Moving at the Speed of Creativity

These are my notes from Erin Gruwell’s closing keynote at NECC 2009. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. This was the program description:

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

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

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

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

Freedom Writers Foundation
The Freedom Writers Diary
Film: Freedom Writers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Darius asked if he could be the MC of the event

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We decided to call ourselves the “Freedom Writers Diary”

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

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

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

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

Education is the only way to equalize an unfair playing field

you have a story

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

Next thing we know, w

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

that blank screen gave them the power to become immortal

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

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

If you teach 1, they will teach another

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

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

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

THE POWER OF WORDS

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

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

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

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

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

I AM INSPIRED. LET THE STORYCHASING BEGIN.

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#necc09, education, inspire, iste, keynote, movie, necc, necc09, reform, school, story, transform, transformation, gruwell, erin, anne, frank, freedom, writers, freedomwriters, love, inspiration, expectations, hope, gang, gangs, diary, hp, microsoft, gangster

These are a few links and notes from “Teaching 2.0: Engaging the Interactive Generation” by Chris Moersch at NECC 2009. I did not attend this full session, but got in on the end.

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

Dr Chris Moersch on HEAT walkthroughs

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

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

Do we see HEAT taking place in the classroom?

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

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

may the LoTi be with you

Technorati Tags:
education, technology, loti, heat, higher, order, thinking

Tomorrow my son and I head out for Washington D.C. This evening we’ve been finalizing our packing, and that meant (for me in anticipation of some webcasting as well as podcasting from NECC 2009) putting together my updated webcasting/podcasting kit. The following image is labeled with mouse-over notes on Flickr:

I won’t be using the Ustream mobile application from NECC to webcast, but do plan to:

1. Use my iPhone GS to record some video interviews which I’ll post directly to my YouTube channel.
2. Record some interviews and sessions with my digital audio recorders, for later editing and publication.
3. Webcast some full NECC sessions live over my Ustream channel using a DV camcorder as well as a Nady wireless lapel mic setup.

I’ve been concerned about my camera situation, since the DV camcorder I was going to borrow from my father-in-law stopped sending a DV signal over firewire for some reason last week in the middle of our stopmotion filmmaking camp. Today after our COV workshop finished up, I visited a couple Oklahoma City pawn shops in hopes I could find a relatively inexpensive DV camcorder that could work for webcasting.

I was VERY impressed at the camcorder selection in the second pawn shop we visited. The question is, of course, how many of these camcorders were actually stolen?

This is the camcorder I ended up buying for $104, along with a six month warranty for $10. It’s a Sony with a 40x optical zoom, and it works great with my MacBook Pro over Ustream! It also included a case, two batteries, and the AC power supply. Given that you can’t buy a consumer-level camcorder with a DV port anymore in our area, this was a GREAT deal and find.

I will not be an official participant / contributor to the ISTEconnects webcasting and livestreaming efforts from NECC, but I would encourage everyone to check out the schedule Joe Corbett posted yesterday on ISTEconnects for their planned coverage from D.C. I’ll still be sharing posts on the ISTEconnects blog through next week, and I’m sure there will be a LOT of new content posted there and elsewhere as NECC gets in full swing.

I went ahead and deleted the session I’d planned to share on “Webcasting, Live Blogging & Backchannels” during session 1 of EduBloggerCon on Saturday, because I want to attend the “Web 2 Smackdown 2009″ session Vicki Davis is organizing during that same time block. I missed that session last year, and don’t want to miss it again! I shared a similar session at our Oklahoma Distance Learning Conference in November of 2009 titled, “Webcasting on a Shoestring,” and that is available as a Ustream archive.

I added an EduBloggerCon 2009 session in the 1-1:45 pm timeblock titled “The 2009 K-12 Online Conference: What’s New and What Should We Do.” If you haven’t already, please read, forward, and retweet the post, “K12Online09 Bridging the Divide: Call for Proposals, Keynotes, and LAN Party Plans.” I’m hoping this session at EduBloggerCon 2009 will provide a good opportunity to discuss ideas for the 2009 conference, both sharing new elements proposed by conveners this year and also discussing other, new ideas we may not have considered previously. I am VERY excited about our proposed LAN party “live events” for k12online09 in partnership with EdTechTalk!

NECC 2009, here we come!

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#necc09, iste, k12online, k12online09, ustream, webcast, necc09, necc

This fantastic presentation by Dyane Smokorowski (Mrs. Smoke) was shared at the PodStock 2009 conference in Wichita, Kansas, on May 1, 2009. Dyane is an instructional technology coach in Andover, Kansas, and is one of the most enthusiastic advocates for telecollaboration in the classroom you’ll likely ever hear! The official description for this Podstock09 session was: Telecollaboration refers to the activity of engaging learners in intercultural exchange with students from other countries through the use of online learning. The learning outcomes of these exchanges can be both powerful and enlightening with an amazing potential for language, data collection, and global awareness. The best part of these projects is they are easier than ever to implement with the use of Web 2.0 tools. Here we’ll explore different collaborative projects and how your classroom can open the door to global learning.

 

 Podcast321: Getting a Global Perspective - The Power of Collaborative Projects by Dyane Smokorowski [01:00:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (871)

Show Notes:

1. Dyane’s SlideShare for this session
2. Dyane’s Wiki links for Telecollaboration
3. Making Teachers Nerdy: The blog of Dyane Smokorowski
4. Dyane (Mrs. Smoke) on Twitter
5. Dyane’s delicious social bookmarks
6. My blogged text notes from this session
7. PodStock Ning
8. Dr. Judi Harris’ Virtual Architecture’s web home
9. My wiki resources for educational collaboration
10. ESSDACK: The host of Podstock09!

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The following paragraph from the Target Tech in Texas (T3) Collaborative Grant program guidelines document (page 9 of 47) summarizes what policymakers in Texas view as the ideal 21st century classroom environment:

In a 21st Century classroom, students have access to appropriate technology and digital resources for technology integrated curriculum activities on the campus, in the district, at home, or key locations in the community. Teachers seamlessly integrate technology in a student-centered learning environment where technology is used to solve real-world problems in collaboration with business, industry and higher education. Teachers and students apply technology across all subject areas to provide learning opportunities that are not possible without the technology. Teachers create and integrate web-based lessons which include TEKS-based content, resources, learning activities, and interactive communications that support learning objectives throughout the curriculum.

