million people. That’s a population almost twice the size of the state of Oklahoma.

As a related aside, I noticed today all three of Marco Torres’ websites are blocked here in China. Without a proxy site like Proxify, I can’t access torres21.com or pushcreativity.com (his pointer sites) or his blog site torres21.squarespace.com. Like Blogger, all squarespace.com blog sites are blocked by the Chinese government.

How nice. Reminds me of home in many of our Oklahoma public schools.

Technorati Tags:
china, digital, digitalstorytelling, hangzhou, iphone, pano, panoramic, photography, storytelling, travel

AACE / Global Learn
- Association for Advancement in Computers in Education will assist in publication of materials related to this conference and these initiatives related to 21st century skills
- Global Learn Asia Pacific 2010
- in Penang, Malaysia – May 2010

EDUsummIT09: International Summit on the Future of ICT in Education: A Call to Action The Hague, Netherlands June 10-12, 2009 (PDF)

In July 2010, will hold the 2010 Sydney Symposium: The Future of Teacher Education and School Leader Education”
- “Creating the Vision”
- hosted by Macquarie University
- we need to focus on re-creating the vision for teacher education
- we will visioning / imagining what the future will be like for teacher educators and teacher leaders

For information contact Ian Gibson: ian [dot] gibson [at] mq.edu.au

Australian Council of Educational Leaders
- Jenny Lewis, CEO
- Memberships, Benefits
– Leadership Capability Framework
- Hosting and Harvesting Conference: Sept 2010 (PDF)
- this is the largest leadership conference in Australia

Upcoming 2011 conference in Beijing, China, at Tsinghua University
- in China more than 268 universities have departments of educational technology
- these Presidents and Deans from these universities will actively participate in this conference
- this is the meeting date for the association of these leaders

Comment from Dr Gerald Knezek: I noticed from one of the earlier presentations, that China has more FRESHMEN students in all than my home state of Texas has in TOTAL students

National Technology Leadership Summit (NTLS)
- in Honolulu, Hawaii USA, 7-8 Jan 2010
- three strands: globalization, performance assessment, engineering education
- each person who comes will be expected to also bring ideas to the table!

ISTE opportunities in the Asia/Pacific Region
- now offering a special membership opportunity specific for educators in the Asia / Pacific region (online, non-US membership: $49 US annually)
- in 2010 will open Institutional Memberships
- Leading and Learning with Technology: ISTE’s flagship magazine, practical, usable ideas for improving learning with technology integration
- live and archived webinars
- a variety of special interest groups (our largest is for Teacher Educators)

2 conferences in the Asia-Pacific Region in the Spring:
- March 2-6 in Singapore: www.ictlt.com

ACEC 2010 April 6-9 in Melbourne: Digital Diversity Conference
http://acec2010.info/

our last conference drew 22 country representatives

Join us on ISTE Island in Second Life
- resources keep coming: many traditional publications

If you wonder if you belong, view this diagram of the curricular focus of our members

Consider as an institution becoming a partner, and helping us bring down the language barrier
- seeking partners to translate web content
- to translate and co-publish books
- to act as moderators for our virtual networks

In SL, we have over 75 docents who help educators work in that arena

SITE: Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education
- 900 faculty from 200 universities
- 2009 meeting included 55 nations
- teachers of technology-using teachers
- Gerald Knezek, President 2008-2011

SITE seeks to promote research, scholarship, collaboration, and exchange for IT & Teacher Education
- and foster the development of new structures and organizations where a need emerges (that is a big reason why we are here today)

We are known as “The Friendly Society”
- 7 presidents over 21 years as a society

Have 3 councils, which include 28 special interest groups (SIGs)

We are one of four organizations under AACE
- SITE
- ED-MEDIA
- E-Lear
- Global Learn

AACE digital library includes 23,755 papers by 52,618 authors
- 10 journals, many books
- conference proceedings

Final thought: The turtle only makes progress when he sticks his neck out
- James Bryant, Conant diplomat nad educator, 1893 – 1978)

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

Think Global School
Think Global School Blog
http://twitter.com/janicepcheng
http://twitter.com/tgsthinkglobal

MY COMMENT: INTERESTINGLY AND AMAZINGLY THE THINK GLOBAL SCHOOL WEBSITE (AND ALL FOUR OF THE ABOVE WEBSITES, INCIDENTALLY) IS/ARE ACTUALLY BLOCKED HERE IN CHINA. FOR SOME REASON I CANNOT EVEN USE THE PROXY SITE PROXIFY TO ACCESS THE MAIN PROJECT WEBSITE OR BLOG, ALTHOUGH I CAN ACCESS THESE TWITTER SITES WITH A PROXY.

