1. Texas Tech University officially approved the final, corrected version of my dissertation (“Impact Analysis of Phonecasted Lecture Summaries“) for publication in the Texas Digital Library. Today’s notification email indicated I should be ready to wait up to two months for it to be linked and indexed, but that fortunately doesn’t preclude me from directly publishing it now.
2. I passed the oral and written examinations this evening to become an elder in our church. (The formal ordination and installation ceremony will follow soon!)
3. This Friday at 7 pm CDT, I’ll walk across a stage in Lubbock, Texas, wearing a black, monastic robe and be “hooded” in a medieval ceremony as the formal culmination of a decade of graduate studies and research.

For the past several years, I’ve wanted to create a “professional digital archive” to collect and share articles, papers and books I’ve written and will write in the future. This will include the 30+ articles I wrote for TCEA’s TechEdge from 1997 to 2008, the four papers I wrote in Mexico City in 1992-93, and other articles listed on my CV which I both have electronically and have the rights to redistribute. This is a significant project to undertake in my discretionary evening time, however, and I’ve put it off with the idea that once my dissertation is published, then I’ll create it. With this blog post, I’m officially publishing my dissertation (via DropBox) so tonight was the time to build a new website! (docs.wesfryer.com)

Larry Lessig‘s old website (lessig.org) was one of the first I encountered with a robust and well organized digital archive. Dr. Lessig, as a former law professor, has his publications organized as articles, columns, books, unpublished work, testimony, litigation, and audio/video. I plan to migrate my 2004-vintage Dreamweaver site on wesfryer.com to WordPress with a custom logo and unified theme connecting to speedofcreativity.org at some point, but that is an even larger project which I’m not ready to start yet. For now, I’m ready to start an article archive which can connect to those other sites and eventually be ‘themed’ to match. I noticed with interest when Will Richardson migrated his blog last summer from weblogg-ed.com to willrichardson.com. This is post #5,170 on speedofcreativity.org, and although I understand the rationale for hosting a professional blog on a personal domain, I think I’m going to keep “splitting” my digital footprint between several domains. My plan at this point is to use / keep using:

1. wesfryer.com as my main, professional website for largely static, non-interactive information (bio, vitae, contact info)
2. wiki.wesfryer.com (a Google site) as my presentation / keynote / workshop / breakout session handouts space
3. docs.wesfryer.com (a new site I started tonight) as a professional digital publications archive
4. twitter.wesfryer.com (a Tweet Nest-powered archive of all my Tweets since Nov 2011)
5. Various other sites I have linked on about.me/wfryer and claimid.com/wfryer

In considering my options for creating a digital publications archive, I admit I’m highly biased toward using WordPress. WordPress is a hugely popular and free content management system, with millions of users worldwide. I’ve been using WordPress since 2005 and am a big fan. It’s not only well supported by lots of smart folks, it’s also highly extensible. Digital Commons is a hosted IR (institutional repository) solution, and is philosophically on the same page I am but not open / freely available. I want to create and provide a useful, online archive of my writing so a variety of individuals can utilize as well as interact with the ideas in the articles as well as with me in accessible, digital formats.

I’ve considered using Anthologize, Edit Flow, the Extricate theme, Digress.it, Annotum, CommentPress, the Arras theme, and Omeka. Of these choices, Digress.it and Annotum are my favorites. I first learned about Digress.it reading the 2010 and 2011 “web versions” of the Horizon report.

I decided to go with Annotum for my publications archive because of its explicit support for academic publishing conventions. At this point in my professional career, just completing my Ph.D., I’m not sure if I’ll secure employment as a tenure track assistant professor, take a full-time position in a K-12 school district, continue my work as a full-time, independent digital learning consultant, or do something else. Whatever job title I have, however, I’m confident I’ll want to maintain and update this professional digital publications archive.

See my March 2012 post, “Open Access Crimes,” for more of my thoughts about open access and open academic publishing.

What are your thoughts on creating a similar archive of publications? What examples of sites like this have you seen and do you like? Would you recommend going with a platform other than Annotum?

Technorati Tags: publish, website, wordpress, publishing, article, articles, annotum, anthologize, theme, access

Professional Digital Publications Archive Project originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 15, 2012.

…more than half of all students (56 percent) said they wished they had taken more computer and technology classes [as undergraduate students.]

Source: “Chasing the American Dream: Recent College Graduates and the Great Recession,” Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. Survey was “a nationally representative sample of 444 recent college graduates from the class of 2006 through 2011, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.”
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/regrets-about-college/

Via Roger Shank:
https://mobile.twitter.com/rogerschank/status/202185678153457664

Recent College Grads Wanted More Tech Classes originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 14, 2012.

Remember the plans you have today are unlikely to unfold in exactly the ways you’re anticipating now. Remember networking and personal connections are VITALLY important and they will open up doors for you that you haven’t even thought of now. Be open and flexible as new opportunities arise, but remain focused on not only your goals and dreams, but also the “core” of where you feel centered working and contributing. Remain true to your values. Never compromise your integrity. Choose your co-workers as well as your friends carefully. You will become more like them. It is possible to maintain focus and your work ethic in a ‘toxic’ environment filled with difficult people (or even just one difficult person) but in the long run it can be very draining. Count your blessings every day. Never underestimate the importance and value of kind words. Remember everyone you meet each day presents new opportunities for service and positive relationships. You don’t get any heartbeats back. Use them well.

Good luck to you!

Advice for a College Graduate originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 14, 2012.

My teenage daughter recently started receiving annoying text messages on her iPhone from another student at her school. This isn’t a case of bullying: Apparently this particular student likes to send “group SMS messages” like some folks send spam email. In this post I’ll describe how we are using the $12 app mCleaner to block that specific number, and are NOT paying a monthly fee to a cellular provider for this functionality. To use mCleaner, your iPhone must be jailbroken so you can install it from Cydia. mCleaner comes with a free 15 day trial, but after that you must pay $12 to keep using the app. The information in this post pertains to cellular services available in the United States in May 2012. Details and features may vary depending on the country where you live. As of this writing, jailbreaking an iPhone is legal in the United States per the FCC’s 2010 rulemaking on the DMCA. A final rulemaking decision is expected on this in October 2012.

Both AT&T and T-Mobile officially require a monthly add-on (additional fee) to your cell phone plan to block specific incoming phone calls and/or SMS messages. While these policies are certainly good for the profit margins of both companies and the stock dividends of shareholders, they are terrible for consumers like you and me who already pay ridiculously high fees for cellular services. AT&T charges an additional $5 per month PER LINE for “AT&T Smart Limits for Wireless,” which is part of its available parental control options. If you’ve opted to ditch AT&T’s more expensive cell phone services and go with T-Mobile instead, as our family has for two of our children’s inherited / older iPhones, T-Mobile offers two suggestions as shown in the screenshot below of their official support document, “Blocking an Official Number.” The options are to “Add the Family Allowances feature” or change your cell phone number.

If you read the fine print at the bottom of T-Mobile’s plan page, you’ll read: “Qualifying post-paid multi-line plan required” for Family Allowances. This means the flat $15 per month for unlimited texting, 10¢ per minute talk plan my teens are each on (instead of AT&T’s “data-plan required” cheapest iPhone option of $30 per month: $10 for an extra line and $20 for a REQUIRED data plan) isn’t eligible for the “official” T-Mobile Family Allowances feature. So, for our situation with T-Mobile, the mCleaner app is our only option to block calls and SMS messages from undesired senders. mCleaner works equally well on iPhones using AT&T service as T-Mobile, however.

To install mCleaner, launch the Cydia app on your jailbroken iPhone. (Cydia is the primary “app store” and app installer for jailbroken apps.) Look in the categories for UTILITIES and find mCleaner there. Always be careful when installing jailbroken apps: Some DO include malware and can mess up your phone.

When you run mCleaner for the first time, you’ll either need to enter an activation code which you purchased online or cancel the opening screen reminding you about the 15 day free trial.

Now you’re ready to configure your first “rule” in mCleaner. Click the “+” icon in the upper right corner and enter a nickname and the number of the phone number you want to block. Select if you want to block SMS, calls, or both.

That’s it! mCleaner is now running and should prevent any messages or calls, as you choose, from ringing / texting your iPhone.

If desired, several settings can be customized in mCleaner as shown below.

The only option I changed for my daughter was how to handle an incoming call, or the “block mode.” We opted to just ignore the call.

Unwanted cell phone text message and phone call problem SOLVED. Thank you iPhone Dev Team and mCleaner developers!

Block Text Messages / SMS Spam and Phone Calls on Your iPhone originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 12, 2012.

I serendipitously found this video using the free ShowYou app for iPad this afternoon at the conclusion of my “iPad Apps for Business Productivity” workshop. I really like how the app highlights videos shared by people you follow on Twitter and Facebook. It is so powerful to access content curated by other people we follow! If you register for the app, you can follow me on ShowYou.

This video reminds me of an assignment I gave to my college students in 2005 when I started teaching university-level technology integration courses at Wayland Baptist University in Lubbock, Texas. See my 17th podcast, “Teacher Impact Stories” on November 5th, 2005, for more information. That podcast included a shoutout to Bob Sprankle’s Room208 students. My how time flies!

(direct mp3 download)

Technorati Tags: teacher, video, thanks, thankyou, educator

Thank a Teacher [VIDEO] originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 10, 2012.

Day 1: Screencasting and Narrated SlideShows

Day 2: Quick Edit Videography

Day 3: Interactive Writing and eBooks

My 11 year old daughter helped me create and record a two minute, narrated slideshow tonight (on an iPad, of course, using “Explain Everything”) to provide some highlights of what the workshop will include.

Please share this workshop opportunity with others in your school as well as PLN. While each day is designed to “stand alone” if you can’t attend all three days, I encourage you to attend the complete series. Discounts are available for educators attending two or three days of the workshop series. Details are on the registration page.

Please follow @iPadMediaCamp on Twitter to stay up to date. All workshop sessions will be held at the Presbyterian Health Foundation Conference Center in downtown Oklahoma City just south of the state capitol on Lincoln. That’s the same location as the “iPad Training for Business Productivity” workshop scheduled for this Thursday, May 10th.

Hope to see you at iPad Media Camp this summer! If you’re interested in bringing iPad Media Camp to your school, school district, or educational organization, please submit the website contact form.

Technorati Tags: camp, edtech, ipad, media, oklahoma, technology, workshop

iPad Media Camp in Oklahoma City: July 11, 12 & 13, 2012 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 8, 2012.

The original lyrics of the song are:

Filled with energy ready to go
Ready to learn what I must know
To ignite my students with learning’s fire
This common core course is meant to inspire

Chorus:

Ohhhhhhh, I’m so glad to be here (come on)
Oh, I’m so glad to be here
I’ll embrace the common core without fear
Oh, I’m so glad to be here

How I teach is up to me
Add some rigor and H O T
This will be easy as A B C
Oh, I’m so glad to be here

(Chorus)

How I teach must engage the brain
When I board the common core train
At year’s end they’ll all achieve
It’s the right thing to do,
You just gotta believe!

Chorus (modified)
Ohhhhhhh, we’re so glad to be here (We’re!)
Oh, we’re so glad to be here
We’ll embrace the common core without fear
Oh, we’re so glad to be here

We’re so glad to be here!
Go team!

The second song, which we’re not considering using or remixing but is similar in focus to the first one, is “Common Core This Way.” It’s a remix of Lady Gaga‘s song, “Born this Way.”

The irony for us in Oklahoma is that we’d need to change the first line of the song to be truthful. Instead of:

Last year in August the Feds told us, we’re getting 700 mill

we’d need to change it to:

Last year in August our SDE told us, you’re not getting squat for this.