The paragraph above would describe a level 4, or a “target tech” learning environment as defined by the Texas STaR (School Technology and Readiness) chart. The STaR chart and its associated websites were created to support implementation of the Texas “Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020.” (PDF) For more on this long range Texas technology plan for schools, see my post, “Notes on the Texas Long Range Technology Plan: 2006-2020.”

The following are Texas STaR chart assessment options in the category “teaching and learning” for educators at the top “Target Tech” level of integration. (Available on page 11 of the PDF-formatted Teacher STaR Chart document.)

For patterns of classroom use:

My classroom is a student-centered learning environment where technology is seamlessly integrated to solve real world problems in collaboration with business, industry, and higher education Learning is transformed as my students propose, assess, and implement solutions to problems.

For Frequency / Design of Instructional Setting Using Digital Content:

My students and I have on- demand access to all appropriate technology and digital resources anytime/anywhere for technology integrated curriculum activities on the campus, in the district, at home, or key locations in the community.

For Content Area Connections:

My students and I seamlessly apply technology across all subject areas to provide learning opportunities beyond the classroom that are not possible without the technology.

For Technology Applications (TA) TEKS Implementation:

I seamlessly integrate Technology Applications (TA) TEKS in collaborative, cross-curricular units of instruction.

For Student Mastery of Technology Applications (TA) TEKS:

86 to 100% of my students have mastered Technology Applications TEKS.

For Online Learning:

I have created and integrated web-based lessons which include online TEKS-based content, resources, learning activities, and interactive communications that support learning objectives throughout the curriculum.

The advanced search portal for the Texas STaR chart permits visitors to search for Texas schools which have specific reported levels of technology readiness in different categories. For 2007-2008 STaR chart results, statewide only 86 campuses reported “target tech” level for online learning. At the other “levels” for online learning in 2007-2008, 491 campuses reported level 3 or “Advanced Tech” level, 5075 reported level 2 or “Developing Tech” level, and 1865 reported level 1 or “Early Tech” level status. If these numbers are accurate, that means there were 7517 campuses in Texas in 2007-2008 which submitted the required Texas STaR chart data for teachers and campuses as a whole. With only 86 campuses reporting “target tech” for online learning, that means only about ONE PERCENT of Texas schools (1.14%) under the purview of TEA in 2007-2008 were creating and integrating:

…web-based lessons which include online TEKS-based content, resources, learning activities, and interactive communications that support learning objectives throughout the curriculum.

Given the goals of the Texas “Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020,” these statistics paint a compelling picture for the importance of educators as well as students regularly engaging in the 3 C’s of 21st century learning: Creating, Communicating, and Collaborating. This was my keynote theme at MASSCUE 2008 last November. Focusing on technologies which enable TRANSFORMATIVE learning experiences (those not possible without the technology access) was a key theme I shared at eTechOhio in February 2009.

We not only need to encourage more teachers and students to regularly COLLABORATE throughout the school year with each other (including learners outside the traditional walls of the school) but we also need to encourage teachers to CONTRIBUTE to collaborative curriculum repositories like Curriki. Participating in a free, online conference like K-12 Online can open educators’ eyes to not only the possibilities for collaboration in our digitally connected world, but also provide specific and realistic pathways forward to make collaboration in our schools a “normal” and regular occurrence rather than a “1 in 100 schools” characteristic.

Technorati Tags:
education, learning, plan, technology, texas, collaboration, star, tea

These are notes I’ve taken from the Texas “Long-Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020″ which is available as a PDF file. I read and took notes the first half of this document using the free iPhone eBook Reader Stanza, and used the free Stanza desktop application to convert and share the PDF file in eReader format to my iPhone. MY OWN THOUGHTS, REFLECTIONS, AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS.

Mission of Texas Public Education is based on the idea that:

…a general diffusion of knowledge is essential for the welfare of this state and for the preservation of the liberties and rights of citizens. It is further grounded on the conviction that a successful public education system is directly related to a strong, dedicated, and supportive family and that parental involvement in the school is essential for the maximum educational achievement of a child.

Texas Long Range Technology plan supports educational activities which are:

preparing each student for success and productivity as a lifetime learner, a world-class communicator, a competitive and creative knowledge worker, and an engaged and contributing member of the emerging global digital society.

Texas technology standards referenced in the tech plan:
- Teachers must meet the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) Technology Applications standards
- Students must meet the Technology TEKS

NOTHING IS IN THE SBEC STANDARDS WHICH REFERENCES THE NEED FOR OR REQUIRES COLLABORATION.

A big goal of the tech plan is extending learning to the home / to parents
- SCHOOLS SHOULD HAVE A WAY TO ASSESS HOW WELL THEY ARE EXTENDING LEARNING TO HOMES
- “distributed learning environments” is a key phrase

SBEC technology standards require for teachers:
- access to technology
- quality professional development
- time to implement technology infused lessons

Students must show they can:
- acquire information
- solve problems
- communicate with technology

Provided PD must align to SBEC standards, must:
- support lesson planning
- classroom management
- administrative tasks

PD must be available 24/7 and be available on platforms including online
- a “comprehensive PD initiative is imperative”
- should move teachers from early/developing technology on STaR chart to Advanced/Target Tech levels

Content focused PD must be provided
Schools should budget for TCO (total cost of ownership) as well as sustainability
Key goal is connecting schools, homes and businesses

approach is very top down: “systemic planning, and step-by-step strategies”

“rigorous curriculum standards,” quality instructional materials and comprehensive student assessments form the “framework” for the plan
- this is the “framework for success”

I THINK THERE IS AN ERROR HERE: TEACHERS SHOULD BE A KEY ELEMENT OF THIS FRAMEWORK, RATHER THAN JUST BEING ASKED TO “BUILD ON IT”

schools should provide PD to “personalize instruction”

vision of learners is to:

… engage in individualized real world learning experiences supported by ubiquitous access to modern digital tools…

key phrases include:
- “dynamic, diverse learning communities”
- “create knowledge… apply it across disciplines”
- “requires management of complex processes”

Educators:
- “mentor, monitor and motivate” students
- “participate in communities of learning and inquiry, as co-learners and researchers”
- “leaders provide stewardship for universal education”

Infrastructure
- should support interoperability
- should be benchmarked with exemplary schools around the entire nation, not just the state

A compelling need to change schools:

…essential skills required in this new era are those of agility, self-reliance, self-motivation, problem-solving, collaboration, life-long learning, and facility in using information and communication technologies…

- competitive businesses require employees to “…acquire new knowledge, learn new technologies, rapidly process information, make decisions and communicate in a globally diverse society…”