While we live in a global society, many schools today have failed to provide the set of experiences and tools for young people to excel in our globalized, interdependent world

Education has become more passive in a world that has become more active
- our world is more connected than in any other time of history
- our focus is to help students become more responsible citizens in the world and in their communities
- the experiential learning will provide students with tools and experiences to engage with the world and engage in real learning

We balance activities and hands-on activities with technology
- through collaboration, dialog, and cultural literacy we will instill in our students the desire to build bridges between our nations, our cities, and our cultures

TGS Social Media Experience
- “the system” is in the center, the following are all spokes
– capture and share
– connect and engage
– portfolio
– power modern learning practices

Principles for social media system
- post once, use everywhere
- everything posted is searchable
- easy sharing with PUSH notification
- single login access to everything
- always natural, intuitive workflows and collaboration
- many points of content input / output: web, MacBook and iPhone

Aron Solomon says there are 2 types of technology: technologies people use, and technologies people don’t use
- others observe there are two types of people: those who use technology and those who don’t

THIS IS SO AWESOME. THIS IS A LOT LIKE WHAT WE’VE TALKED AND DREAMED ABOUT PROMOTING WITH STORYCHASERS.

Activity streams insure the participating students, parents at home, and others remain highly connected with the activities and learning of participating students

We will use tags to help students stay organized, allow for informational organization of online activity

Not everything posted is public: this is an important value and skill of being a digital citizen
- some are public
- some are school-only
- some are private

TGS learning community is global
- we will travel to 3 international cities each year

JANICE IS PRESENTING WITH PRESI. WHILE I’VE SEEN PRESI PRESENTATIONS ONLINE, I HAVE NEVER SEEN A SPEAKER USE PRESI IN A LIVE SETTING PREVIOUSLY. THE RESOLUTION AND QUALITY OF THE SLIDES SHE IS SHARING ARE FANTASTIC. THIS IS REALLY AN INTERESTING AND ENTHRALLING WAY TO PRESENT, AND I’M GOING TO HAVE TO GIVE THIS A TRY SOON. I HOPE I CAN GET A LINK TO HER PRESENTATION.

Key Success Factors:
- effective activities and interactions in host cities
- effective transition from face-to-face to online interaction while in host cities
- activities which allow host cities to interact with each other
- engaging participatory curriculum for partner schools
- projects and activities which promote interaction between partner and host schools
- an online, social media system that is natural, easy and fun for students to use
- making the network self-sustaining: TGS becomes the builder but relies on other schools and organizations to help keep activities going year to year

Our goal is to change the world one person at a time, one city at a time

Many Chinese parents have reservations about our program because they are very examination focused, and our approach seems
- we are well funded, so we are not necessarily just looking for kids who are rich
- we are looking for students who want to grow, to develop beyond their comfort zone

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

Joe Lambert is the executive director of The Center for Digital Storytelling. online bio states:

Joe founded the Center for Digital Storytelling (formerly the San Francisco Digital Media Center) in 1994, with wife Nina Mullen and colleague Dana Atchley. Together they developed a unique computer training and arts program that today is known as the Standard Digital Storytelling Workshop. This process grew out of Joe’s long running collaboration with Dana on the solo theatrical multimedia work, Next Exit. Since then, Joe has traveled the world to spread the practice of digital storytelling and has authored and produced curricula in many contexts, including the Digital Storytelling Cookbook, the principle manual for the workshop process, and Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community.

Born and raised in Texas, Joe has been active in the Bay Area arts community for the last twenty-five years as an arts activist, producer, administrator, teacher, writer, and director. In 1986, he co-founded Life On The Water, a successful non-profit production company that offered a broad array of programs serving San Francisco’s diverse communities. Joe has produced over 500 shows, ranging from theatrical runs, single performances, special events, citywide festivals, subscription series, conferences, and digital story screenings. Prior to his career in the arts, Joe was trained as a community organizer and assisted in numerous local, statewide, and national public policy campaigns on issues of social justice and economic equity. He has a B.A. in Theater and Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley

Starting with a story of a fish, about the Buddha’s reincarnations
- Once upon a time, the Buddha was incarnated as a fish
- But the pond had a dry year, and all the water dried up

Our work focuses on helping people find their voice again through the uses of new media
I have been doing this work in the US and around the world for the past 15 years, worked in 38 countries and in all 50 states of the United States

I will talk a little about the model of our curriculum, and I will use a video from many years ago that shows what workshop products from my organization looked like