Oklahoma applied for Race to the Top (RTTT) grant funding, but didn’t win any awards. Our laws were changed, we’re now on track for 50% of teacher evaluations in 2012-2013 to be based on student test scores, and our curriculum standards are in transition, but we have no additional funds to support schools and teachers in that process. It’s a challenging time in public education for many reasons.

If you’re interested in a more sobering YouTube video about Common Core State Standards, I recommend Damon Hargraves’s video accompanying his 2010 research paper, “A Deep Look at the Forces Behind Common Core.” It’s a great example of a screencast which amplifies student research effectively. The abstract was:

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a non-governmental movement that aims to unify state standards across the nation for elementary and secondary schools. As of the writing of this report, the process for finalizing the standards and other documentation is still underway. The purpose of this paper is not to provide analysis of the standards themselves, but rather the forces acting behind this initiative. The findings pose a possible conflict of interest, which supports the position that the Common Core Initiative may not be a solely state driven project, but also corporately and financially motivated.

At the time of his research, CCSS was funded primarily by testing, evaluation, and publishing companies including ETS, McGraw Hill, Pearson, Pearson Evaluation, Scantron, and the College Board.

Is this something worth singing about? That’s a question worth discussing.

Common Core Guitar Songs, Lady Gaga Remixes & Commercial Underwriters originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 8, 2012.

After you create a free teacher “channel” on YouTube, in addition to publishing/sharing videos there you can also EDIT them in basic ways. This support article from Google explains how to add, trim, customize, add audio and publish edited videos using the YouTube website editor. This is a fast way to make basic edits to videos you record with a Flip or other flash-based video camcorder.

Free software programs are also available for video editing, but the steps to use these programs can be much more time consuming than simply editing a video directly on YouTube. Free video editing programs include:

1. iMovie (for Apple users, included as part of iLife software)
2. Windows MovieMaker Live (for Windows 7 users)
3. Windows MovieMaker (for WinXP users)
4. Windows MovieMaker (for Windows Vista users)

If you have an iPad, the iMovie app for iPad is available for $5, educational volume purchasing discounts may apply depending on your location/context. More details about using the app are available on Wesley Fryer’s “iPad Quick Edit Videography” page.

Technorati Tags: edit, video, youtube

Basic Online Video Editing with YouTube originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 7, 2012.

Question: I’m using an iPad to try and view an eBook created by a student with the Book Creator app. The finished eBook is posted on Posterous.com. It downloaded to my iPad and shows up in the iBooks app, but it won’t open. What should I do?

Answer: Whenever an app on an iPad acts quirky, one of the first things you can try is quitting the actual application and re-opening it. When you leave an app to return to the home screen, the app is still running in the background. To actually quit an application entirely on an iPad or other iOS device:

1. Double click (press twice) the Home button on the front of the iPad to return to the home screen. This will show you the applications running currently.
2. Touch and hold down on one of the icons. All the icons should then start to shake or jiggle, and a red “-” sign (minus sign) will show up in the upper left corner of each one.
3. Press the red minus sign in the upper left corner of the jiggling app you want to quit.
4. Press the Home button to stop the apps from shaking/jiggling and return to normal iPad functions.
5. Navigate to the app on your Home screen and touch it to open it again. Hopefully the app will then function normally.

Technorati Tags: app, ebooks, epub, ibook, ibooks, ipad, quit, close

eBook Won’t Open in iBooks (Closing & ReOpening an iPad App) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 7, 2012.

All of the recorded “12 Days of Playing with Media” videoconference recordings in this series are linked on this YouTube playlist. Please let me know if you utilize any of these recordings and find them useful/helpful. Feel free to not only use these for your own personal/professional development, but also utilize them for school/organizational PD. The ability to create, edit and publish “Quick Edit” videos is an important 21st century literacy skill, and a core skill I hope to help many more students as well as teachers develop through the Storychaser Student Clubs in upcoming months.

Technorati Tags: edtech, education, ipad, media, playing, playingwithmedia, video, videography, imovie, quick, edit

iPad Quick Edit Videography (free video PD) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 6, 2012.

I generally don’t see many QR codes outside of educational technology conferences, but they are making more appearances. A few months ago I noticed this one on a ketchup bottle at a restaurant.

Currently my favorite QR Code scanning app (free) for my iPhone is i-nigma. These are the different iOS QR Code apps I have currently.

I was impressed how many presenters used QR Codes for their handout links at the Mobile 2012 Conference in Phoenix a few weeks ago. I’m not sure how many folks at our men’s conference this weekend will have QR Code scanner apps on their smartphones, but if even one does and my handout helps them connect to one of the links I’ve provided for the session I’ll be overjoyed!

I’m quite pleased for the first time, the conference center has created a podcast channel where they’ll be sharing some audio recordings from the weekend. Technology can be a powerful amplifier of ideas!

Technorati Tags: conference, qrcode, qr, code, moranch, presbyterian, men, mens

QR Codes on Conference Bookmark Handout originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 4, 2012.

  by  katielips 

What options are available for someone (or an organization) who wants to send custom SMS messages from a consistent, originating SMS number, which are triggered by a server script or email message? Of these options, which is preferable and why?

I have a friend who is a network administrator and wants to send different SMS alerts to his team members based on server conditions. He’s used the default SMS email carrier options (included in the English WikiPedia article, “List of SMS gateways“). The problem with those options (which use an email syntax like “domestic-number@txt.att.net”) is each SMS message is received on phones as originating from DIFFERENT SMS numbers. These are incremented sequentially, as shown in the screenshot below.

Instead of unique, sequential originating SMS numbers, my friend wants his server alerts to be sent from a CONSISTENT SMS address. This is the way SMS services like those offered by Twitter, Poll Everywhere, and other web services function using SMS.

What options are available for someone who wants to do this? I’d love to hear about open source as well as commercial options. If hardware options are available I’d like to know about those too.

My own formative research yielded the following options:

Open Source Options:

Kannel (an open source project)
- I’m not sure how an individual or organization runs it and obtains a unique SMS sending identifier, however.
- I’m also not sure if it’s necessary to purchase and use a GSM modem with this option. According to this FAQ from SwivelSecure, either a software-based SMS gateway or a GSM modem can be used to send SMS messages, so perhaps a GSM modem is NOT required. I don’t know if Kannel instances send using unique/incremented SMS numbers or with a unique number, however.

Zabbix

Commercial hardware options include: ServersCheck (instructions),

Commercial software options include: Ozekisms, Trumpia, MessageMedia, and CDYNE.

Please do not comment on this post if you’re a vendor or vendor representative, I’m interested in user feedback. I’m especially interested if you’re currently using a solution to provide custom SMS alerts for server status alerts.

Server Alerts Via SMS Gateway or GSM Modem: Unique Identifier Question originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 2, 2012.

In addition to showing how these apps work for finding and viewing videos, I also demonstrated how users can share (or re-share) videos in the apps. In the case of ShowMe, clicking on the share button brings up a dialog window where desired text can be typed before the video link is shared on your Twitter account or Facebook wall. In the case of Shufflr, however, there is NOT an opportunity to enter associated text. Last night I found a new video I hadn’t seen about Chromebooks and iPads, and clicked the share button to demonstrate how it worked. Much to my dismay, that link IMMEDIATELY went out on my Twitter account with ‘canned’ text.

Hopefully the creators of Shufflr will change this process and permit users to enter / type their own associated comment before sharing a video. In this case, I hadn’t actually watched the entire video before unintentionally tweeting its link. When I did watch it, I was surprised by some of the images included. The video is a series of audio interviews with high school students about Chromebooks and iPads, but there are some unrelated PhotoBooth filtered images of a woman in a bikini included for some reason. (I think the creator used the ‘thermal’ filter.) In addition to those images, I also question the validity and usefulness of the opinions expressed in the video because the students interviewed didn’t seem to be iPad users. The best people to ask a question like, “Do you prefer a Chromebook or an iPad” are people who are very familiar with the features, capabilities, and operation of both devices. Asking someone just familiar with one of the two items is like asking someone who has never gone fishing, “Do you like hunting or fishing better?” It’s not a good question to ask to an ignorant audience, especially if you are going to portray your “results” as insightful about comparing two different things. This is similar to the point I made in my short essay, “A perspective on operating systems,” which I last edited in 2006.

In addition to recommending the ShowYou iPad app to you, I want to offer caution about using apps like Shufflr which have “immediate sharing” buttons to social networks. Even though some Twitter users, like Shankar Vedantam (@HiddenBrain) clearly state on their profiles “retweets are not endorsements,” it’s natural and common for other people to view / perceive retweets as recommendations.

For evidence of this, just look at the way iPad apps ShowYou and Shufflr treat video sharing. The apps specifically show WHO has shared a particular video on Facebook or Twitter, as a means of establishing a link to credibility and/or trust for the quality and value of a video. The retweet IS a recommendation.

Sharing via re-tweeting on Twitter and link sharing on Facebook as well as Google Plus can be extremely powerful and beneficial. As this story from yesterday’s workshop hopefully shows, however, it’s important to be aware of how we may be judged not only by the company we keep on social networks (who we follow) but also by the voices we amplify (the content we retweet and share.)

Since I’m not entirely in accord with the image choices in the video I accidentally retweeted last night from Shufflr, I deleted the tweet from my public Twitter stream. It’s still archived on my personal Tweet Nest archive, however.

What are your thoughts about retweeting and sharing links on social networks? Is it reasonable for people to claim “retweets are not endorsements?”

Are there other iPad apps or websites you’re using which offer similar features like ShowYou and Shufflr to view videos shared by people you follow on social networks?

Technorati Tags: app, facebook, google, ipad, share, twitter, googleplus

Lessons Learned From An Immediate Social Network Sharing Button originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 2, 2012.

After actually building his planned design and working with different materials (largely scrap wood from our local Lowe’s hardware store and various bits of hardware pieced together with a drill and Gorilla Glue) we finally created a product which resembles this design, which he drew tonight.

Last night, he recorded a three minute video explaining his design and what we’d changed from the original plans.

Today, he actually tested the design and we recorded two videos I combined into one: A preliminary failure and a second successful test.

Overall science class this year for him has been (I think) largely a disappointment and a big frustration on several fronts. I won’t elaborate here in detail, but it’s been a case as a parent where I dearly wished there were more opportunities for both student and parental feedback to be integrated into the formal teacher evaluation process. Those frustrations aside, I want to observe that good things can come from projects and specifically engineering challenges which students are given. We spend far too LITTLE time in school and outside of class actually BUILDING THINGS we design and tweaking those models until “they work.” Alexander’s project isn’t likely to win any STEM awards and I’m not even sure what his grade on the project or in his class will be… but those things really don’t matter much. What matters is this science and engineering project gave him a chance to design and build something he imagined in his mind. It gave us a chance to work on building his design together. It was fun, and I think we both learned some new things as well as creating something we’re proud of and will remember for a long time.

He takes his project to school tomorrow to show his teacher and his class what he made and what he learned. “Success in learning,” however, has already been achieved and we don’t need a teacher’s grade or evaluation to know it. We DID, however, need a teacher to assign this project and thereby provide a catalyst for designing and building together. For that I am thankful both to his teacher and his wonderful school, Classen School of Advanced Studies in Oklahoma City Public Schools.

Long live science and engineering projects for students which require creativity, imagination, and really “making stuff!”

Technorati Tags: science, stem, project, engineering

Good Things Can Come From Science and Engineering Projects in School originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 30, 2012.