…the goal in teaching and learning must be to empower young citizens to live and learn in a continuously changing twenty-first century environment and enable this citizenry to effectively interact in the global marketplace…

STATEMENTS LIKE THIS SHOULD HAVE HUGE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE WAY INTERNET WEBSITES / CONTENT FILTERING IS CARRIED OUT AND IMPLEMENTED IN OUR SCHOOLS (REFERENCE: “UNMASKING THE DIGITAL TRUTH”)

schools must extend teaching and learning beyond the traditional school walls
- must serve an increasingly diverse student population

…the learners [today's students] require a significant, immediate shift in teaching methodology…

- no more “one size fits all” content delivery
- students must develop personal skills like self-assessment

Obstacles to successful technology integration identified in the 2005 NetDay surveys in Texas
- not enough computer time
- computers don’t always work
- not enough computers

Teachers in 2005 said fast wireless was critical for tech integration success along with PD time

We want teacher-education programs which “model current technology in instructional and administrative practices”

…develop new learning environments that utilize technology as a flexible tool where learning is collaborative, interactive and customized…

STATEMENTS LIKE THIS SHOULD LEAVE NO DOUBT THAT TEXAS SCHOOLS SHOULD AND MUST EMBRACE THE USE OF WEB 2.0 TOOLS WHICH FACILITATE COLLABORATION!
- COLLABORATION AND PROJECT-BASED-LEARNING REALLY SHOULD BE A FOCUS OF SCHOOL CHANGE INITIATIVES, IF THE IDEALS AND GOALS OF THIS DOCUMENT ARE TO BE REALIZED

…all leaders…offer expanded curricular and instructional opportunities to students via online, digital technology…

Professional Development:

…provide opportunities for sustained, relevant, and timely staff development in a variety of formats…

Student engagement is the key to all of this:

…The key to success for all students is the assurance that they are all fully engaged in their learning processes…

Equity and access
- it is essential we “equalize the learning environment”
- geography should not matter in terms of the quality of the educational experience which is available for students at all levels

The core framework of the Texas technology plan for teaching and learning:

The integration of technologies into Texas schools can transform the teaching process by allowing for greater levels of interest, inquiry, analysis, collaboration, creativity and content production.

I THINK THERE IS A BIG MISTAKE AND OMISSION HERE. TECHNOLOGY JUST FACILITATES THESE CHANGES, IT DOES NOT BY ITSELF CREATE THESE TRANSFORMATIONS. TECHNOLOGY IS NOT THE CATALYST. IT IS A NECESSARY INGREDIENT. THE KEY CATALYSTS ARE EDUCATIONAL LEADERS WITH THE VISION FOR CHANGING THE BEHAVIOR AND RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. A FRAMEWORK IS GREAT, BUT THEY KEY IS PEOPLE, NOT TECHNOLOGY.

Teachers should take advantage of technology to make learning more engaging and relevant
- all learners should have access to resources for individualized instruction 24/7

SO THIS VISION DOES SOUND VERY COMPELLING AT MANY LEVELS. THIS MAKES ME WANT MY OWN CHILDREN ATTENDING A SCHOOL WHICH FULLY OPERATIONALIZES THESE IDEALS, NOT IN 2020 BUT TODAY.

The model of the teacher as the source / student as the receiver of information and knowledge is inadequate
- teacher roles: facilitator, mentor, and co-learner
- students must be “active participants in the learning process”
- teachers need more time to visit classrooms, explore best practices, and learn new curriculum strategies

An online Texas teacher resource center should be created which provides technology-based resources
- “research-based strategies to improve…academic achievement”
- school leaders should “support teachers in developing classroom websites and online resources to share lessons”

critical urgency to support teachers

[THIS IS THE END OF MY NOTES FOR NOW. THIS IS ACTUALLY A DIGITIZED VERSION OF WRITTEN NOTES I TOOK ON MY ALABAMA TRIP THIS PAST WEEK.]

Technorati Tags:
integration, reform, technology, texas, transformation, plan, equity, access, vision

Oklahoma needs to join the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The “21st Century Skill Incentive Fund Act,” introduced into the US Congress last month, may help. The act:

…aims to provide matching federal funds to states that pair strong core courses with 21st century skills such as creativity, innovation, critical thinking and financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy.

Thanks to Lucy Gray (@elemenous) and Jane Park for bringing this bill to my attention. We probably shouldn’t hold our breath over this legislation, however. Hopefully it will be more successful than a similar bill (perhaps the same bill) which was proposed in the 110th Congress (2007-2008) and did not pass.

While I am glad to learn about this financial incentive for states to embrace a focus on 21st century skills, why should it take extra money to get leaders to do this? Leaders with vision and an eye to the future already understand the critical importance of transforming our schools from standardized worker factories into differentiated learning centers. This is a key goal of the Oklahoma Creativity Project. Anyone who has read articles or books by Richard Florida and does not have their head in the sand should understand these ideas. Unfortunately, however, lots of smart people (including leaders) are still not on the bandwagon for transforming our schools to meet the needs as well as opportunities in the 21st century work and learning landscapes.

I continue to be VERY uncomfortable with the standard rhetoric about “rigor” which often accompanies announcements like this:

Still, the teaching of 21st century skills is meant in no way to detract from creating a rigorous core curriculum. As Senator Rockefeller said, “West Virginia students need to master the 3 R’s – reading, writing, and arithmetic – but they must do more if they want to be ready to compete in the global economy.

High expectations: YES. A “rigorous core curriculum,” NO. We have to stop trying to force-feed a curriculum that is “a mile wide and an inch deep” down the throats of students, to quote Ian Jukes.

We don’t need legislators with a vision for 21st century literacy that would merely overlay digital tools on top of the existing, traditional secondary bell schedule and core curriculum. We have to not only re-imagine our schools, we have to actually re-architect them. This means changing the bell schedule. This means changing the required curriculum. This means no longer measuring learning exclusively on seat time. It means using portfolio assessment, and requiring that students use a variety of digital technologies to “show what they know.” It requires operationalizing the rhetoric we hear about moving from fact and recall based learning to a model emphasizing AND assessing the abilities to access, process and efficiently utilize information to solve problems and accomplish specific tasks. Check out my August 2006 podcast, “Reject Rigor: Embrace Differentiation, Flexibility, and High Expectations,” for more of my thoughts along these lines.