CNN story of “The Digital Storyhouse”

Elements of the digital storytelling curriculum:
1- elements of story
2- story circle
3- production
4- celebration
we focus on a group process of feedback, making the group the expert on the best way to create the story
we focus on a production methodology that emphasizes elegant design, not the technology
we make sure everyone in our workshop environments / schools: every single person completes a story

with this approach, we have been able to apply digital storytelling to many different contexts
- creativity and personal voice: in an arts context, it has given many artists a chance to express their personal stories
- social change and civic engagement: in many environments, it is used to make stories about issues that affect communities or affect the larger society
- media literacy and technology education:
- planning, portfolio and assessment
- healing and public health
- broadcast and citizen media projects

While much of our focus has been on local production, small projects, we have also been fortunate to work with organizations as large ad the BBC to create country-wide programs that capture stories from aound the the nation, specifically in wales: www.bbc.co.uk/digitalstorytelling

I want to show 1 story that I like a lot, because it uses one image to tell the story

This is a man talking about his schoolhouse from many years before when he was a child: Flashback by Luean Sheen

These kinds of simple stories all many people to be able to participate in the digital world

We believe the issue is not about digital literacy in the specialization of the art forms of digital media, but is a universal right to speak in the language of film for everyone in the world

Towards that end, we have put a lot of emphasis on digital storytelling to broaden digital literacies in education
- through this conference, through Wesley’s presentation, you can see there are many resources available to learn about and utilize digital storytelling

I call this the place of story, to talk about place-based learning and mobile media
- engaging students outside the classroom
- capturing stories that celebrate community assets and explore local history
- connecting students to real world policy
- engaging multigenerational dialogue
My work has aligned me with the educational movement called “place-based learning, ” getting students out of the classroom
My work has focused on how our mode of living in the suburbs has affected our lives
This is a photograph of a glypth that seen from the air, you can recognize as a human being playing soccer
My view is that we are disconnected from each other in many of the ways we have organized our communities
- we have our problem of not having places to go to share our stories, in the same way we used to do historically
So I began a national project, to help others who are planning the design of communities and the redesign of communities
www.storycenter.org/placemeant.html (The Placemeant Project)
the stories that we have collected in many communities, like New Orleans as an example, become a discussion about the way a city should plan

if you go to New Orleans, you will see signs in certain neighborhoods, you call on your cell phone and you can hear the story that we have helped to collect
- these stories are shared with the city planning bodies, and people are able to leave their own story if they decide to be involved in the discussion which these stories engender
- through doing this, we are seeing that mobile media has a way to bring back important memories that can become a part of the living architecture of the community
- this is an area in which we are very interested in finding partners and developing partnerships, and we would love to do this in China

A final story: 30 years ago I was in Houston, Texas, and I had been working with the Chinese consulate that had just been formed in Houston

China Daily article: China, US celebrate 30 years of maritime trade
- recalling that a COSCO merchant ship named Liu Lin Hai called on the Seattle Port in 1979, becoming the first Chinese vessel to arrive in the US in decades…
- I was asked by the Chinese consulate to come up with an educational project focused on this
- My idea was to collect a textbook set
- So I put a big box out and collected 4 tons of books
- But I was not a very smart student, I didn’t think about how you were going to ship 4 tons of books to China
- As luck would have it, the Liu Lin Hai came to the Houston port
- So we drove a truck with all the books and put them on the ship
- 2 months later I received a letter from the President of Phu Don University, thanking me for sending these books to start this conversation between Chinese education and US education
- I will finish by saying I am sure my inspiration as well as now for being here in Hangzhou, is that I believe the face of the 21st century is going to be shaped by students like you
- I know the work between US and Chinese people to bring these 21st century skills is very important. Thank you for the honor of being here.

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

Web3D History
- 1994 VRML
- 1998 VRML Consortium renamed Web3D Consortium
- 2004 new VRML standard: Extensible 3d (X3D)

Digital Museum and its key technologies
- utilizes multimedia and network technologies to realize all kinds of features/functionalities utilized by real museums

Example application of Panoramic Surround Technology

There are several different versions of the Chinese Forbidden City as a virtual museum

This one is from the mainland: www.chinavir.net/beijing/guong (I COPIED THIS WEB ADDRESS WRONG AND AM THEREFORE NOT LINKING IT– IF YOU KONW THE CORRECT URL PLEASE LET ME KNOW WITH A COMMENT)

This one is a Taiwan version: www.npm.gov.tw (INTERESTINGLY THIS ONE IS BLOCKED HERE IN CHINA AND CAN ONLY BE ACCESSED VIA A PROXY)