Chris is owner and principal advisor at Focusfire IT Strategy and Consulting
- has 10_ years of experience across multiple industries and IT disciplines
- ‘my system requirements: food, water, and internet connectivity’

This not is NOT about the top 5 WordPress security threats
- going to talk about the anatomy of attacks rather than specific threats, since specific threats change regularly

Thinks hackers might care about that aren’t your blog specifically
- your fancy server
- your fancy employer
- your fancy audience

Some hacker goals are to take control of servers to attack others
- maybe to attack a bank
- this can make attacks look like they are coming from someone else
- hacker can use a server as a ‘drop off point’ also to share information and files

hackers who want to spread malware, trojan files or other viruses

It’s not about you, when it comes to hackers, it’s due to your assets in many cases
- this is especially true for hobbyists

Who are hacking
- script kiddies
- hacktivists (hackers with an agenda: religious, environmental, etc. Anonymous is an example)
- professional criminals (have a lot of money to hire people)
- information warriors (Iran, China, US, etc. There are SO many people in China now focused on hacking, the scale of this is huge)

Comment from a participant about travels to China: Be very careful where you go, what you take
- computers can be taken from your room and the hard drive copied
- lots of people work for the government

Attacks are structured similarly
1 – enumeration: identifying your target, who is it, as much info as possible about your target (learning every bit of information they can for password resets)
– if attacking WordPress: is it hosted, on WordPress.com, what server OS is the host running

Handy Google search modifier: allinurl:/wp-admin/wp-login.php
- this yields about 2.3 million URLs
- and then I can do lots of automated things against those websites

2- access:
– lots of people might say their hotmail or gmail “got hacked,” but usually that happens when someone guesses your password
– that’s really not a hack, it’s guessing
– lots of security questions are public information
– think through what information you are putting out online, as well as what you put into security questions
– these are not technical things, it’s just research

Real password attacks can be automated
- uses a dictionary file
- exploits weak passwords
- dictionary based
- can be entirely automated

3- exploitation:
- can be installing a virus or key logger
- installing spam links
- ToolsPack Plugin was found on about 30,000 WordPress blogs
- there is 1 line of code that is malicious, uses the EVAL PHP command to execute a string
- SQL injection attack

BackupBuddy is a tool which scans your backups

Payloads can be keylogger, trojan, spyware, virus, or even ransom ware (put in your credit card number to recover your files)
- SEO Spam is being reduced now thanks to work by Google, Bing and others: includes links and keywords
- hidden keywords
- also can try to build a link farm

Redirects or hijacks are also common

Best practices:
1- update! update! update!
- backup and test your backups
- use a unique passphrase
- don’t use the ‘admin’ user
- disable or delete un-used plugins

Input Sanitization is good for plugin developers, can prevent a lot of attacks that way
- lots of plugin hacks exploit plugs with poor sanitization

Soapbox about comments:
- many people have comments to drive page views, especially if advertising
- if you don’t need income from your comments, I recommend disabling them
- I derive little value from comments on any websites, so I disable comments on all my sites
- I put a comment up on my site instead of commenting on theirs, and email them to let them know

MY COMMENT: THE VALUE OF COMMENTS IS CERTAINLY DIFFERENT FOR ME IN THE EDUCATION CONTEXT…

Every time I’ve ever needed a backup in a corporate situation, it’s never worked because people NEVER TESTED IT

MY COMMENT: THIS IS SUCH A GREAT TIP. I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE ACTUALLY TESTED THEIR BACKUPS. I AM GOING TO DO THIS ON MY MAIN WORDPRESS INSTALLS.

Change the default user so you do NOT use admin
- now you can do this in WordPress

MY COMMENT: THIS IS A GREAT TIP AND I AM GOING TO FOLLOW IT!

As a security and IT professional I probably hate passwords more than anyone
- I recommend using a passphrase because they are easier to remember
- example: use “walrusslingshotmoonbeam” instead of “S3xyP@nda”
- most people have an easier time remembering a passphrase

Utility “1 Password” is great
- works on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android
- syncs to DropBox

Recommended WordPress Plugins

Backup:
- BackWPop is open source or BAckupBuddy

Security
- Better WP Security (open source – does let you limit login attempts plus a LOT more)
- Limit Login Attempts (open source)
- Securi SiteCheck Scanner (sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner)

These are all things your attacker will do once they control your site

Always perform a backup of your WordPress database before installing plugins, especially security plugins which probably are going to make database changes

Nothing will make your WordPress installation bulletproof, but these suggestions can separate you from the herd

Technorati Tags: wordpress, security, hack, hacker, script, kiddie

Security Tips for WordPress: Understanding Network Attacks originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 30, 2012.

Some of the problems (like the initial examples of temperature conversions) could also be done with a simple query to Google, but the more advanced problems definitely could NOT. GoogleGuide.com has a nice collection of techniques for using Google as a basic as well as advanced calculator. Google can’t do everything WolframAlpha can do, however!

Converting from Fahrenheit to Centigrade with Wolfram Alpha

Converting from Kelvin to Fahrenheit with WolframAlpha

Calculating the area of a regular hexagon with WolframAlpha

Solving an Algebraic inequality with WolframAlpha

Calculating a Midpoint with WolframAlpha

In these examples I was using the Safari web browser on an iPad and (in the last example) my iPhone, but I also could have used the WolframAlpha app for iOS. It is currently $3.

How do you think access to amazing tools like WolframAlpha should change how we teach and use mathematics in our schools? My advanced statistics professor still “made us” (as students) work out many of the multivariate analyses calculations by hand even though we had SPSS, because he “wanted us to understand how they worked.” Years later, I remember very little of the specifics of those computational steps, although I retain many concepts. I’m sure I’ll never again work an ANCOVA or MANCOVA by hand on paper. I used ANCOVA in my dissertation, but I certainly didn’t work the calculations by hand. I used SPSS.

Access to tools like WolframAlpha SHOULD change how we teach and use mathematics in middle and high school, as well as college. In most schools today, however, I don’t think it has. Yet.

For more on this amazing tool, see the video, TEDx Brussels – Conrad Wolfram – 11/23/09.

As I side note, I’m thankful I still remember enough of my high school and college math course skills to help Alexander. Tonight WolframAlpha was a big aide, however, speeding up the process of checking answers and helping him identify a few mistakes. I’m not sure how many more years I’ll be able to help him, however, especially if he continues on a math-intensive track to study theoretical physics. That’s what he wants to do at this point, he thinks, but lots can change.

We enjoyed watching episode two of Brian Greene’s NOVA special, “The Fabric of the Cosmos” tonight on AppleTV. It was basically a continuation of the “Talking Science” podcast which Alexander and I made five years ago in 2007. It’s a great thrill as a dad to help my children grapple with big questions. The episode we watched tonight was called, “The Illusion of Time,” and I learned some new things about “perceptions of now” according to the laws of physics informed by Einstein’s relativity. Who knows where my kids will go in the future, equipped with inquisitive minds, amazing tools like WolframAlpha, and the chance to explore new horizons with scientific folks like Brian Greene?!

Technorati Tags: math, mathematics, geometry, algebra, solve

Checking Algebra and Geometry Problems with WolframAlpha originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 29, 2012.

No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great “I AM.”
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

In the comments below the video, YouTube user Cathie Eason wrote:

This is my sister Whitney Shields, if you wonder who I am as a person & you cant figure me out. Well, all I have? to say is you would only be blessed to have such a courageous young woman in your life like I do. Her biological parents Christy Shields & Russell Shields were my foster parents adopted ME when no one else wanted me.

Contrast this video with a live performance of the song by the original performer, David Phelps. I think Whitney’s sign language version is more powerful. Behold, the power of YouTube and online video to constructively amplify a young voice. Wow. If you take a few minutes to watch Whitney’s video, please leave her a supportive comment on YouTube.

I added this video to the digital storytelling project, “3 Minutes About Jesus,” which started in December 2010. I’m presenting about this project in a breakout session titled, “Be a Digital Witness for Jesus” at the 2011 MoRanch Men’s Conference in Hunt, Texas, next Saturday.

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, student, video, voice, youtube, faith, christ

A Touching Sign Language Performance of David Phelps: No More Night originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 28, 2012.

When I was a cadet at the US Air Force Academy in the late 1980s / early 1990s, I wrote a paper about U.S. Prisoners of War (POWs) who were left behind in Southeast Asia following the formal end of hostilities between North Vietnam and the United States in 1973. These were men who were not included in the only formal return of U.S. POWs in February 1973. I was fortunate to be able to take a class at USAFA from Dr. Timothy Castle, who later authored “One Day Too Long” about Lima Site 85 and the capture of “sheep dipped” U.S. servicemen in Laos who never returned to the USA. The POW/MIA issue in Southeast Asia was an issue that troubled me greatly when I served in the Air Force and has continued to be on my heart in the years since I wrote that paper in 1991. When I started developing a web presence in the late 1990s, that paper along with four papers I wrote in Mexico City in 1992-93 when I studied security issues on a Fulbright scholarship were some of the first documents I put online. I had an opportunity in November of 1991 to meet Mike McDaniel and attend one of the hearings of the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. There is a great deal more I could and perhaps someday will write about this very contentious issue. I hope at some point, in the next few years, to be able to travel to Vietnam as an educator and academic professional. These are issues which are not over, and I still hope to further explore and understand them. As a veteran and the son of an Air Force Vietnam veteran, I have always felt a close connection to not only these “issues” but to the people who lived, endured, survived, and died during these tumultuous chapters of history. Lots of U.S. government documents remain classified from this and previous eras. Some day, perhaps more of “the truth” will be revealed about what happened to our men left behind in Southeast Asia by United States government officials.

Over the past few months, I’ve received a series of emails from an elderly woman in California who has been doing research on the POW/MIA issue. She has alerted me to several books I have not read on the issue, and tonight as I found them online I faced the question: What should I do with this information? I decided to share that list here, on my blog. While I generally write about educational issues and educational technology, I certainly do address other issues from time-to-time and this is a case in point. Here are some books about the POW/MIA issue which I haven’t read, but may read in the future. Research and reading on this issue can be challenging on multiple levels, but it is certainly one which deserves continued attention and diligence. The last chapter has not been written on this era of human history. If you have found this blog post as a result of your own research on the POW/MIA issue, I encourage you to keep searching for answers. As the fictional character Fox Mulder might say, “The truth is out there.”

1. “Betrayed” by Joseph D. Douglass
2. “Inside Hanoi’s secret archives: solving the MIA mystery” by Malcolm McConnell (appears to be out of print, unfortunately)
3. “Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961 – 1973,” by Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley
4. “An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia” by Bill Hendon and Elizabeth A. Stewart
5. “Why Didn’t You Get Me Out?: A POW’s Nightmare in Vietnam” by Frank Anton and Tommy Denton
6. “Hero Found: The Greatest Pow Escape of the Vietnam War” by Bruce Henderson
7. “Code-Name Bright Light: The Untold Story of U.S. POW Rescue Efforts During the Vietnam War” by George J. Veith
8. “Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75″ by George J. Veith (coming May 2012)
9. “First Heroes: The Pows Left Behind in Vietnam” by Rod Colvin
10. “Leave No Man Behind: Bill Bell and the Search for American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War” by Garnett “Bill” Bell w/ Goerge J. Veith
11. “Is Anybody Listening?: A True Story About POW/MIAs In The Vietnam War” by Barbara Birchim w/ Sue Clark
12. “Perfidy: The Government Cabal That Knowingly Abandoned Our POWs and Left Them To Die” by John Holland & Rev. Patrick Bascio

There certainly are many other books worth reading on this subject, my works cited page from my 1991 paper lists several.

In the course of my recent web searches for books and materials on the POW/MIA issue, I also learned about the documentary film, “Missing, Presumed Dead: The Search For America’s POWs” by Bill Dumas. I found this on the July 2011 post, “Symposium: Why We Left Our POWs Behind.”

From an educational / critical thinking standpoint, the POW/MIA issue is a great example of a “real world” topic about which consensus is very challenging to identify. Joe Schlatter’s “MIA Facts Site” is one example of an extensive website on the issue which draws very different conclusions than my own.

As students of history, we would be wise to learn lessons from this era of conflict whose shadows still fall upon many lives today.

Additional Books to Read on the POW/MIA Situation in Southeast Asia originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 27, 2012.