Trent Batson’s May 20th article for Campus Technology, “Why ePortfolio is the Tool of the Time and Who is Enaaeebling It,” got me thinking more about electronic portfolios and how the ePortfolio model we commonly see now in colleges of education is NOT the model we need to move forward in the learning revolution. Trent argues:

One particular part of ePortfolios has been built out–the part we call assessment management, the institutionally owned reporting process, tracking the progress of student cohorts toward program learning goals. But other parts have not been built out, so the eventual ideal structure of the ePortfolio enterprise is missing really important enabling software applications.

At NECC 2009 this year, I really want to learn more about how educators and students at different levels are using ePortfolios not as institutional “assessment management” portfolios, but rather as personalized portfolios which effectively communicate via “digital footprints” the experiences, capabilities, and skills of individual learners and workers.

I’d love to hear about how K-12 schools as well as universities are implementing Mahara:

…an open source e-portfolio system with a flexible display framework. Mahara, meaning ‘think’ or ‘thought’ in Te Reo M?ori, is user centred environment with a permissions framework that enables different views of an e-portfolio to be easily managed. Mahara also features a weblog, resume builder and social networking system, connecting users and creating online learner communities.

7 different NECC 2009 sessions are scheduled which include (in the session title or description) the word “ePortfolio.” Of these, the two concurrent sessions that look the most promising for my interests are:

1. Scott Floyd’s preso “ePortfolios for Students & Staff Using Free Web 2.0 Tools”
2. Helen Barrett’s session “ePortfolios 2.0: Web 2.0 tools to Improve/Showcase Student Technology Literacy”

Hopefully I’ll be able to attend and live blog/webcast these sessions from NECC. I did learn recently that I’ll be working with an ISTEconnects team to live-blog and webcast different NECC sessions, as well as interviews and conversations from the convention center. It should be fun as well as educational on multiple fronts!

Helen’s precon workshop, “Web 2.0 Tools for Classroom-Based Assessment and Interactive Student ePortfolios,” also looks promising but I’ll miss it since I’ll be attending EduBloggerCon 2009 on Saturday.

Helen’s post last week, “Digital Identity and EIFEL’s new direction,” echos some of Trent’s comments in the above post about an increased focus on “digital identity” and ePortfolios which functionally serve the interests of INDIVIDUAL LEARNERS rather than mainly institutions. On Helen’s recommendation I’ve downloaded the free eBook version of “This Is Me.” The book description is:

Your Digital Identity is everything you create on the Web, but also what other people might say about you there. Photographs on social networking sites, logs of chatroom conversations, newspaper articles about your role in a play, or your sporting victory. Even if you don’t post material to the Web yourself, there is a good chance somebody else does, and we believe it is worth knowing about some of the issues. This workbook is designed to help you raise your level of awareness and to think about some of the ways your DI might be affected.

The book is in the format of a workbook which could be used with teachers and students in a class on DI (digital identity.) I am going to consider using part of it in the class I’m going to lead on Wednesday nights next fall at my church on “Digital Dialog: Leveraging the Constructive Potentials of Technology and Social Media in our Lives, Homes and Communities.”

Technorati Tags:
curriculum, education, leadership, learning, partnership, school, skills, eportfolio, portfolio, 21st, century, time, rigor, transform

Yesterday our family legally obtained four of the five books on our school’s official sixth grade summer reading list for 99¢, courtesy of Project Gutenberg, the free Amazon Kindle application for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the Amazon Kindle store. I am both amazed and thrilled that our access to mobile, digital devices as well as the Internet has provided IMMEDIATE and almost completely free access to these required reading texts. This reinforces my pre-existing perception that there has never been a better day for learners and readers to be alive than RIGHT NOW. Here’s our story from yesterday.

My 11 year old son, Alexander, is transferring to Oklahoma City Public Schools from Edmond Public Schools next school year to start 6th grade at Classen School of Advanced Studies. (Classen SAS) Classen serves grades 6-12 as a public, magnet school. Students must apply and be accepted, and declare a “major” in either one of the VPA (Visual and Performing Arts) areas or in the “International Baccalaureate” (IB) program. Alexander was accepted in IB. This past Tuesday night at an orientation meeting, we received the summer reading list for incoming 6th graders who will all be taught by English teacher, Mr Neill J. Chaffin. Required summer reading for all incoming sixth graders includes:

1. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
3. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
4. Animal Farm by George Orwell
5. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Of these five books, we already own a copy of “The Hobbit.” Alexander has already read it, incidentally, along with “The Fellowship of the Ring.” He’s in the middle of “The Two Towers,” which he’s been reading for fun on and off along with some other books this spring. We needed to obtain copies of the other four books, and my first thought was to order paperback copies from Amazon. Of the ones for sale new, these paperbacks would have cost $5 each plus shipping.

Before I bought these analog / atomic / paperback books, however, I wondered if they were in the public domain and therefore available for FREE download via Project Gutenberg. If you’re not familiar with the project you definitely should be! According to the current English WikiPedia article:

Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, in order to “encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks.” Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer. As of March 2009, Project Gutenberg claimed over 28,000 items in its collection. Project Gutenberg is affiliated with many projects that are independent organizations which share the same ideals, and have been given permission to use the Project Gutenberg trademark.

I currently have three different eBook applications installed on my iPhone and our family’s iPod Touch. These are:

1. Stanza
2. The eReader iPhone application
3. The Kindle iPhone application

All of these programs are FREE. I wrote about eBooks and the iPhone in December 2008 in the post, “Dickens and more: Free eBooks on the iPhone.” (A complete list of my iPhone apps is also available.) To start our eBook quest for Classen SAS, I used Stanza to download “Alice in Wonderland” from Project Gutenberg.

How amazing it was and is to:

1. Think of a book I’d like to obtain for my son to read.
2. Perform a quick search in the Project Gutenberg database via the Internet for the book.
3. Click a small, simple button: DOWNLOAD– And in seconds, the book is available for us to read and enjoy. For FREE!

This is AMAZING! This is incredible. I know eBooks have been around for awhile, but I’m still amazed to personally experience the ease with which public domain texts like this can be legally downloaded and obtained, and how affordably commercially sold books can be purchased and downloaded as well.

Of the four books we needed to obtain, we were able to download three of them (Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, and Treasure Island) for free. The only one we had to buy was “Animal Farm.” Initially I found this via Stanza and the integrated website FictionWise for $17.

That seemed very pricey, so I checked the Kindle Store and found it for just 99¢. Yes, that’s right, just a dollar, and in the space of a few minutes we obtained ALL the four reading books Alexander needs for school this summer.