Another one: www.airiti.com/npmoln

Best one: www.dpm.org.cn (WOW, THIS ONE DOES LOOK FANTASTIC)

Are 10 virtual museums of China now available in English

World Digital Library: released by UNESCO in Summer 2009 – www.wdl.org
- simple technologically, but is collecting a lot of information about different museums

The British Museum online: www.britishmuseum.org
- best example of virtual museum fulfilling educational purposes
- includes webquests: has one about Chinese New Year
- Ancient China: www.ancientchina.co.uk
- Early Imperial China: www.earlyimperialchina.co.uk

VR examples from www.chinavr.net

DVR = distributed virtual reality
- supports users from different locations to access virtual environments synchronously and interact with each other

I COULDN’T FIND A WIKIPEDIA ENTRY FOR DVR, BUT DID FIND “Cave Automatic Virtual Environment” WHICH I HAD NOT ENCOUNTERED PREVIOUSLY

Application of VR using HD 3D stereoscopic glasses

Now showing a bluetooth and laser-based virtual keyboard (cost: RMB 180)

Informal Learning (IL)
- since school was born, learning was divided into formal learning, which happens in specific educational institutes, and informal learning

most of human beings’ skills and knowledge come from informal learning

Categories of informal learning, according to the people involved:
- personal introspection
- two persons’ collaboration
- practice team
- online group

Visiting a digital museum is an important way of informal learning because it could provide a learning environment with rich historical and cultural heritage
- using a digital museum to do historical education related studies would be more visible, immersive, and interesting

Key factors impacting effectiveness of informal learning
- visitor’s prior experiences, interests and motivation
- society and interaction mode among entities
- physical features of museum
- frequencies of accessing

We would like to create a platform for the sharing and creation of more virtual museums

MY COMMENT: ONE OF THE HUGE DIFFERENCES WHICH CAME OUT DURING THE Q&A DISCUSSION ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION, AND DISCUSSIONS WITH OTHER AUDIENCE MEMBERS, IS THAT THE VIRTUAL WORLD DEMONSTRATIONS THAT WERE SHOWN IN THIS SESSION ARE NOT INTERACTIVE, LIKE SECOND LIFE. THESE ARE BEING PROGRAMMED IN VRML, SO YOU CAN HIT THE PAGE LINK IN A BROWSER AND DO NOT NEED TO DOWNLOAD AND USE A SEPARATE CLIENT BROWSER, LIKE YOU DO WITH SL. WE DISCUSSED ISSUES ABOUT CONTENT FILTERING OF SL IN US SCHOOLS. THOSE ARE NOT ISSUES HERE IN CHINA, BECAUSE THESE VR ENVIRONMENTS ARE NOT INTERACTIVE.

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

Since I want to provide all the participants at this conference, as well as others who may be interested in the content there, with unfettered digital access to my ideas, this content filtering situation is very problematic and troubling. I am very thankful my main blog site is accessible / not blocked in China, but a LOT of the resources I share are on my presentation wiki, so this blocking situation is really frustrating.

Several years ago, I mapped my PBworks website to my personal domain, so the site is accessible (assuming content filters don’t get in the way) from the URLS teachdigital.pbworks.com and handouts.wesfryer.com. This subdomain mapping functionality provides an easier-to-remember website address for my handouts page, but does NOT help circumvent content filtering situations like we have here in China. My guess is that the Chinese content filter is blocking PBworks sites by IP address, not simply by domain name, so even when people try to access my handouts.wesfryer.com site from China it is blocked just as the main/default teachdigital.pbworks.com site is.

In 2007, when I was in China for the Learning 2.0 Conference in Shanghai, I created a partial “mirror” of my wiki site on Wikispaces, since for some reason Wikispaces is NOT blocked by the Chinese government but PBworks is. I created the website teachdigital2.wikispaces.com to share my session resources in 2007, but have not made any updates to that site since that time.