Hine said the argument turned physical and that a teacher supervising the playground broke up the fight. “Nothing is more important than the safety of our students,” said Hine. “The EPS Police Department is investigating the situation and legal charges are pending. Our thoughts and prayers are with the student as he recovers from his injuries.”

Apparently the mother of the student took a photo of him with blood on his face at the hospital, and “a family friend” shared the photo on Facebook. Local news agencies quickly passed along the photo on their official websites and social media channels including this repost on KOFR’s official TwitPic channel.

The updated article from KFOR posted later in the day did not include the superintendent’s statement. A news article from News on 6 in Oklahoma provides the name of the student and credits a “family friend” for providing the photo:

Preston Hodge. Photo submitted by family friend Jeff Rust through Facebook.

Jeff Rust has several links to the photo on his Facebook page, including a link to a widely shared article, “Longfellow Student Seriously Injured” by Enid news blogger Mark Keefer. (Route 60 Sentinel)

Lots of important issues are raised by this situation. The first one, clearly, is the safety of the student, his recovery from his injuries, and the issues of racism, bullying, and fighting in our schools and communities. Words matter. Violence is not a justified response to a verbal taunt. Apparently this situation started with a racial slur and escalated. In this case and in today’s connected world, social media was and continues to be a powerful amplifier. According to yesterday’s post by “Stand For The Silent – Enid, Oklahoma Chapter,” “A fund to help the family has been set up at the Alva State Bank in Enid.”

This situation also raises propriety questions for individuals as well as organizations concerning the photo which was shared. When I first saw the photo with little context I was upset on several levels: First of all concerned about a news organization sharing the photo (I guessed) without parent permission. The photo is disturbing. Responding to criticism about sharing the picture, KOFR responded via Twitter:

The Enid community wants to show the impact of violence and bring awareness to the issue. Sorry if it offended you.

Whenever breaking news happens, mainstream media agencies clamor for photos and video to share with their audience. In this situation, since the mother apparently shared the photo with a friend, it appears “permission may have been granted” for the widespread publication of the image. Listening to the comments shared by family friends, it sounds like the mom (understandably) wants attention focused on this issue and the issues it raised addressed. Certainly this photo is a catalyst for greater attention and focus on her son and what happened to him.

Of secondary importance to the recovery and health issues involved for the student, I think we all can learn (or reinforce) a valuable lesson about digital photography and social media in this situation. Be thoughtful and considerate when you take photos of something, and especially when you share a photo. In today’s connected landscape (as we’ve seen repeatedly in our schools with incidents of sexting) an image can quickly go viral and pass out of the control of any single individual to stop or limit its distribution.

Another thing I think we should learn about this situation is the importance of schools, teachers, and community members using social media channels to proactively amplify the POSITIVE stories of learning and strong relationships which take place every day in our schools. It’s sad but true that negative stories like this catch and hold the attention of the public far more than positive topics. Read Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” for more on this. Acknowledging those dynamics of the public’s preference for negative and lurid news, we still need to leverage social media tools in our schools and communities to “share stories of good” rather than simply amplify the bad and the negative. See videos in “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” and the Yukon Public Schools’ Learning Showcase website for examples of this.

That said, tragedies and problems like those highlighted by this beating in Enid Public Schools DO need to be openly discussed and confronted. How are we working actively to eliminate racism in our communities? How are we amplifying those espousing reconciliation and understanding, rather than confrontation and violence?

Words matter. Choose yours carefully, and encourage the students under your care to do the same.

Consider supporting “Stand for the Silent” (@SFTSorg) and starting a local chapter at your school following the example of Jeremy Wallace at Enid High School. Let us learn from this situation and resolve to use our abilities, skills and gifts to work for good and not for evil.

My prayers are with Preston Hodge and his family.

Technorati Tags: ethics, facebook, news, public, school, enid, pic, picture, kofr, alva

Lessons Learned Following Oklahoma School Beating Amplified by Social Media originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 26, 2012.

Photos can be added to blog posts in different ways. In this post I’ll explain how to add a photo as a linked image on a free (and ad-free) KidBlog.org site.

To reduce the amount of time students spend (and possibly waste) searching for Internet images to use in a blog post or other digital project, it’s a good idea to have them find and identify their photos before class. These image links can be saved in student email, as comments to a blog post, in a Google Document, or in another way.

By creating a photo gallery of images using a free web service like Picasa or Posterous, a teacher can create a designed place / website for students to obtain their images for a project. Students can link to this photo gallery site from the teacher’s homepage, and/or a direct link to the photo gallery can be created on student desktops or a screen of the iPad / tablet device students use.

I recommend both teachers and students use the free Chrome web browser from Google for these steps. Chrome is the fastest web browser on both Windows and Macintosh computers, and also has helpful features (like a “copy URL” option when right clicking / control clicking images) which is very helpful for these steps.

STEP 1: Copy the Image URL

The first step is to find the image you want to insert into your blog post and copy the direct URL or link to the image. In Chrome, do this by right clicking (control-clicking on a Mac) and choosing COPY IMAGE URL.

STEP 2: Click Insert Image

Press enter or return to create a blank line where you want to insert the image. Then click the INSERT IMAGE button above the post format tools.

STEP 3: Paste the Image URL

Click in the field next to image URL and paste the full link address you copied in step 1. Click below it so KidBlog can “verify” the link works. If desired, choose an alignment option. Click INSERT INTO POST.

STEP 4: Publish

Add additional text as desired to your post, along with additional images. When finished, click PUBLISH.

It is a good idea to give attribution credit to the original source of the image you are linking by including a direct link to the source website at the bottom of your post. Image websites like Wylio create attribution links right below images using Creative Commons license terms. If you want to create a properly formatted image citation, consider using a free web tool like Bibme.org. At a minimum, include the direct link to the original website at the bottom of your post to give credit to the original source website. It is better from a copyright perspective to use this technique of direct linking / embedding images you use in blog posts rather than downloading and re-uploading a copy of an image to your original website. With the method described in this blog post, you are NOT making an actual copy of an image when including it in a blog post. Not all websites permit images to be embedded in this way. School librarian Joyce Valenza has a good list of copyright-friendly image sites to use.

Add Photo to KidBlog Post originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 25, 2012.

Audio podcast on “Fuel for Educational Change Agents

Apps and Clouds: An Introduction to Internet Resources originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 24, 2012.

Technology is changing fast and it’s easy to feel left behind! This session will provide an overview of some of the technology terms and concepts which are buzzwords in 2012. What do people mean when they talk about “cloud computing” or “saving it in the cloud?” What are the differences between apps for a smartphone or mobile device, and a laptop or desktop computer? How are eReaders like a Kindle or Nook different from a tablet computer like an iPad? This session will include lots of time for questions and answers. If you’re feeling unsure about where to start with professional development on technology topics, this will be a great session for you. Bring your questions, we’ll share the best answers we have and discuss them together.

I’m going to use a vocabulary bingo activity to get started, and ask participants to find someone in the room who can define each term. I’ve created the bingo card in as a Google Spreadsheet. (Feel free to borrow and modify this idea and document if desired.) Here’s a screenshot of my initial Bingo items. If needed I could make this a 5 x 5 bingo card instead of a 4 x 4. To win the Bingo prize, I’m thinking I’ll have the person call out the name of each individual who signed their card, and that person must correctly / accurately define the term for it to “count.” Do you have any suggestions for items to add, change or delete?

Technorati Tags: app, edtech, teaching, technology, bingo, cloud

Cloud App Bingo originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 23, 2012.

1. Online testing isn’t the reason to go 1 to 1
2. We need to SUPPORT and pay teachers in Oklahoma MORE
3. We need to embrace BALANCED ASSESSMENT in Oklahoma schools (including digital portfolios, and reject high stakes testing)
4. We must specifically address the challenges of POVERTY together

The video runs just over 30 minutes long.

The referenced video cautioning us to be mindful of “public education” and wary of the “gold rush” for online virtual charter schools is:

A Closer Look at Cyber Charter Schools: Ali Carr-Chellman @ TEDxPSU

The following posts by Wes from the digital learning summit are available:

• Opening Remarks by Janet Barresi: Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit
• Transitioning from Print to a Digital Learning Ecosystem by Richard Culatta
• Conversations about Quality Content in Online / Blended Learning Contexts: 19 April 2012
• Conversations about Quality Content in Online / Blended Learning Contexts: 20 April 2012
• Closing Session Recommendations & Learning Points: 2012 Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit
• Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit 2012: In Tweets

Wes’ archived Tweets from this event (tagged “#DLsummit2012″) are also available via his Tweet Nest-powered archive.

Technorati Tags: education, leadership, learning, oklahoma, DLsummit2012, digital, technology, policy, change, assessment, ccss, common, core

Opportunities and Obstacles for Digital Learning (April 2012) [VIDEO] originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 21, 2012.

Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit 2012: In Tweets originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 20, 2012.

Report from funding and infrastructure group (group 7)
- funding needs flexibility, incentives, sufficiency, and equity
- infrastructure: leveraging assets, equity, standardizing and scaling

federal dollars may be more restrictive in some cases from state dollars
- discussions about weighted funding: “should a student be worth as much money” regardless of context

High speed Internet access
- 2 years ago Oklahoma received substantial grant which is laying 1000 miles of new fiber

The idea of portable funding: funding following a kid
- this is hard to deal with if you are a district administrator
- calculations of dropouts, how funding follows a student, those are important considerations
- potential for students to lose enrollments

Digital Learning Now wants funding to be portable, ___ and ___ (didn’t get the other 3)

Personalized Learning (group 2)
- take CCSS seriously: provide deeper learning experiences to prepare students for college, career and citizen readiness
- support blended model
- use tech for foundational knowledge and skills
- use teacher facilitated learning for 21st century skills, application enrichment
- personalize F2F instruction using digital data to flexibly group, intervene
- incorporate authentic tasks and audiences, collaborative projects, access to external experts and mentors

online courses should include
- open response
- training for students on how to learn online
- NETS aligned
- incorporate teacher/tutor support

Elementary digital learning
- topical, differentiated
- support center-based pedagogy, small groups
- expand broadband network access

Ideas from Scott Parks, superintendent of Howe Public Schools:

Good to see the discussion focusing on blended learning
- purpose-driven learning
- projects that are locally focused: how to improve my school / community
- helping teachers see how we can intentionally engage in ways we wouldn’t normally use or give credit for in school
- using driving questions
- in a 10 week project with all high school students
- definitely about turning learning over to the students, having teachers facilitate
- our high school students are now meeting with our county commissioners, discussing concrete ideas to improve our community
- initially proposed funding was for $1000 for the winning group, it’s clear now that won’t be enough for some of the proposed student ideas, so students are out seeking other funding/revenue sources
- kids having an ability to fire team members, but having a process to go through, this was hugely beneficial for our students in terms of ‘real world’ group collaboration and accountability

MY COMMENT: SO GREAT TO HEAR SCOTT SHARE THESE ELEMENTS

Quality Content (group 4)
- do we purchase or produce content?
- how do we share it? how is it indexed and shared statewide?