Alexander wasn’t sure if he would like reading these books on the iTouch instead of in paperback form, but I suggested he give it a try. I think most existing readers, who love reading, are likely predisposed to prefer paper-based books because that is the reading platform we’ve personally experienced repeatedly in the past. It is going to be VERY interesting to see how Alexander likes reading these books this summer on the iTouch, and I’ll probably ask to interview him for an upcoming podcast about his perceptions and experiences. Interestingly, Alexander did not want to have some of his books downloaded to Stanza, some to the eReader application, and some to the Kindle iPhone app. He wanted all of them together. Since the three free eBooks are available via Project Gutenberg, I assume, these were available via the online Kindle Store as free downloads. Now ALL his eBooks are available an his iTouch as well as my iPhone, since both Kindle applications are linked to my Amazon account. There was no need to click “download” on my iPhone since these had been added to my existing and linked Kindle account. As soon as I opened the Kindle application this morning for the first time since Alex downloaded these new books, they quickly downloaded to my iPhone via Whispernet.

The future of reading will not be ENTIRELY digital, but I predict an ever-increasing amount of reading’s future will be digitized. Alexander’s a “kid of the future” for sure!

Technorati Tags:
amazon, book, ebook, education, kindle, learning, literacy, reading, school, read, etext, project, gutenberg, stanza

This podcast is a recording of Dean Mantz and Brian Richter’s presentation on May 2, 2009, at the PodStock 2009 conference titled, “Integrating Podcasting into the Classroom Using Moodle.” The session description was: How you use podcasting in the classroom-Integrating them into the class using moodle. This will include a quick lesson on how to do a Drop.io cellphone podcast. Dean’s bio in the PodStock09 program was: Dean Mantz is currently at USD 376 in Sterling, Kansas as their Network Coordinator. One of the biggest benefits of taking this position is getting to work with my wife and be in the same school district as both of my children. As a teacher I was responsible for developing an Exploring Technology module class. I also taught American History. In 2000, I assisted in the development of the Rice County Technology Academy. The academy provided opportunities for students to enroll in a variety of career curriculums. Students could participate in A+ training, Webmaster curriculum, and develop themselves as Certified Cisco Network Associates. I have truly enjoyed my time working with kids and teachers on how to integrate technology. Brian’s PodStock09 bio was: Brian Richter has taught at Sterling High School since 1989 in the Social Science department. During that time, he has focused much of his time integrating the teaching of economics into world and US history. He has served as a staff teacher and consultant for the Kansas Council on Economic Education for the last six years and also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Sterling College in Sterling, Kansas. He was selected as the Kansas Economic Teacher of the Year in 2006. Brian graduated from Emporia State University in 1989 and earned his Master’s Degree in Teaching Social Sciences from ESU in 1995. He is following his father’s footsteps; Don Richter of Syracuse was elected to the Kansas Teacher Hall of Fame class of 1995.

 

 Podcast319: Integrating Podcasting into the Classroom Using Moodle by Dean Mantz and Brian Richter (PodStock2009) [46:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (777)

Show Notes:

1. PodStock Session Notes from Dean Mantz on the PodStock Ning
2. Moodle
3. PodStock Ning
4. NiceNet
5. Sterling Online Learning Community
6. Blue Snowball
7. iPod Touch and Thumbtack mic I would suggest either audiomemos or iTalk (free applications).
8. SanDisk Sansa m250 2GB MP3 player
9. Skype and Supertintin or Pretty May Recorder
10. Tony Vincent’s Podcasting Booklet Podcasting_Booklet.pdf
11. Podcasting Rubric TnC Podcast Rubric.pdf
12. Pre-service student PSA podcasts These are pre-service podcasts created based on public service announcements based on educational issues.
13. Interviews with students about technology and their projects.Mantz’s Mission podcasts
14. Podcasting and Education - January 2008 article from Campus Technology magazine
15. Mantz Mission: Dean’s Blog
16. Dean Mantz on Ustream
17. Dean Mantz on Twitter
18. Dean Mantz on Classroom 2.0
19. Sterling College
20. USD 376 in Sterling, Kansas

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Thanks a tweet I learned today about “The National Summit on 21st Century Skills” scheduled for June 12, 2009, in Washington D.C., and the “Cyber Summit on 21st Century Skills,” scheduled for June 1st-12th. The Cyber Summit is a free event held online, and will provide opportunities for insight and input into the face-to-face national summit later in the month and prior to NECC at the end of June.

My home state, Oklahoma, is not currently a member of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and I’d love to support both membership of our state in this organization as well as advocate further for 21st century skill emphasis in our schools and communities. Our 3 year-old Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project and Storychasers organization both provide tangible ways to advance 21st century skills for both educators and students. Given these contexts, I’m intrigued to learn more about “21st Century Oklahoma:”

…a community of educators, parents, students, and other stakeholders seeking to ensure that our children are equipped to be successful citizens and leaders in the world they are about to enter. That world is a very different place than it was even ten years ago, and the skills needed to survive and thrive have evolved as well. In an era where the amount of technical information doubles every two years, it is no longer practical or useful to hope students will acquire enough basic content knowledge to get by. Far more important are the ability to find information, validate it, analyze it, synthesize it, and repurpose it (often collaboratively) for their needs.

This online community is a resource for anyone looking to better understand what we refer to as 21st century skills, and a central voice calling for the formal adoption of those skills as an essential and required element of learning for Oklahoma’s public schools.

This website and initiative is being spearheaded by Joshua Williams. Follow the project on Twitter @21stCOK.

Expecting as we are the imminent release of Oklahoma’s portion of the $90.9 billion of ARRA funds designated for education, it is certainly an exciting as well as opportune time to be advocating for 21st century skills in Oklahoma.

The upcoming National Cyber Summit will offer a variety of both live events as well as asynchronous conversation opportunities.

Consider joining in the conversations. The tag “#p21cs” is recommended for the event, for tweets and blog posts.

Technorati Tags:
#p21cs, summit, partnership, cyber, 21stcentury, skills

I’m presenting three times next week at Oklahoma City Public Schools’ annual “Tech Day” conference. This is the list of websites I’ve requested be “whitelisted” on the district content filter (at least for the day) so I can share them during my sessions. My sessions (on Wednesday, June 3rd) include “Digital Storytelling on a Shoestring,” “Powerful Ingredients for Blended Learning,” and “The Power of Our Family Learning BLOG.”