The following are some of the websites I’ve tried to use since I’ve been in China this week, but have not been able to access without a proxy server since they are BLOCKED by the Chinese government.

http://handouts.wesfryer.com (pbworks.com)
http://twitter.com/
http://bit.ly/
http://wiki.wesfryer.com/ (Google Site)
http://k12online.ning.com
http://lc.celebrateoklahoma.us (Ning site mapped to a custom domain, indicating Ning is blocked by IP range)
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.diigo.com/

The following websites are some I have used this week and are NOT blocked in China:

http://www.speedofcreativity.org (my blog)
http://www.wikispaces.com/
http://www.wesfryer.com (personal site)
http://mail.google.com/
http://teachdigital2.wikispaces.com/ (a wiki I setup in 2007 for the Shanghai 21st Century Learning Conference, as a partial mirror of my “Teach Digital” handouts site on PBwiki/PBworks)
http://www.google.com/reader/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wfryer/
http://wiki.speedofcreativity.org (a wiki I started awhile back for my dissertation using TikiWiki)
http://feedburner.google.com
http://delicious.com/
http://claimid.com/wfryer

See my posts from September 2007, “Working behind the great firewall of China” and, “Content filtering in Communist China versus an Oklahoma school” for more on my past experiences dealing with these issues, as well as some troubling behavioral parallels we see between the Chinese government and the leaders of many public school districts in the United States.

In 2007, Jeff Utecht had recommended at that time I use the website Proxify to access websites blocked by the great firewall of China. As in 2007, this website works pretty well in 2009 for accessing all of the above “blocked” websites.

Proxify is not free, so I had to pay $20 US for 3 months of access to use it.

I know there are MANY other choices for proxy servers, but since Proxify is one I’ve used previously with success I went with it again for this visit.

For some reason I was not able to successfully edit my PBworks site, but I could access it via the proxy service.

Here is my dilemma: While China’s content filter can be fairly readily bypassed with a proxy like Proxify, there are certainly large numbers of people online today in China who are NOT using proxy sites. If I used a wiki site like WikiSpaces or Wetpaint, instead of PBworks or Google Sites, I could (at least today) provide people in China with direct access to my workshop curricula / resources.

A second option, and perhaps a more durable option (since the Chinese government could decide to block other commercial wiki sites at any time, without warning) would be to run an open source wiki platform like TikiWiki or MediaWiki on my own website, and post presentation / workshop handouts there. As a bit of a sandbox, about a year ago I installed TikiWiki on with my main blog host and created a site for dissertation materials I was using at the time. I’ve also installed MediaWiki on our Storychasers site, again as more of a sandbox than anything else, to see how the interface works and what functionality it offers.

I love using PBworks, and definitely think it is functionally superior to either TikiWiki or MediaWiki in the last iterations I tried, but these content filtering issues provide a pretty compelling reason to consider abandoning it in favor of a more accessible wiki option.

I’m not sure what to do.

Does anyone know why PBworks is blocked in China? I wonder if this stems from a particular PBworks website that was built with content the Chinese government censors found offensive, and as a result of that site the entire PBworks domain was blocked? I’d love to find out the answer to this question.

If I have to copy all the content from my current handouts site to another one, I’ll probably outsource the work using a web service like Get a Freelancer. Since I learned about sites like this from Mark Wagner at NECC09, I’ve wanted to find a reason to give them a try. Even if that website copying/duplication process is outsourced, however, I’d still face the challenge of using a comparatively weaker/less capable wiki platform for my site like TikiWiki or MediaWiki rather than PBworks of I make this change. I’m not eager to do that.

I welcome any input and suggestions you have on this dilemma.

Technorati Tags:
block, china, content, filter, firewall, google, mediawiki, pbworks, sites, tikiwiki, wetpaint, wiki, wikispaces, blocking

Dr. Jiangang is a professor at the Institute of Educational Technology, Tsinghua University in China

Great achievements in China’s higher education
- freshmen enrollment numbers increased more than 3x between 1998 and 2002
- freshmen enrollment reached 3.8 million in 2003

Big challenges with China’s education qality
- not enough funds for higher education
- low levels of infrastructure
- lower competence of active attitude of teaching body

In 2003 to increase higher educational quality, the MOEC initiated an improvement project

National top class course plan is one of the Quality Projects
- creating a website for the course is a first step / pre-requisite
- digital resources and instructional experiences can be shared more freely

We need to build multiple systems to:
- integrate high quality digital content into instruction
- utilize technology for admininstration function
- to help with evaluation and assessment

Examples of multiple systems needed:
- academic affairs management systems
- elearning portals
- online teaching and learning
- teaching resource management platforms
- more…

Need to build integrated systems, because isolated or independent systems lead to “isolated islands” of information
- isolated systems give instructions additional burdens with heavy workloads of repetitive resource building
- multiple access to application systems
- interoperability is very important

What do we do? We present a solution…
- an integrated digital learning environment
- to meet the multiple demands and tasks of instructional reform
- emphasis on teaching and learning
- integrating multiple application systems

Now showing a chart to show the IT framework of this system / flow chart
- referenced Sakai and Moodle
- many, many different functions integrated into this plan

General elearning platorm
- THEOL E-Learning Platform

We can support students with this elearning platform to make plans, interact as a group, and for instructors to share resources, assist and guide, and evaluate processes.

instructors can use this platform to readily create course websites, provide interactive learning opportunities, etc.