Recommendation 1: Further examine flexibility

Recommendation 2: Creation of a high quality online content task force
- compressed of K12 educators, higher education, research community, technology experts and instructional designers (excluding vendors)
- to look at existing state models for online content evaluation
- develop a rubric for vetting and identifying high quality online content
- provide recommendations for online content based on compliance with the rubric
- provide continual evaluation of online content to accommodate changes in demographics, standard, and technology advancements

Tom V: choice is between a wild universe of unmanageable content vs vendor-provided, well organized systems
- if you go down the tablet road you better have a budget for apps

Recommendation 3: Explore opportunities for consumer review of online content
- forums available for educators to comment on online content produced
- rating system

Recommendation 4: Recommend expiring options for openly licensing non-commercial content
- some district folks expressed not being ready for this

Tom’s comments on Digital Learning Now:
- Effort to create 10 point roadmap for state policy
- mostly about what states should NOT do

Now Quality Instruction (group 5)

think of bigger picture about digital literacy
- teachers need to be skilled with all kinds of things they need to move forward

whatever instructor is teaching the course, the closer they are to the school the better
- in my case, it would be the tech center
- important for that teacher to be accountable for student performance on AP tests, EOI, etc
- just like teachers at schools

MY COMMENT: WHY SHOULD WE ASSUME THAT IN ALL CASES, INSTRUCTORS HAVE TO BE GEOGRAPHICALLY CLOSE? THIS COMMENT CAME FROM SOMEONE (NOT SURE HIS NAME) WORKING AT AN OKLAHOMA TECH CENTER. I KNOW THAT MIGHT SOUND GOOD FROM A JOB PRESERVATION STANDPOINT, BUT THAT’S NOT A RESEARCH-BASED RECOMMENDATION FROM WHAT I KNOW.

teacher preparation a big discussion point
- hope that universities will build digital literacy into their programs

Modeling best practices

Comments by Lisa Fraine on Florida Virtual School model
- year to year contracts for everyone
- all performance based
- no teacher union
- hiring lots of adjuncts now
- wouldn’t want to work in another environment, I like my peers being evaluated based on results

Group 1: Student Access
- consortia would allow students access to more offerings
- provide scheduling that allows teachers brick and mortar time as well as time for providing digital content, support, etc.
- providing students another method of obtaining content of interest

student access and barriers to access
- provides another method of delivery for students who need something other than bricks and mortar delivery
- provides students with background knowledge of digital delivery to prepare for college class that may be delivered digitally
- requires IT policies that provide for greater access
- district policies to enable students to use own devices
- policies of ‘what it takes’ for virtual learning for parent/child
- ability to ‘try it out’ without penalty
- (some parents and kids have ‘buyers remorse’)
- vendors can customize offerings for differentiation
- policy and screening important for students to access digital learning successfully
- technology hardware like computers, bandwidth, towers, etc necessary to provide equal access to all
- equity between large and small districts
- falling behind in brick and mortar class if unsuccessful in digital environment
- requirement for one digital course to graduate seems unfair to some special needs students
- digitally literate dos not mean taking an online course
- collaboration and close communication essential to special needs success
- some special needs students do better with online, less distraction and unwanted interaction with peers
- student knowledge of what it means to be a digital citizen
- district’s right to determine class size and ration
- district’s right to select platforms
- funding formula should follow the student

guided choices without creating barriers

Group 6: Quality Choices, our top ideas
- vetting of vendors is key, including the ‘amazon features (user ratings)
- use district experiences
- establish state virtual charter school for FULLTIME students
– but strong with oversight
– state is accountable
– could be course catalog

in Kansas: locally controlled, districts choose
- Michigan: state controlled, takes several years for selection
- in Maryland, no funding or staffing
- virginia has quick approval

Oklahoma NOW, our system in new rule for supplemental providers
1- state amasses list of providers with prices (for equity in pricing)
2- districts choose provider or providers they think are suitable
3- student who is not happy can apply for a transfer to another district if they want a different virtual provider

We looked at option of state offering a menu, students choose from that menu without gatekeeping at the district level
- that could allow more students to have more choice to a broader menu
- concerns over state system:
– having enough money for staff and work
– good vetting process

state should ensure number of provider options for students
- state should track multiple factors

need a website: how to make this information available to students and parents
- ref to Tom’s idea of “Yelp” like website (user ratings)

might need statewide task force to set up ne wstate-based authorization process for providers
- to define and really think through the vetting process and feedback loops
- more

might need a state run virtual charter school, not working through individual districts

Now group 3: How do we really ensure quality?
- what should accountability look like in this era of virtual learning and big data
- Advancement, Assessment and Accountability

Oklahoma was one of the 1st to do an online assessment
- geography in 7th grade
- mandated that every school do this test online, not an option
- was that a challenge, yes, but we did it!

How can we move change forward
- there are technical and practical issues, but also tech and pedagogical issues
- every district wants to do everything for kids, money and resources are key, how do we do that?!

MY COMMENT: I DON’T THINK IT’S ACCURATE TO SAY ALL DISTRICTS WANT TO DO IT ALL. MANY DISTRICTS DON’T WANT VIRTUAL OPTIONS FOR CLASSES NOW OFFERED/TAUGHT F2F. I’M NOT SAYING THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S JUST REALITY.

Test based promotion
- state law requires students to demonstrate competency on a standardized assessment to advance to the next grade
- is currently not met with the exception of 3rd grade (SB 346)
- group agreed this should be true for digital learning, unless committee is established to ‘clean up vendors and courses
- discussion on expanding on traditional courses…

SB 280 requires OSDE to address this issue that state law doesn’t require students to complete a defined amount of instructional time to get credit

Quality of schools
- under state law, data on student learning is used to evaluate the quality of schools
- achieved through A-F grading scale
-going through elements 58, 59, 60, 61

Senator Ford was quoted:
- school should determine what is ‘academically appropriate’ for individual students

Bottom line: we are moving to online high stakes assessment
- it is a challenge to test online at high school new

big challenges
- nature of assessments being robust for high stakes
- technology infrastructure
- purchasing co-op
- systems integration

Tom’s closing comments:
- we’re headed for an exciting few years
- we will soon have more data than we’ve ever had in many schools partnering with vendors
- this will create new problems, using new forms of data to give better feedback to teachers

Technorati Tags: digital, distributed, DLsummit2012, learning, oklahoma, politics

Closing Session Recommendations & Learning Points: 2012 Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 20, 2012.

Purchase or produce high quality digital content? Some see this as a dichotomy (I’d say we need to do both)

How do we marry research to practice in a very practical level

Info from Compass Learning slide deck:
- one third of fourth graders and one quarter of eight graders according to NAEP are functionally illiterate
- nearly one third of all students don’t earn a HS diploma
- last year 1.3 million US students failed to graduate from high school
- an average of 7200 statistic drop out of school
- $1 billion is spent yearly on college remediation
- Among top 30 industrialized countries, US high school students rank 21st in science and 25th in math

MY COMMENT: THIS IS A COMMON REFRAIN IN THESE DISCUSSIONS NOW, STATS MAKING THE POINT ‘OUR SCHOOLS SUCK’
- NO SOURCES CITED ON THE SLIDE WITH THESE STATISTICS, NO LINKS SHARED

Research by Sally Reis at Univ of CT examined fluency and comprehension in reading scores of 3391 students in five diverse elementary schools, including GT and talented magnet school
- ability range in grade 3: 9.2 grade levels
- ability range in grade 4: 11.3 grade levels
- ability range in grade 5: 11.6 grade levels

Managing and organizing for instruction becomes extraordinarily difficult without technology and its utility in helping meet these challenges

We have overhauled middle school math curriculum at least 3 times since I’ve been with Connections Academy

Important legal reading for all Oklahomans: Final adopted rules-Supplemental Online Course Procedures (PDF)

Senate Bill 6 in Texas addressed quality content issues

Silent Epidemic reference

Compass Learning (slide) suggests quality content should:
- pinpoint student skill gaps
- monitor student progress
- make instructional adjustments in real time
- provide rigorous / relevant / engaging curriculum that students want to use
- ensure scaffolded support and accelerated learning across a range of learners
- build knowledge and provide tools that help teachers ensure student success
- build teach/leader capacity through Professional Learning Communities

Virtual K-12 Learning Options Now in Oklahoma:
- Connections Academy (via Sperry Public Schools)
- Epic 1 to 1
- K.12 used to be white oak and Wynona, now a charter through Choctaw Nacoma Park
- e2020 different districts are contracting for them individuals
- Advanced Academics (but how do you enroll? not sure?)
- Apex Learning (another option – not sure who is offering or how you enroll?)
IF YOU KNOW OF MORE NOT ON THIS LIST, PLEASE SHARE THEM AS A COMMENT.

Do we need to change anything in policy to get to quality content

Epic 1 to 1 Charter got a ‘cease and desist’ notice from Oklahoma SDE for serving students in a church at one point?
- MY COMMENT: I’D LIKE TO READ AND OBTAIN MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS, THE HISTORY OF EPIC HAS DEFINITELY BEEN “COLORFUL” IN OUR STATE TO DATE.

History of changing state law language from ‘textbooks’ to ‘instructional materials’ in Texas is very important in this process
- anyone could submit materials to a ‘commissioners list’ of content
- in Texas once it was submitted, that digital content was locked down for 7 years
- now has 2 things: textbook list and instructional materials list

Last year with Senate Bill 6: School districts certify they have instructional materials in their district that meet state standards
- now there is almost no vetting for quality in Texas
- there are lists you can choose off off

Lots of discussion about autonomy of school districts now having complete autonomy to select “quality content” for virtual materials

Quality Matters is used by some colleges and universities for ongoing assessments during academic years

CEDA, Advanced Ed are accrediting bodies for quality…

MY THOUGHT: OUR LANDSCAPE CURRENTLY IN OKLAHOMA FOR VIRTUAL EDUCATION IS FAVORABLE IN SOME WAYS TO VENDORS. NOT FROM A FUNDING STANDPOINT, CERTAINLY, BECAUSE NO ADDITIONAL FUNDING IS PROVIDED CURRENTLY FOR ANY OF THIS. THIS IS ‘ON THE BACKS’ OF ALREADY FINANCIALLY STRAPPED SCHOOL DISTRICTS. WE NEED TO LOOK AT WHAT OTHER STATES HAVE DONE AND ARE DOING. MONTANA HAS RESTARTED 3 TIMES WITH VIRTUAL EDUCATION AND NOW HAS A FUNDED STATEWIDE ACADEMY WHICH HAS ENROLLMENTS THAT WORK THROUGH LOCAL DISTRICTS. JUST BECAUSE WE ARE LOOKING AT A VERY ‘WILD WEST’ AND DISORGANIZED MODEL TODAY FOR VIRTUAL EDUCATION OPTIONS IN OKLAHOMA, DOESN’T MEAN THIS NEEDS TO BE OUR ONLY FOCUS AND OPTION MOVING FORWARD. TO MY KNOWLEDGE, WE HAVE NOT HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE STAKEHOLDERS PUBLICLY DISCUSS THE BENEFIT / VIABILITY OF A STATEWIDE VIRTUAL SCHOOL. OUR ELECTED LEADERS HAVE HANDED US THIS “ROADMAP FOR DIGITAL LEARNING” AND IT’S GOOD WE’RE HAVING THIS FORUM FOR DISCUSSION. THE OPTIONS AND ELEMENTS LISTED HERE SHOULD NOT LIMIT THE POSSIBILITIES WE CONSIDER, HOWEVER. WE NEED TO ALSO LOOK BEYOND OUR CURRENT POLITICAL / FINANCIAL REALITIES.

Pennsylvania pays $9000 per child for virtual education, every kid gets a laptop

COMMENT FROM A PARTICIPANT I WON’T CALL OUT: People in Oklahoma are not ready for open sharing / open licensing of comment

MY THOUGHT ON THIS: BOY THIS IS A HUGE ISSUE AND IT’S A BUMMER WE ONLY HAD ABOUT 2 MINUTES OF DISCUSSION ABOUT THIS IN THIS GROUP. SOMETHING ELSE EXPRESSED BY A CURRICULUM DIRECTOR WAS THIS: WE HAVE TEACHERS WHO ARE MAKING A LOT OF VIDEOS AND PLAN TO MONETIZE THOSE AFTER THEY RETIRE BY SELLING THEM. WE SHOULDN’T TELL THAT TEACHER TO OPENLY LICENSE THEIR MATERIALS.