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/
http://learningsigns.speedofcreativity.org/
http://www.wesfryer.com
http://handouts.wesfryer.com/
http://celebrateoklahoma.us/
http://lc.celebrateoklahoma.us/
http://api.ning.com
http://voicethread.com/
http://www.flickr.com/
http://compfight.com/
http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/
http://www.pbworks.com/
http://greatbookstories.pbworks.com/
http://www.wikispaces.com/
http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/50+Ways
http://www.digitales.us/
http://www.storycenter.org/
http://drop.io/
http://www.gcast.com
http://voicethread4education.wikispaces.com/
http://www.mathcasts.org/
http://www.powerfulingredients.com/
http://wiki.powerfulingredients.com/
http://powerfulingredients.ning.com/
http://wordpress.com/
http://blastcast.wordpress.com/
http://edublogs.tv/
http://teachertube.com/
http://www.schooltube.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://stringandme.com/
http://delicious.com/
http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/Radio/
http://storychasers.org/
http://www.geograffiti.com/
http://www.audioboo.fm/
http://filmonthefly.ning.com/
http://www.edutopia.org/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
http://ustream.tv

If my connectivity and bandwidth situation permits that day, I’ll try and Ustream all three sessions. I’m hoping to try some webcasting with Livestream (formerly known as Mogulus) on Sunday, and if that goes well I may opt for Livestream instead of Ustream Wednesday. We’ll see. (Livestream is not on my whitelist, however, so I may be Ustreaming if I webcast at all.)

I’ll be sharing “Digital Storytelling on a Shoestring” and “Powerful Ingredients for Blended Learning” in July over H.323 video (more details to come on that soon) free for Tandberg, and “The Power of Our Family Learning BLOG” at NECC on June 30th. Wednesday’s presentation will give Alexander and I a chance to practice this presentation before NECC, and Sarah (hopefully) a chance to present with us, since she won’t be able to make the trip to D.C.

I am in the midst of discussing keynote topic options for an educational technology conference in 2010 with the conference organizer, and wrote the following paragraphs recently in response to the question, “How does StoryChasing: Empowering Students as Digital Witnesses speak across the spectrum to many disciplines?” The organizer wanted to know if my keynote topic for Learning@School09 in New Zealand, “The Landscape of 21st Century Learning: Personalised and Differentiated,” would make a better topic. I think both are great topics and good presentations, but this was my explanation of why “story chasing” is relevant for all educators.

I would certainly be happy to share the keynote “The Landscape of 21st Century Learning” if you want, but I am recommending the “StoryChasers: Empowering Digital Witnesses” topic because the activity of digital storytelling is relevant to all teachers, in all content areas, and includes a host of traditional as well as twenty-first century literacy skills which we need to be addressing in our schools. By using digital video to “show what we know” both for class assignments and as after-school or extracurricular activities, students and teachers have opportunities to contextually experience and practice uses of multimedia and the social web which are authentic and impactful.

I think all teachers should become, at some point, “digital video certified.” This does not mean all teachers will know ALL the “point and click” steps for making videos with every piece of software, but it should mean that teachers have created some basic videos themselves and are comfortable facilitating student multimedia projects where students create videos integrating still images, audio, music, and possibly video footage for assignments and assessments.

In the keynote, I’d like to share multiple, compelling examples of student-created videos and multimedia, and discuss not only the “why” (or “the case for”) storychasing / empowering students to be digital witnesses, but I’d also like to specifically discuss free TOOLS including open source software, free software, and websites which educators and students are/can use for digital storytelling.

In short, I think this topic is highly relevant to educators across the K-12 spectrum, and attendees to the conference will find it valuable on a practical level as well as inspiring.

I should have also included in my answer the importance of addressing intellectual property / copyright issues in a meaningful context via digital storytelling projects. This is a topic I do address in isolation (like my ITSC 2009 presentation “Copyright for Educators”) but it’s even better to discuss it in context as educators and students create multimedia projects. This is one thing we do in our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling workshops, now presented by the nonprofit StoryChasers. As I discussed in that presentation, it makes sense to use media materials in the following order to, if possible, avoid more complicated determinations of “fair use.”

1. Homegrown: Use homegrown media you create yourself, via a digital camera, camcorder, digital audio recorder, scanner, etc. Limitations still exist for how you use photos of individuals and copyrighted/trademarked items, but generally with homegrown media you should be on secure ground in terms of copyright as long as you have the permission of the owner of the original media to share it. An example would be photographs or scans of old family photographs.
2. Creative Commons: Use media files for which permission has already been granted to reuse and remix, via a Creative Commons license.
3. Fair Use: Use the fair use provisions of copyright law for the nation in which you live to determine if a use of copyrighted materials in your project is permissible.

The video “Remix Culture: Fair Use is Your Friend” is the most recent video I’ve seen on copyright which can help teachers gain practical guidance on the subject of fair use.

This video accompanies the printed “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video” available as a free PDF download from the Center for Social Media. They have more materials related to fair use on www.centerforsocialmedia.org/fair_use.

Hat tip to Louise Maine and Kristin Hokanson for this video link.

I’ve added these links to our “Copyright and Fair Use Resources” page on our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices project wiki. Stay up to date on COV project news and updates by following Storychasers on Twitter.

Technorati Tags:
digital, storytelling, technology, conference, keynote, topic, literacy, 21stcenturyskills

I left the following as a comment today on the ISTEconnects blog post, “ISTEConnects to Attend WordCamp on Your Behalf ~ We Want your Questions!” This was in response to Ann Grub’s question, “Do you think middle school students should blog? Why or why not?”

I definitely think middle school students should be blogging, as well as elementary and high school students. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, students need to practice their writing skills regularly, and blogging is an excellent way to do this. We get better at things we practice regularly. It is common for kids to be required to read regularly during and after school, but regular writing assignments are less common. Blogging provides a way to both encourage and empower students students to write regularly.

The second main reason I’d argue students (including middle school students) should be blogging is so they can learn how to properly and responsibly use hyperlinked writing. Hyperlinks are one of the foundational technologies of the Internet. Students use hyperlinks by clicking on them, but far fewer create their own hyperlinks as part of their class assignments. Certainly the prevalence of social networking platforms has increased opportunities for students to use hyperlinks in their writing, but voluntary student use of social networking platforms does not necessarily result in students learning about hyperlinking and responsible use of hyperlinks.

Students should be encouraged to blog responsibly so they can discover their own voice. This is not the case for everyone, but some students are able to really discover their own voice via writing. The encouragement and positive feedback which young writers can receive through writing on blogs and other social websites can play an important role in defining identity for a young person. Students can and do often discover the power of their words, and the importance of sharing thoughts as well as ideas.