THIS IS THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION SO FAR: THEY ARE INTEGRATING MIT OPEN COURSEWARE CONTENT, APPARENTLY PRETTY HEAVILY, INTO MANY OF THEIR COURSES.

Our system (THEOL) has been used by more than 180 universities in China
- 1 million students and teachers visit the site every day
- 200,000 courses have been setup using it
- 18% of the websites of national top class courses (about 3100 courses) have been setup using this system

I ASKED A QUESTION ABOUT HOW MUCH OPEN COURSEWARE RESOURCES ARE BEING USED
- His answer: They have collected open courseware materials for approximately 3000 different courses
- these are aggregated for faculty to use so they don’t have to spend time searching the web and finding these resources.

Milton Chen’s question: How many programmers developed this platform, what was the cost, was it built on open platforms like Sakai and Moodle which you mentioned in the presentation, and what is the cost to other universities to use this?
- About 50 faculty and staff are in our institute, and worked for 11 years to develop this platform
- Other universities do NOT pay currently to use this system
- Moodle and Sakai are very good, but the challenge is how to continue to support users

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

Carl Owens on Linked-In
Dr. Carl Owens is an Apple Distinguished Educator and the Director of Technology at Tennessee Technological University
- video interview with Carl from MacWorld 2007

We believe partnerships with the College of Education and outside organization strengthen the teacher preparation process

The College of Education was funded with a $1 million endowment to improve teacher education in 1999, that is soon to be $2 million
- first goal was to improve college teaching facilities and

Partners:
- Apple Computer
- SMART technologies
- Promethian
- m-Audio
- Inspiration Software Inc.

College has provided a variety of equipment to partner schoools in the area: laptops, digital video cameras, digital still cameras, keyboard controllers for music, data/video projectors, iPod Touches, all other supporting technologies needed

What we wanted to do was give every teacher or student the tools they needed, without of thought of how much it cost

Tools used for training:
- iTunes
- Garageband/Session for PC
- iPhoto/Picassa for PC
- iMovie/MovieMaker for PC
- iDVD
- Inspiration / Kidspiration
- Web based applications (Google apps)
- and many other tools too numerous to list

Results
- improved attitudes toward adoption of new technologies

Now showing photos where students can check out these tools for use
- this is a very different model from most colleges of education
- students can check out anything for an hour, a day, a week, a month, or the entire time they are with us as students

Our media center where these items are checked out is always busy!
- this is a room that was given to our college by Promethian, at a cost of approx $100,000, for fre

These are teachers being trained
- photo of teacher taking a picture of someone else, doing digital storytelling

we believe the teachers must learn to do these things first, before they can show the students how to do it
- picture of teachers recording a story with Audacity

In the last four years, we have trained 4000 teachers in the summer

Picture of teachers recording a script of a story
- this is the same process that we encourage teachers to follow with students in the classroom

Picture of teachers using a SMARTtable
- student response systems from SMART

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

Kathy Shirley on Twitter: iPoddess
- on Classroom 2.0
- Kathy’s favorites on ALI

MY COMMENT: UNFORTUNATELY BOTH TWITTER AND NING (USED BY CLASSROOM 2.0) ARE BLOCKED IN CHINA

We are using the iPod to teach students how to read and to learn how to speak English better

We don’t have quite as many people in the United States as you do in China
accourding to the US census bureau (U.S. PopClock Projection) we have over 307 million people
- 25% of US households speak a language other than English as their primary language
- in our school district, over 50% of our students come to us speaking a primary language other than English

Research by Hart and Risley, 30,000,000 by age three
- followed 42 families for two years
- recorded every word that was spoken in the homes for two years
- how would you like to have to transcribe all of that?!
- what they found is that children who come from homes of poverty versus middle or upper income homes had heard 30,000,000 less words spoken to them by the age of 3
- we get students at age 5, who are learning a second language and coming from poverty with many language deficits

We work with something we call “fluency” int he United States
- iRead project
- having students practice reading until they are comfortable with the words and can read naturally
- I was working with teachers who had to work with students on fluency assessments, teachers listening to students and making marks to count the words
- I thought to myself, why couldn’t we use an iPod to do the same thing?