I THINK AMPLIFYING GREAT EXAMPLES OF OPEN LICENSING AND SHARING OF CONTENT IS AN EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THING WE NEED TO DO. I’D LOVE TO HEAR MORE PEOPLE ANSWER THE QUESTION I POSTED TODAY, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH SHARING AND OPEN LICENSING?” THE PUSH BACK ON THIS IN OUR SESSION WAS SURPRISING TO ME, BUT IT WAS ALSO GREAT… WHERE ELSE ARE WE HAVING THESE CONVERSATIONS WITH CURRENT K12 LEADERS ABOUT THE ISSUE OF OPEN SHARING.

WE HAVE (IN MY PERCEPTION) CURRICULUM DEPARTMENTS IN OUR STATE WHICH ARE LARGELY SILOED AND CLOSED. THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE. WE NEED, AS STATE AND LOCAL LEADERS, TO ADVOCATE FOR OPEN SHARING AND PUBLISHING OF CURRICULUM CONTENT AND MATERIALS. WE NEED TO ARTICULATE AND EXPLAIN THIS CASE. LOTS OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND CLASSROOM TEACHERS DON’T BUY THIS AND ARE FEARFUL. WE NEED TO CHANGE THE ‘NORM’ WHEN IT COMES TO DIGITAL SHARING. THE DEFAULT HAS BEEN PRIVATE. CERTAINLY I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT CONFIDENTIAL STUDENT INFORMATION, GRADES, ETC. I’M TALKING ABOUT DIGITAL CURRICULUM, DAILY LEARNING TASKS, ETC. SEE MY PRESENTATION “WE MUST SHARE” FOR MORE DETAILS. ALSO LOOK AT THE GREAT WAYS EDUCATORS IN YARMOUTH PS IN MAINE ARE OPENLY SHARING CURRICULUM / LEARNING TASKS FOR STUDENTS AS A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE.

Conversations about Quality Content in Online / Blended Learning Contexts: 20 April 2012 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 20, 2012.

Tulsa Technology Center has eSchool learning network
- elearning for grades 6-12
- 13 districts partnering together

e2020 is LMS for Broken Arrow
- no connection to student management system currently

Mizuni (used by Durant and Edmond to port student data)
- using a dashboard to look at student data

Texas is has a great model for digital content
- Texas virtual school model
- Texas Project Share

When Connections Academy launched our school in Sperry, we didn’t feel we were pushed to demonstrate the quality of our courses (by the state)

How do we setup a structure for selecting high quality content that is well aligned?
- districts can purchase any curriculum materials not purchased with textbook money

4 kinds of virtual students in Broken Arrow
1- credit recovery
2- homebound or discipline students, not attending all
3- first time credit: want entire virtual experience
4- credit advancement (college bound / enrichment)

MY COMMENT: THERE’S 1 MORE CATEGORY HERE THAN JASON NEIFFER DISCUSSED IN HIS EXCELLENT K12ONLINE11 PRESENTATION LAST YEAR: “BUILDING A UNIQUELY MONTANA PROGRAM: THE MONTANA DIGITAL ACADEMY”

supplemental is defined in current Oklahoma law: to “round out your curriculum”
- can be 1 online, 5 at school
- can also can be 5 online, 1 at school

MY COMMENT: I DEFINITELY WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE BILL / LAW REQUIREMENTS
- see “School Laws of Oklahoma: Subchapter 34. Supplemental Online Course Procedures” (PDF)

Some schools moving to a “Commissioners List” of approved curriculum materials
- have a litmus test for what content needs to be

The textbook has become very disaggregated
- components of the textbook
- environment now is much more granular

Comments from Quinton Romannose:

38 federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma
- some tribes have departments of education
- some tribes doing great with enhanced educational opportunities, some not

Only 1 person for Indian Education at the state level

Indian tribes are #1 employer in some Oklahoma counties

Comments from Dr. Berlin Fang
- for content to be shareable it has to be modular & granular, lessons need to be divided into learning events (Gagne)

3 terms that come to mind when we talk about digital content
- courses
- lessons
- learning objects

Needs to be time neutral

Need to think about how to make content fluid
- sometimes a professor creators a video in Windows Media
- format needs accommodate multiple devices

How do we enable kids to interact with content
- not just a replication of your page-based / paper-based data

From Connections Academy
- want to look at growth models and students improving

Example of E-Course Evalution Rubric from Oklahoam Christian University
- based on Sloan-C

If digital learning can’t do adaptive learning, there is a ceiling on it [on its potential]

We should form a buying consortium in Oklahoma, we can have so much more power

“those kids will be ours to test”

We need to be on a “search and rescue” mission instead of a “search and recover” mission in education

Need to evaluate and review very important
- need for a rubric
- definitions

Texas endorses iNACOL standards
- must or should statements in legislation are important

Phase 1 is a build or buy model

Phase 2 Sharing
- repository

Accessibility is important to remember

“the course is the new textbook”
- cogent aggregation of content
- rubric looks at how it is constructed
- efficacy comes at the course level

Total Cost of Ownership important

content metadata taxonomy

this is the opportunity to say you have to build this in: meta data, hooks to create data warehouses

Goal for this group: What should the Oklahoma SDE do to ensure quality digital educational content
- what should they recommend?
- what should the Oklahoma SDE not to which might impede high quality digital content

Technorati Tags: digital, learning, oklahoma, DLsummit2012

Conversations about Quality Content in Online / Blended Learning Contexts: 19 April 2012 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 20, 2012.

Mr. Richard Culatta, Office of Ed Tech United State Department of Education

My work focuses on learning analytics

- served as education policy advisor

- chief technology officer at CIA University

- extended training opportunities to CIA officers worldwide

- was a learning technologies advisor at BYU, also worked with Rose Education Foundation

- certified Spanish teacher

Richard’s website: www.innovativelearning.com

Twitter accounts for Richard:

- @rec54

- @OfficeOfEdTedch

I want to share some challenges and things that keep me up at night as we make this transition from print to digital

President Obama: “Education is both a moral obligation and an economic imperative. We are in the fight for the future – a fight that depends on education.”

In recent debates education has rarely been mentioned

I am not a gloom and doom guy looking at where education is going

I want to ‘level set’ where we are today

Now showing graph of Olympic rankings and gold medals earned

- let’s compare this to PISA rankings

- US falls much lower

Michael Moe quotation: If the US performed as low in the Olympics as they do in education, heads would roll

Now showing College entrance rankings: just getting to college

- I know you understand the need for changes

- understand this is why we have smart legislation passing in this state

- this is a national security issue

- I spent some time working in the intelligence community and I understand why we need to move ahead

(Photo of classroom with desks in rows – THE PHOTO BELOW ISN’T THE SAME ONE RICHARD SHARED, BUT IT’S SIMILAR)

Something is wrong here

Tony Driscoll (?) was visiting Colonial Williamsburg

- story about child saying, “that’s a classroom” (he recognized it hadn’t changed to today)

I have a friend who researched ‘the history of the classroom’

- started in 18th century Prussia

- one of several state institutions along with prisons and mental hospitals developed to capture and construct bodies in order to render them as docile subjects

- their purpose was as much disciplinary as educational, developed to bring people under social control

we don’t have classrooms because we wanted them or because they are particularly conducive to learning

- we are shooting for much better

Drawbacks of traditional classroom:

- treats all learners the same

- disadvantages learners geographically (by zip code)

Digital learning affords opportunities to connect with experts

- provides tools for creation

Contrived problems drive me bonkers

- there are so many REAL problems in our country that need to be solved, we don’t need to make up learning

- helps learning go beyond walls of the classroom

- adapts and adjusts to needs of learners

Learning is fun

- what is happening in the classroom may not be fun

My boss, Arne Duncan, and FCC head are saying we need to transition to digital learning in the next 5 years

A ‘nester’ says read all this text and go to the next screen

- I am very worried if we do this: digitizing bad pedagogical models

Worst thing in edtech is the invention of the ‘next’ button

- this isn’t the type of digital learning we’re talking about

- I am focused on going where we need to go

Games are powerful because assessment and learning are indistinguishable

Recommended reading: National Education Technology Plan: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology

- read at least the executive summary

- 2010

Trends I see:

- increased mobility: 24/7 access

- improved access to digital content

- social interactions for learning

- Big Data: the ability to collect LOTS of data (not just a few test scores, hundreds of thousands of data points)

recent discussion with programmer: we collect tens of thousands of data points

- we can tell how long a person ‘hovered

this is not about grading schools, this is about how we can use data to inform learning

We just released another report on learning analytics I’ll share with you

Transition considerations

- this is NOT replacing the classroom

Recent superintendent citing problems with the classroom: Our needs to LEVEL them

- if you can find the money for that to build new schools, go for it– most people can’t

Digital learning environments can be very effective in current educational structures

- question is: how can we ‘swap out’ digital learning environments in existing structures

1st: is online learning supported?

- allow/require, have full time options

- thanks to your new legislation and smart thinking, ‘you’re there’ now in Oklahoma

Digital Report Card from DigitalLearningNow

- for all the states

- how states are doing in preparation for online learning support

- much more than just identifying vendors to provide services

- Oklahoma does very well on that report card, btw

- more than just that number

- how can you make these changes work for your learners

This applies in and outside of the classroom

2nd: Can digital materials be purchased with textbook funds

- this is again a good news item for Oklahoma

MY COMMENT: I HOPE SO BUT I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION WE ARE STILL LIMITED TO SOME PRINT MATERIALS FOR SOME TEXTBOOK CONTENT AREAS?

Policymakers in approximately a third of the states have changed the definition of “textbooks” to include digital content

3- Is there a strategy to put a device in the hand of every learner

- examples: State of Maine, 1 to 1

- Utah: example of a strategy, they are now 1 to 1 yet, they are adopting open source textbooks for a number of grades, taking those funds to buy devices for kids

– that’s a smart way to think about obtaining devices

– bad idea: remove textbook funds and let this disappears

- Mooresville, North Carolina

– done a great job to get every learner a device they can take home

– did that by looking at print materials they no longer needed to purchase

- they spend $1.85 per student per day, to provide laptops for all students each day

4- Broadband access available in and out of school

- we are working on several programs at the national level

- ARRA provided funding for broadband connectivity around the country

We have 98% broadband connectivity in our schools now

- that’s great

- we have to make sure once we get in the school and USE it

- educationsuperhighway.org is an example of helping districts be efficient setting up their networks

Connect 2 Compete: making sure parents in homes have access to broadband connectivity

- led by FCC

- cable Internet providers stepping up providing $10 per month to families qualifying for free lunch

5- Is digital content being shared with other states

- is digital content from other states being taken advantage of here?

example: The Learning Registry

- a tool that helps connect digital content from different states

- Brokers of Expertise: California state portal with content for teachers

- lots of content being put in there

Florida is doing the same thing

- in some cases aligning the SAME content

- this isn’t a good use of time or money

Learning Registry connects those portals to each other

- if 20 states make 50 alignments, then each state has 50 alignments, they can each have access to 1000 resources

- we have a mix of tech and curriculum leaders here

- there is not a website or front end

- we don’t think we need another portal

- we believe teachers should be able to use any portal they want

- we want to make sure metadata is connected

- here’s how we know this is a success: No one need to know that content is coming from other states / different places

How are you taking advantage of sharing content, not just going through process of aligning it yourself

6- Do procurement processes in your district enable the adoption of new technologies?

- I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs

- I ask why we don’t see your apps in education, response is often the approval process

How do we make it easier to get the technology in the door?

- to involve the vendors and developers?

- how can they be partnered with teachers

DigitalPromise.org

- leads the League of Innovative Schools

- works on improving procurement processes

- there are NOT any Oklahoma districts yet participating (take this as a challenge!)

How do we make it easier to get the new tools in the building?

7- Is progress based on competency instead of seat-time requirements?