I commend the Support Blogging Wiki to you for additional resources related to student blogging, including lots of great links to classroom blogs where you can find examples of student work.

I’d add to this answer the importance of helping students take proactive control over their “digital footprints” and the importance of teaching digital citizenship at school. By regularly writing on a blog and discussing the issues which arise as a result of interactions there, students as well as teachers can learn a wealth of things related to digital citizenship on an ongoing basis.

Technorati Tags:
education, school, blog, blogging, student

These are my notes from Clif Mims’s keynote “Using Digital Technologies and Personal Learning Networks to Enhance Learning” at the PodStock09 conference. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. I audio recorded this session and also webcasted/archived the session with Ustream.

Our current economic crisis could be “the perfect storm” for educational technology, open source solutions, instructional design, blended professional development models, etc.

all kinds of discussions and research today on communities of practice
- links to whole language
- the middle school concept: groups, pods, group planning
- we’ve been doing these sorts of things for awhile

We now have this technology thing” going on, students interacting, trying to engage them, and those two things coming together as PLNs (personal learning networks)
- I heard some people ask about PLNs yesterday, so here is an explanation

Look at formal (peer-reviewed) and informal literature

P = professional and personal

L = learning

N = network, community, environment

Plurk seems to be stronger here in the Kansas educator network

brainstorming characteristics from participants:
- self-forming
- ad-hoc
- just in time
- explosive
- resource library
- tribe
- online

Can exist both F2F and online
- referring to this in “plurksburg”

Benefits of PLNs to Educators
- I would not be here but-for Plurk
- Plurk in my experience is a tighter-knit group

the loss of isolation is a BIG benefit

I joined Twitter 2 years ago, and hated it initially
- initially I wanted to be very private, signing things as “Clif’s Notes”
- story of printer problem responses from tweet
- that is when I thought: this will be what you make of it
- I had seen plenty of people sharing what they are eating for breakfast on twitter
- I realized if I wanted to have conversations about education on twitter, then I would have to find those people

I work with the teachers directly at our university
- in prior life, I was an elementary teacher
- we had a faculty of 60 but just 1 other male
- I was very familiar with the isolation that can happen in schools

Twitter and Plurk level the playing field

I THINK THESE TOOLS CAN REALLY HUMANIZE COMMUNICATIONS

The PLNs have fast forwarded my learning in so many ways

From participants:
network is non-judgemental: ask questions, people respond
- you don’t have to always ask the stupid question, others ask them too!

filtering idea comes up a lot
- I don’t have to keep up with everything going on, I just watch it to come through my PLN, best things bubbles up to the top

lesson plan help
- on Sunday night I put out what I am teaching that week
- on Tuesday I look for results and all the ideas that come out
- so with a 48 hour timeperiod, I get a ton of help and resources
- really helps on not re-inventing the wheel!

Traditional Student PLNs may be the next frontier for us in educational technology
- we’ve used these for years: pods, teams, the school itself, classrooms, these can be PLNs in the traditional setting

anytime we are talking about impacting learning, we want to move up Bloom’s Taxonomy
- we find that a lot of our teaching happens at the fact/recall level of Bloom’s

for lesson plans, what’s on paper is one thing, people intend to move up beyond lower levels, but in practice we tend to fall back to this
- it’s easier to assess
- students don’t fight us as much (IT IS PASSIVE AND EASIER FOR EVERYONE!)
- we should be striving for the higher levels

Andrew Churches has reworked this as Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy

One thing you can do with your online PLN is publish
- you know there is an audience out there
- when you start publishing, kids get more engaged in the process

from audience:
- kids can tend to self-assess more and raise their game for the audience
- kids really willing to draw others into the network, want to share
- kids tend to be more willing to do the work when they are publishing for an outside audience
- kids are actually writing all the time
- when kids write and publish for their peers, that makes a huge difference
- kids bringing writing to the teacher and asking, “Do I sound smart here?”

kids take ownership of their learning
- I don’t mean to oversell this because worksheets (specifically in math) do have their place
- the key, however, is that those aren’t the only strategies that we should be using
- I’ve never seen a child take ownership over a multiplication fact sheet in the same way they take ownership over writing and publishing online
- we are hearing more talking today about “higher order teaching” not just “higher order thinking”

I am skeptical that we ever REALLY know what someone knows, we just see what is demonstrated

When something gets published, we can start witnessing the process they go through
- it is like a data trail
- we can see the decisionamking they are going thru
- decisionmaking typically gets into higher order thinking
- there is a lot in that direction we should and will explore more

Whole idea of critique: comment, DIGG (voting/rating), starring system
- all of that is critical thinking

what happens with middle school students when things go public and they know they will start looking at each others work
- the critique dynamics change, can be in some positive ways but also negative

did a project where kids designed a game on paper with storyboards, and then developed the games back at school
- then brought developed games back to kids
- kids got to play them, share them, add ideas
- kids wanted to refine and improve their own games
- this is the kind of thing we are seeing in our own PLNs

Benefits of online PLNs to students

Lisa Thumann (@lthumann on Twitter)
- sharing an audio recording from Lisa talking about how we’ve generally valued and used experts to bring in their voices and perspectives to the classroom

someone discussing edmodo and other networking tools, giving other students that may not typically share their ideas/voice being empowered to do so with digital PLN tools

From Ginger Lumen:
- gives learning in the classroom not just an x/y axis but also the z axis
- much more depth

I wish I could have grown up learning in this world
- I grew up on the farm, and my dad was a carpenter
- I learned math hands-on, outside the classroom
- the physical setup of schools tends to box us in physically and mentally

YES, I THINK THIS IDEA OF GETTING OUT AND TRANSCENDING THE TRADITIONAL BOUNDARIES OF THE CLASSROOM IS A REAL KEY

Ability to individualize learning
- filtering things that meets your learning style

“I has a cheesburger” is a big part of some people’s PLNs today - not mine

Indivualizing your PLN is key

Multiple representations of understanding is key
- I promised a friend that I would share this