Reasons to use the iPod for language acquisition
- we believe in the primacy of engagement
- if you are bored, you don’t want to listen
- motivation and relevancy
- our kids think the iPods are very cool, and will do just about anything to use them, including practicing reading
- extended school day and asynchronous learning

We also need to give students control over their own learning
- the iPod allows both of those things to happen
- allows for multimodal representation: audio, text and video

Methodology: iPod and iTunes
- using these to help build reading comprehension and fluency
- students use their iPod to record their voices as they read
- those are synced with iTunes
- iTunes is the container for those files, so teachers can manage the different files

Methodology
- teacher training
- student recording and reflection
- digital portfolio creation with iTunes
- application to other subject areas with the use of the iPod Touch

Why do we focus so much on reading fluency?
- fluency is the gateway skill to reading comprehension
- if you are spending all of your time trying to read the words and stumble over the words, then you are not understanding what you are reading
- students have to be comfortable with the words before they can understand them
- it is hard when you are reading to step outside and listen to yourself (you can’t do both at once)
- the iPod lets students stop their recording, and listen to themselves immediately
- if students have made mistakes, then they can correct those very quickly

If you are learning to dance, you know how you practice in front of a mirror?
- when you are learning how to read, there is really no mirror
- so the iPod acts as the mirror
- so that students can make corrections as they are reading
- often our students do not understand that they are not reading well, until they hear themselves

Some data I will share:
- General end of year fluency goals by grade
- 1st grade: 60 WCPM
- 2nd grade: 90
- 3rd: 120
4th: 130
5th: 140
6th: 150

WCPM = word comprehension per minute

This is what is considered to be a fluent reader

If you do the math on this, it works out that students should make 5-10 words of gain per six weeks

After starting to use this process of working with iPods, our students were making six times the progress
- they were excited to do this
- they could easily reflect and hear themselves
- the recorded files gave the teacher and students something to listen to together and discuss as they focused on progress
- we have seen this type of progress consistently as we have been using the iPod
- we have been using the iPod for reading comprehension as well
- students are making as much as two years of reading comprehension progress in just six months with the iPod

We think this is happening because of neuroplasticity
- Marc Prensky, theorist on learning theory
- brain research tells us that our brains can be changed and shaped until the day we die
- the older we get, the harder it gets
- what it takes as we get older is REALLY hard work and really concentrated focus, and it takes that engagement: the motivation and excitement to do that hard work
- the iPod has given our students that motivation to do that hard work

We have implemented 12 classrooms where all students have iPods

email: kshirley [at] eusd4kids.org

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

Dr Huansong is a professor at Hangzhou Normal University.

Can we adopt animation procedures and activities, like we see in mainstream media, to support learning for our students?

In teaching practice, it is important to use effective methods to help students understand and master difficult contcepts
- TA is an abbreviation we will use for “teaching animation”
- this is conducive to active learning by students

The art in teaching design animation
- teaching animation should be based on common experience and regulations
- 3D objects can be shown in a 2D plane
- designers and students should have experiences about properties of objects, and ways for representing these in 3D environments

Now showing a flash animation of a traditional Chinese poem, with rippling water, and Chinese characters displaying on the screen as a reader shares the story with a lot of expression
- visual and audio media help in the understanding of the poem
- abstract visualization can be utilized well with TA methods
- this can provide a “golden key” for students to demonstrate the different levels of thinking from Bloom’s taxonomy

Now showing a Flash player example of a story about a cat, using a series of guns and finally a bomb to open a device/room

I AM WONDERING WHAT PROGRAM WAS USED TO CREATE THIS ANIMATION? THE MOOD OF THAT LAST VIDEO REMINDED ME A BIT OF “THE PINK PANTHER!” IT IS SO INTERESTING IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS CONFERENCE TO SEE HOW VISUAL IMAGERY AND ANIMATIONS, IN CASES LIKE THIS, TRANSCEND LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATE MEANING. THIS IS A POWERFUL PART OF THIS MESSAGE, I THINK.

Teaching animation is well targeted but flexible
- TA can be applied in different disciplines and at different school levels: elementary, secondary, university

Now showing an example of a complex formula being graphed dynamically, providing a better visualization of what is happening with the variables in the formula than could be achieved by a simple, static representation / graph

Now the art in making TA
- the art of artistry
- the interface design should be artistic
- colors: foreground and background, should generally contrast
- contrast should not be too sharp, or it could be too much for the audience to bear

White and yellow characters need to be shown/displayed on dark backgrounds

Now showing an example of an interactive alphabet animation in English, showing an initial animation followed by an option for a user to click on the desired letter and see a word (with a corresponding visual animation) which starts with that letter.

Students have multiple decisions to make from a design standpoint when creating an effective and compelling animation

Now looking at another example about numbers

Now showing an example of a map of China, with different provinces that can be clicked and dragged onto their corresponding locations in China. The user receives feedback as correct or incorrect solutions are made by the user.