Story of students looking up on board to see their lesson they were focusing on

- quiz at the end of the day, 3 questions

- those results went into a system that generated the student’s schedule for the next day

MY COMMENT: I’M THINKING THIS IS ‘THE SCHOOL OF ONE‘ IN WASHINGTON DC

so a competency map can be used to do this

- not based on how long you sat in a seat

Mozilla Open Badges project

- lots of people learning lots of stuff

- it’s hard for people to show what they’ve learned

No one ever asks what courses I took in college

- so I figure out ways to tell people what I know

- wouldn’t it be great to point people to a place that shows my competencies

- anyone who wants to can issue badges for competencies

8- Does each student have a customized learning plan

Example: Khan Academy

One of the biggest challenges of curriculum is it’s often out of context

- games can provide helpful context

Example of honeycomb map created in North Carolina, showing path where learners need to go

- excellent to give students agency to determine their learning path

I AM WONDERING WHAT THIS IS?

9- Can parents and students access their performance data

- I’ve worked a long time to try and make data available

- lots of debates about privacy

- I realized I have the right to see my child’s data, so I asked my school for it

- they eventually gave me a printed page of information

- real challenge is: How do we make data available to parents and students in useful ways

- easy way: Saying we’ll let you download it

Last example: MyData Download

- I lead this initiative at the US DOE

- whoever holds student data, will you make that data available to parents and students?

- we’re not changing access, we’re letting you do it in a format this portable and useful

- another site or service may let you upload that data, and tell you things like “your son sucks at math and should watch more Khan Academy videos”

- democratizing data is an extremely important element to transitioning to a digital learning environment

Thinking about how data about student performance is available in a useable format is important

- PDF doesn’t count

- needs to be machine readable

Now this is not a consideration, this is a MUST

- lots of support for teachers

- Empowering Digital Transition

http://assess4ed.net

League of Innovative Teachers

- group we are designing gnow

http://connectededucators.org is a website we support with forums for teachers to discuss digital transition

Help teachers ‘plug in” to each other is vital and important

Questions from the audience:

How are you working with higher education to do this

- helping others look at learning analytics

Education Innovation Classes

- we’re starting these now

- to partner entrepreneurs, educational researchers and educators

MY QUESTION: WHAT EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES DO YOU RECOMMEND TO ADDRESS CONTENT FILTERING ISSUES IN OUR OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS?

- important to help IT people understand

- best IT situation: no users

- keep all the users off, the network is perfect

- it takes leadership: good strategy is to ask the IT side in those decisions about curriculum

- PLC / professional learning communities

- how often are IT folks brought into those meetings

- make sure they are brought into some of them, make sure they are coming up with some of those solutions

Pose a problem: I need to help our students safely share their work online with others

- can be helpful to ask IT to help solve specific problems instead of asking to unblock specific websites

Challenge is: Don’t have good way to measure what people are doing with devices

- I’m really concerned about online learning with no instructor involved

- run away from those vendors

- when self-paced = alone with a computer that scares me [for online learning]

What states are leading the way using the Internet to inform parents?

- I’m not saying take down current portals, I’m saying connecting portals to each other is vital

We want teachers to have options in accessing content from different places / portals

Question: Need to bridge the gap between higher ed and common ed – what goal or plan do we have we can ‘force feed’ or “provide purpose and direction” to bridge this?

- aligning to Common Core Standards is a good thing, college and career-ready standards

- this helps to make innovations easier to implement

- in pre-CCSS days, vendors had to build separate apps for each state

- now entrepreneurs are finally seeing ‘it’s worth it’ for us to develop educational apps [BECAUSE SO MANY MORE STATES ARE FOCUSED ON THE SAME STANDARDS]

Think about how we can make the line between where high school ends and college begins ‘fuzzier?’

Digital learning can reduce remediation needs in higher education

We need to reduce college costs by making universities more efficient

2 Closing Thoughts:

1- Heard of #pencilchat on Twitter

– great technique of swapping out the device or technology for something like a ‘pencil’ it can help us see our way out of the weeds

2- This is not easy to do but it is SO important

MY COMMENTS: 2 QUESTIONS I STILL WOULD LIKE TO POST TO RICHARD

1- WILL THE US DOE EMBRACE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING FOR CURRICULUM MATERIALS SO OPEN CONTENT SHARING CAN BECOME MORE CONSTRUCTIVELY DISRUPTIVE?

2- HOW DO YOU THINK HIGH STAKES TESTING AND THE SIGNIFICANT FOCUS WE CURRENTLY HAVE ON HIGH STAKES TESTING WE CURRENTLY HAVE IN K-12 SCHOOLS SHOULD CHANGE IN THIS NEW ERA OF DIGITAL LEARNING?

Closing story from Damon Gardenshire: My daughter brought her B in math up to an A after using Khan Academy, was it the reason? Not sure but it probably helped. Everyone should know about Khan videos and provide the option for students to use them

More resources for today’s comments by Richard Culatta are on:

- www.ed.gov/edblogs/technology/

MY CLOSING COMMENTS: GOOD IDEAS FROM RICHARD, SOME REALLY GREAT RESOURCES REFERENCED. I’M PARTICULARLY ENTHUSED ABOUT LEARNING REGISTRY AND THE EFFORTS TO CROSS-LINK LESSON CONTENT VIA META INFO. I ASKED RICHARD ABOUT REQUIRING CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING FOR PUBLICLY FUNDED / GRANT-CREATED CONTENT, AND HE SAID THE LATEST U.S. DOE COMMUNITY COLLEGE GRANT DOES REQUIRE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING. I HOPE WE’LL SEE OUR STATE DOE EMBRACE THIS SAME MODEL! SEE MY POST FROM OCTOBER 2005, “CREATING SUSTAINABLE E-LEARNING INFRASTRUCTURES” AT THE 2005 ELEARNING CONFERENCE IN VANCOUVER, CANADA. IN THAT PRESENTATION, DAVID PORTER DESCRIBED HOW PUBLIC EDUCATION GRANT FUNDS IN CANADA WERE/ARE BEING USED TO REQUIRE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING OF FUNDED CURRICULUM.

Technorati Tags: digital, learning, oklahoma, reform, school, summit, technology, distributed, khan

Transitioning from Print to a Digital Learning Ecosystem by Richard Culatta originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 19, 2012.

This event is about Oklahoma’s solutions and Oklahoma’s innovations
- what we are getting right
- how we can replicate our own stories of success across the state

I want to recognize the excellence already being demonstrated in our state first
- Howe PS: Kindergarteners blogging, and HS seniors engaged in PBL
- Clinton OK: Innovative book reports on iPads
– all classrooms: students completely engaged
– no one looking bored in those classrooms!
- Groves school: visited with young man you’ll meet tomorrow
– learned to make Shakespeare engaging with a CAD device

Challenges in our state
- Hayward Schools on Friday: Supt talking about things he had to do for students to take online tests (going the extra mile)

Important we have a framework as we discuss digital learning

Concept of Anywhere, Anytime learning
- want to demonstrate SDE’s commitment to this idea
- I’m unveiling the Oklahoma SDE’s iTunesU Portal officially today
- another innovative step forward to leverage digital media and take advantage of a free platform
- can access an entire semester of content and download it to your device
- diverse content
- we now have an official presence in iTunesU: REAC3H network, official superintendent’s video messages

New developments in technology happening at blinding speed
- CNET: Mobile Apps Reshape Toys and Learning

Having just returned from PARCC Board meeting, talking about ‘delivering state assessments in a gaming environment’
- exciting

Playful learning with technology using apps

Recent articles:
- WSJ MarketWatch: UC Berkeley Launches Online Health Degree
- FairFax High School Considers Going Virtual

When I can carry a small library on a small device that costs about a $100 and runs all day on a single charge, you know a fundamental paradigm shift has occurred
- it is time for these changes to move into the classroom gracefully and assuredly

Learning should expand beyond the traditional classroom
- I am very encouraged by many Oklahoma districts

We are seeing Fast Company’s “Great Tech War of 2012″ played out in our communities
- Amazon in a price war with competitors like B&N
- B&N launched new Nook device last week
- New Kindle rumored to be coming
- Facebook going public
- Apple launched iBooks Author

Consumers of these are becoming active participants, learning how to winnow down and use tech for our benefit
- this is good news for you and me

This means disruptive tech is going exponential
- what used to take years now takes months
- my 1st gen iPad is now considered ‘old news’ and it’s just 2 years old

Those beginning to teach in schools now went to kindergarten in 1994 just when the Internet was arriving
- new teachers have not known a time when the Internet didn’t exist

You’ve all been provided with Tom Vander Ark’s book, “Getting Smart”
- now anyone can learn anything for free, or cheap
- “our calcified system of learning is being enveloped by free
- “…rendering the old system obsolete….”

We are arrived at an ‘inflection point’ (to quote Sal Khan)
- we must make sure these exciting changes don’t pass Oklahoma by

We are embarking on a journey to that future together

Introducing now Richard Culatta, our luncheon keynote speaker…

MY COMMENTS: HOW WONDERFUL TO HEAR SUPERINTENDENT BARRESI PRAISE SOME OF OUR INNOVATIVE OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS! LET THERE BE NO DOUBT, THE INNOVATIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SCHEDULE CHANGES WHICH HOWE PUBLIC SCHOOLS HAS IMPLEMENTED TO SUPPORT PROJECT BASED LEARNING IS EXEMPLARY! SO GLAD TO HEAR OUR SUPERINTENDENT EXTOLLING INNOVATIVE OKLAHOMA EDUCATORS AND SCHOOLS! WE DO HAVE MANY, AND WE NEED TO PUBLICLY AMPLIFY AND SHARE THESE SUCCESS STORIES EVEN MORE.

Technorati Tags: digital, edtech, leadership, oklahoma, online, technology, policy

Opening Remarks by Janet Barresi: Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 19, 2012.

Last week at the Mobile Learning 2012 Conference in Arizona, I was thrilled to attend three different breakout sessions led by Chris Thompson. (See here and here for details.) Chris taught #mobile2012 attendees the basics of creating iOS games using the free, Mac-only software program GameSalad.

This evening Rachel and I had a few hours at home together, so we brainstormed, diagrammed, and outlined specific details of “Bark Buddy.” Building on my #mobile2012 experiences with GameSalad, we made a list of characters (actors) she wants to include in the game along with a list of sounds. We recorded the seven different sounds using the free version of RecordPad (the same app we used for her first enhanced eBook a few months ago) and Rachel started drawing her characters using Brushes for iPad. After diagramming and outlining our ideas with pencil and paper, Rachel recorded an almost five minute AudioBoo reflection talking about her plans and ideas for “Bark Buddy.”

I’m not holding my breath that our first game app together is going to be a blockbuster, but I know we’re going to have a lot fun making this and will learn a bunch!

Here are the seven sounds we recorded for the game tonight, edited together in a single file. I combined these with Audacity (free) and normalized the audio with Levelator software (free) before uploading to AudioBoo.

I used this CC licensed image and a few iPhoneography filters to create a 480 x 320 background image for the game. Tomorrow we’ll hopefully be able to continue making graphics and start the actual game development together in GameSalad. Like Scratch, it’s awesome how a project like this immediately leads to mathematical conversations and concept discussion. We have two different variables which the game will track: “Bark Energy” and “Attention” points. Rachel was asking tonight how many points I thought a “bronze treat” should be worth that Buddy (the main game character) will find, and how many points there should be for each level.

Mathematical thinking and problem solving in the context of gameplay and game creation. I’m thinking Seymour would approve!

Technorati Tags: apple, creativity, family, ios, ipad, iphone, ipod, mobile, game, gamesalad, development, fun

Bark Buddy iOS Game Development Begins with GameSalad originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 18, 2012.