I grew up in the Mississippi delta, went away for college, came back there to teach
- most of my kids from very tough situations
- had a student I had taught the year before in math, he didn’t pass, and I was irate about it, he had already repeated twice, as a 6th grader was repeating for his 3rd time
- the next year I persuaded the teacher to get that student again for both math and science (state law encourages student to NOT get the same student so teaching is repeated)
- story of circuit switch kids, this student and his partner finished first
- I was blown away with his understanding of how to create circuits and how well he understood it
- his self esteem was in the floor generally
- I asked him to help others with their circuits around the room
- later that week I gave the test, graded them, and the student had failed miserably with something like a 20%
- I did know about his background and home life
- I thought maybe he was up all night at home, something going on
- I slowly realized that he was not failing my class, I am failing him, because he understands this topic but can’t represent it in the medium I’ve chosen for assessment
- at that point I promised myself (this was a paradigm shift) that I/we acknowledge how people express and understand things in different ways

THIS IS A GREAT STORY AND A POWERFUL WAY TO MAKE THE CASE FOR DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT

one more thing about multiple representations
- if you are going to let students express themselves in multiple ways, we as teachers are really going to have to design instruction carefully
- what ARE the objectives you want to achieve?
- do students have to write something as a paragraph? could they do a YouTube video or a podcast?
- this is going to challenge us as designers to become better and more purposeful as we design our lessons

Favorite benefit of online networks: Together we know more
- crowdsourcing

convergence of digital technologies becoming seamless with teaching and learning
- less separated: like we used to do with MS office, “today we are going to teach PPT”
- those tools are becoming (and will become) more seamless where we focus less on the tools
- bring in that PLN element where we can collaborate, publish, critique together
- can really boost higher order thinking in the classroom

Examples of how you can setup your own PLN in the classroom
- Ning
- Fliggo: setup your own video network
- Edublogs
- PBworks
- wetpaint
- seesmic (like twitter with video, you get 60 seconds, similar to 12 seconds)
- Edmodo and ShoutEm - make your own private, school-based Twitter network

can make your network completely private or public
- safety and digital citizenship go hand in hand

what lies ahead
- the highlight of my day will be going to hear these young men talk about what they are doing with Wiis and hacking
- I am NOT a gamer
- I spent the Christmas break wearing out our new Wii with my kids
- I think we have yet to discover what gaming will mean for school learning
- all these social aspects

The smartphones
- there are others in addition to the iPhone
- what these will mean for our classrooms, our PLNs, we will have to wait and see

Other things discussed by participants:
- cloud-based computing
- geo-caching
- SecondLife
- PS3 has something similar to SL called “Home”

OK, CLEARLY WE NEED TO GET MARIO-KART FOR OUR WII!
Semantic web: web 3.0
- filtering, so things likely to be of interest to you show up more intuitively

closing thought: it will be what you make it
- it would be possible that you could bring in many of these things, and still JUST challenge kids at the knowledge/comprehension level of learning
- we are still going to have to be very purposeful with learning
- responsible digital citizenship, safety issues
- you get to customize and individualize it
- how restrictive you are as an administrative

Special thinks to Michael Grant from Univ of Memphis also

Join my PLN and let’s learn together! clifmims.com/pln
- I am a big diigo bookmark user

Question on how to impact pre-service teachers and faculty
- from @dmantz: let others

from Kevin Honeycutt: some of our new teachers are resentful when you ask them to change their PERSONAL space (facebook) into a professional space
- young people have been free-range learners online
- many young people don’t view Facebook as a personal learning network

From Michael Grant: we have to help “young ones” leverage these tools beyond entertainment

Many not sure what this means to look professional online

Literature shows people need a personally meaningful connection to the tool when we teach edtech
- in my past course, in the same 3 hour course I had to do lesson planning AND technology integration in the same course, lesson planning wasn’t anywhere else in their 128 hours of required courses (undergradate)
- it was really hard to get that personal experience: putting together a slideshow about their vacation, a PPT about their boyfriend, etc - without those experiences they don’t ‘get it’ or get hooked
- I am a big believer in FLOW theory (Mihály Csíkszentmihályi)

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A friend of mine and higher education professor I greatly respect, Dr. Cyndi Danner-Kuhn, is sharing a presentation in two weeks at the Dean’s Leadership Symposium at the University of Missouri for other professors. She asked me for some ideas and suggestions for her presentation. These are my thoughts.

photo credit: vectorfunk

Focus on content and purpose rather than just on tools. It’s easy to focus on tools, but people are less interested when you take that focus. Show off digital curriculum examples. I have a bunch on:
http://handouts.wesfryer.com/curriculum

You’re making a case for the depth and breadth of curriculum available when everyone has access to a digital platform.

I would make the focus creating, communicating, and collaborating. I call these the three C’s of the 21st century. (As opposed to the CCC of the depression era!) This is the focus I took in my MASSCUE keynote, and I think it’s very strong. Learning is more than consumption, it is about remix. (Constructivism) Helping students become media prosumers better supports learning from a Marzano perspective (non-linguistic representation and time on task are two elements that are clear) and also helps students become more media literate, develop and refine 21st century skills alongside traditional literacy skills, have differentiated opportunities to show what they know, have multiple pathways to learn, etc. Use terminology with which you know the audience is already familiar: differentiated instruction, learning styles, assessment and accountability, and building professional learning communities. Resources and slides for that MASSCUE preso are online, feel free to use any of this which is helpful:
http://handouts.wesfryer.com/keys

Try and keep it an accessible conversation by giving participants time to talk. Show a video, and give them some time to respond and reflect on it. Some of these videos can be “changing landscape” videos, others can be specific examples of student work. I have a lot of good options on:
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/resources/videos-for-pd/

It’s a fine line to walk with a higher ed audience, not getting people on the defensive because you are criticising the established ways so much and advocating for change. The “Introducing the Book” video can be good to set the stage in this respect with humor: the world is changing in huge ways which challenge fundamental assumptions we’ve had all our lives (especially with respect to access to information and communications channels) and that’s a key thing you want to help people recognize. “The 4th Screen” is also helpful in this regard. Wesch’s videos can be good too, but they can also overwhelm.

One of the best things you can do is bring in someone, even for a short time, over video to talk with your audience. I’d recommend using Skype, but you can try iChat or Google Video too. I’ve had fewer firewall issues with Skype generally than iChat. Both Skype and Google Video Chat are cross-platform, so that is a bonus. You can reference how more mainstream media sources (like CNN and Oprah) are using Skype now to bring in expert voices, and this should be happening every week in our classrooms. I wrote about this Monday on ISTEconnects:
http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/04/20/skype-and-twitter-going-more-mainstream/

Please give me a call if you want and we can discuss more. I’ll be glad to share my PPT or keynote decks for any presos I have also with you, if you want, just let me know which one(s):
http://www.wesfryer.com/teaching/

This will be great and you will do great! Let me know how else I can help.

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