Adjustment and revision process
- compiles the teaching material to divide lens manuscript
- definite animation image graph / structure / color/ movement / spot / gauge / more…..

The creativity of TA and its realization art
- the establishment of the basic animation image

Motion paths can be created for graphical objects once they are created in the animation software

Now showing an example of a coloring application

The realization of creativity
- the creativity of TA starts with the possibility to create content. Manual animation is much more complex when compared to computer-based animation. Smooth movements that are more complex are possible, adjustments are easier to make and provide authors with more expressive possibilities compared to manual animation. The movement effects of frame-by-frame animation programs are not as powerful and flexible as real-time animation programs, but greater computing capabilities are required for these programs. Edited results can be smooth and more natural looking than frame animation programs.

DR HUANSONG IS SO RIGHT! IT IS CRITICAL WE GIVE STUDENTS OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES WITH DIGITAL MEDIA, INCLUDING ANIMATIONS, TO REALIZE THE GOAL OF ENCOURAGING CREATIVITY IN OUR SCHOOLS.

Now showing an example of Angelina the mouse, being able to make different ballet movements

If students can learn more actively, we will have better results in our schools

I ASKED DR HUANSONG WHAT PROGRAM WAS USED TO CREATE THE SAMPLE ANIMATIONS HE SHOWED, AND HE RESPONDED IT WAS THE PROGRAM FLASH.

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets

This short video shows the start of the first “fountain performance” we saw, which started with a recording of Elvis Presley singing, “Viva Las Vegas!” It was pretty surprising to hear this as the initial, synchronized song here in eastern China!

Here is a second video, set to different music. These were beautiful shows to watch. The temperature yesterday and last night was unseasonably warm for this time of year, in the 70’s and 80’s. (In Fahrenheit, of course.) Today a cold front has come in bringing cloudy weather and some rain, but last night was clear and warm. Good times!

Technorati Tags:
china, travel, hangzhou, fountain, fountains, synchronized, tourist

Dr Yi Li’s email: liyixinxiang [at] gmail.com
Educational Game Research Center, Nanjing Normal University

E-game rating systems of some countries focus on negative classification
- USA: EC, E, T, M, A, RP
- Japan: entire age, 12+, 15+, 18+
- Korea: entire age, 12+, 15+, 18+
- China: entire age, 12+, 15+, 18+, dangerous level

Only the negative factors were considered in these evaluations: violence, pornography, horror, gambling, vulgar dialog, drugs, alcohol use, etc.

Problems to address
- lack of regulatory measurements tools to regulate the producing of electronic games
- potential educational factors in electronic games that could be addressed

Some countries in places like England want to suggest a new evaluation system

Our basic ideas
- the standpoint to construct the rating system should be the educational perspective
- the attitudes we should hold should with respect to electronic game evaluation and rating: being positive and proactive
- a multi-dimensional approach of grading and classification should be used

The way to establish the appraisal system
- grading consideration:
- theory about individual cognitive developmental stages
- age
- school division

Classification considerations:
1- Gagne’s theory about study results
2- multiple intelligence theory
3- curriculums offered at school
4- capacity development trained in games

These lead to construction of the knowledge block / the standard of the classification system

To make this classification system more scientific, we adopted the Delphi Method
- we formed a team of 23 experts
- in our team, 15 of the members are experts who do research on the educational significance of electronic games and educational games
- 3 are game producers
- 5 are game players
- the team is consulted using several surveys

2 rounds of surveys
1- preliminary appraisal system to seek experts’ advice, then amend the indicators according to this advice
2- second survey: adopt Lickert scale and ask the experts to give a mark for every indicator in the appraisal system

school division used as a grading standard
- Kindergarten
- Primary school: P1, P2, P3
- Middle school: M
- High school: H

In the classification system, we use the knowledge block as the classification standard (abbreviated as “CS”) (THIS WAS FOR THE INITIAL SURVEY ITERATION)
1- subject knowledge (arts knowledge, science knowledge, other knowledge)
2- skills and strategies (…logic strategies, information literacy)
3- capacity development (cultivation of thinking, self-adapting, individual socialization)

Modification of the classification
- made several changes, subject knowledge classifications were broken out into more categories, for example

Steps of the conversion
- extraction of the key points first, considering what E-games could expose
- second, expect the influence of the indicators in the third level
- the data in the second survey asking for the key experts’ advice

Technorati Tags:
china, education, integration, iste, technology, #xihu09, nets