To successfully help students create different kinds of media products which represent their knowledge and skills in various content areas, teachers need to build a strong “virtual foundation” for digital learning inside and outside the classroom. The cornerstone of this digital foundation can be a moderated and interactive classroom blog. Another important corner is a “classroom photo sandbox.” This is a digital space where teachers and/or students can upload and access photos publicly. Instead of searching the Internet for photos when working on a media project, students can visit the teacher’s classroom photo sandbox to save and use relevant images. Instead of individually labeling and organizing images, teachers can upload ALL the classroom photos from a digital camera (as long as everything is appropriate, of course) and make these images available for students to use. In advance, students and their parents should sign required permission forms to post student photos and work. (An example is available.) In this post I’ll share the steps to create and utilize a free classroom photo sandbox using Google’s free service, Picasa.

If your school already uses Google Apps for Education and Picasa is not available on your custom portal, ask your network administrator to turn it on so it’s available. While there are many other photo sharing websites and services available, Picasa’s availability inside “the Google Apps universe” makes it an ideal platform to serve as a photo sandbox for many classrooms and school districts. Site content can be managed using existing Google Apps userids and passwords, which is a big plus from the IT standpoint.

There are two ways to use and interface with Picasa: Via a free, downloadable software application (available for Windows and Macintosh computers) and via the site’s web interface. Both methods have advantages. If you can, I recommend downloading and installing the free Picasa software program on your laptop or desktop computer since it permits image resizing before uploading. This can increase the number of images you can upload to your site and make available to students, since each Picasa account has a limited “quota” of free web space. Although the screenshots below are for a Windows-based computer, these steps are the same on an Apple computer. (Picasa software was updated on February 23, 2012 and includes several new features.)

While Picasa should work fine in any web browser, I recommend downloading, installing and using Google Chrome (free) for this and other browser-based activities. Chrome is the fastest web browser (as of this writing) on Windows or Apple / Macintosh computers.

STEP 1: DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL

Visit picasa.google.com and download Picasa software. After the download finishes, open the installer program and click to agree to terms / install the program. When it launches for the first time, Picasa will search through your computer and find available images. These should be organized by year and date in the left sidebar, if date information is saved with the photos from the digital camera used to take them.

STEP 2: IMPORT PICTURES FROM YOUR CAMERA

Plug the USB cable for your digital camera into your computer and camera. Turn on the power for your digital camera. Click the IMPORT button in the upper left corner of the Picasa screen.

STEP 3 CREATE A PUBLIC WEB ALBUM

Click on a photo you’d like to share in a public web album. Hold down the CONTROL key (on Windows computers) and click on additional photos you’d like to upload/share. Then click the SHARE button.

Log into Picasa with your Google userid and password when prompted. All settings for the web album can be left at their defaults except two things:

1. Click the NEW button at the top to create a new web album for your photos, and assign an appropriate name.
2. Click to change the visibility of your web album. Make it PUBLIC so students and others will be able to view it and use the photos.

Click UPLOAD to transfer your photos into your new web album.

STEP 4 ACCESS YOUR PHOTO ALBUM ONLINE

To view the photo album you just uploaded, click VIEW ONLINE after your upload completes.

If this button doesn’t work, click the arrow beside the word SHARE at the top of the album and choose to COPY the URL / web link to your public album. Then paste this address into your web browser.

Note the default setting for sharing LOCATION information about your uploaded photos is PRIVATE. Unless you click the checkbox on the right sidebar of Picasa, when viewing an album, your photo location information will NOT be shared publicly even when you have an album’s privacy setting on PUBLIC.

The easiest way to permit students to access your public web albums is to LINK your main gallery homepage from another website, like your class blog or wiki. Find this link by clicking PHOTOS in the upper right corner of the screen when viewing an album or individual image in Picasa.

If you have or create a “classroom photo sandbox” website using Picasa or another photo sharing tool, please contribute it to the Student Media Examples website. The Western Academy of Beijing’s Photo Sharing site (photos.wab.edu) is a great example of a school-wide photo gallery website. More details about it are available.

Technorati Tags: blog, edtech, education, google, learning, photo, photos, playingwithmedia, post, school, share, storytelling, picasa, image, camera

Create a Free Classroom Photo Sandbox with Picasa #gct originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 16, 2012.

Today my students created a narrated slideshow using the “Explain Everything” iPad app, and I brought an Apple Express access point to use for iPad2 mirroring. Even though the access point was NOT connected to the Internet, that didn’t matter for our task today. We didn’t need Internet access to record audio with the pictures students drew last week, using an iRig microphone. This configuration worked MUCH better to mirror the iPad screen! I’m thinking I’ll continue to use this setup for mirroring unless something changes on our local network.

If you opt to use the Reflection App, I’ve found results are mixed when you connect to a cellular “hot spot” like a MiFi card. Results can be better when a laptop is “hard-wired” with an ethernet connection for an Internet connection, and then the laptop creates an “ad-hoc” network to which you can connect with your iPad. ReflectionApp can work with either configuration, but my tests to date suggest the Apple Ad-hoc network is more stable. Some organizational wifi networks are configured to block ports used by ReflectionApp, so it’s good to have an alternate connection option.

I think the best scenario for this, whether in a classroom or a conference presentation room, is to connect a separate Airport Express access point to a wired ethernet connection and enable a security password. Then connect to this “private” wifi network using both your Apple TV and iPad2 or iPad3, and/or your laptop running the Reflection App. Local policies and network configurations may not permit this, but it’s worth investigating particularly if your wifi network is busy/congested like ours today and this interferes with the refresh rate / latency of your “mirrored” iPad screen.

Have you had positive or negative experiences with iPad mirroring over wifi? What are your recommendations or lessons learned?

Technorati Tags: appletv, ipad, wifi

Separate Wifi Access Point Works Best with Apple TV on Busy Network originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 15, 2012.

First the pricing. Delta uses GoGo Wireless, and currently the least expensive option is $10 for wifi access during a flight. Since this is almost a two hour flight it seemed like it might be worth it, but I certainly will be more likely to use in-flight wifi services if they are priced more in the $5 range.

I am wondering how many people have sprung for the “all year” option?

In addition to having full access to the paid version of The Wall Street Journal, Delta flights currently offer full access to Amazon.com websites. This adds a new dimension to the “SkyMall” shopping in flight experience, if desired. The AUP also indicates traffic is managed so high bandwidth applications may not work.

I was able to successfully download two apps in flight on my iPad, but it was pretty slow going. One of the apps was “Speed Test,” and my results are below. Reasonable download speed for checking email and reading news, but not enough upstream capacity for anything like Skype or FaceTime.

I was able to check my Skype VoiceMails and use FlipBoard to read news. I’m blogging this with the free WordPress for iOS app, and my screenshot images are uploading reasonably fast as I insert them into the post.

Yet again, “normal” gets redefined. Wifi available in-flight, as it is in our family car on cross-country vacation trips (and even around town) thanks to my cellular mobile hotspot. The ubiquity of Internet access continues to advance, for those on the “connected side” of the digital divide.

Blogging from 37,000 feet with Delta Airlines originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 14, 2012.

1. Mobile 2012 “Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing” Media Scavenger Hunt (mobile website)
2. Mobile 2012 “Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing” Media Scavenger Hunt (ePUB eBook)
3. Mobile 2012 “Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing” Media Scavenger Hunt (Kindle MOBI eBook)
4. Mobile 2012 “Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing” Media Scavenger Hunt (PDF)
5. Posterous site where participant media products were shared: edusandbox.posterous.com
6. Mobile Learning 2012 website: mobile2012.org
7. Official Posterous site of Mobile 2012 (A group blog where different participants shared notes and reflections)
8. Arizona K12 Center
9. Learning in Hand by Tony Vincent
10. Audio Tools on PlayingWithMedia.com
11. eBook: Playing with Media – simple ideas for powerful sharing
12. Recent #mobile2012 tweets
13. All #mobile2012 tweets by Wesley Fryer

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

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

Podcast391: Voices from Mobile Learning 2012 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 14, 2012.

Last of all, my favorite "pano" pic from last night's dinner!

Check out Pano for iPhone on:

http://debaclesoftware.com

Posted via email from wesley fryer’s posterous

Photos from #mobile2012 in Phoenix, Arizona originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 13, 2012.

“Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs have both gone on record to agree that computers, and technology in general, have had surprisingly little impact on schools so far. Much less, for example, than in parts of our society such as media, medicine, retail, communications and law. Our global population of 7 billion people boasts over 6 million mobile connections. By 2020 the number of mobile connections is set to rise to somewhere between 25-50 billion depending on which forecasts you believe. So there really isn’t a question mark over the value, penetration or ef?cacy of mobile devices in a learning context. After all those children and learners who have access to a connected mobile device are almost certainly using their device already for learning related activities even if they don’t know it. Today, in the UK alone, 50% of children age 8-12 own an Internet capable smart phone. Yet the majority of these learners are prohibited from bringing these powerful tools for learning to school. So what is happening here? Why are our schools and universities the last hold out from the digital and mobile revolution?

He is passionate about education and the human condition, and hosts a fantastic conference in London: “Learning Without Frontiers”
- he likes to push your buttons and make you think

Showed a video he made recently for a movie he’s making with Noam Chomsky

Why has technology not transformed education?
- it probably won’t
- not much change in terms of

I’m outside the system
- expelled at 14 for entrepreneurial activities with organic chemistry from public schools
- I’ve managed to find my way in life by starting conversations, sometimes they become arguments
- I’ve built “Learning Without Frontiers” on this basis: people passionately interested in the discourse about transformation and reform

- a movement leading the discourse about transformation and reform in education
- you need other voices in that dialog for transformation

transformation is a funny word
- we don’t really ‘get it’
- lots of policymakers use this word
- what’s behind the curtain? You can’t predict disruption that well

We generally fear transformation, so we often confuse this

Interactive whiteboards are a good example of educational technologies which are complete crap

Education will not change until we recognize and challenge its center al role as a superstructure supporting the economic foundation of society
- this makes us squeamish
- let’s play with this…

There are lots of graphs out there that show I’m right…
- Ray Kurzweil, “Mass Use of Inventions”
- in reality now esp with net/connected society we are experiencing exponential change, not just linear change
- documenting this is part of what I’m doing here

superstructures: how society works
- over the centuries and thousands of years, how do we get to the civilization we have here

superstructures legitimize, support and reinforce societies’ economic foundation
- politics, religion, mass media, family, education

citing Italian philosopher Ramsky (?)

The base shapes the superstructure
- relations of production
- means of production

superstrucutre
- education
- family
religion
- politics
- mass media

This is rooted in Marxist thoughts

This is not pro or anti-capitalist
- let’s look at the collapse of the banking system / banking crisis
- what happened: political and judicial forces / elements of the superstructure rapidly moved to support the SQ
- laws were changed, austerity measures implemented
- British police equipped with plastic bullets to shoot at students for the first time ever
- lots of people are protesting: this is a broad movement

The logical conclusion of the industrial revolution means you make money by moving things around: commodities
- this isn’t sustainable
- bankers taking home huge bonuses while we are still teaching kids in prefab buildings

Economic and technological determinism
- revolution time again?

The windmill
- society with feudal lord
- agricultural
- limited manufacturing
- restricted education

Steam Engine (1750)
- society with industrial capitalist
- industrial revolution
- industrial scale education systems

The Digital World
- who are the new masters?
- what is our technology determining now?
- What is the foundation for education?

What we didn’t know in the industrial revolution was about effect of putting CO2 into atmosphere
- also population growth

The industrial revolution is running out of steam, we are entering a new phase: The Digital Age / The Information Age
- more connected society

Our world dominated by Google, Facebook, Apple, and Pearson have huge influence
- Google essentially organizes all our information
- it’s an algorithm: SEO determines where things ‘sit,’ but that affects what we think– this is a big deal / powerful role

Facebook

Apple has more money than the U.S. Treasury

Pearson: owns the assessment system
- they own the testing AND
- they own all the content you need to learn to pass the assessments
- what a business model that is!
- “It’s pure gangster”

You heard the term ‘old money”

napsterfication – redux
- where is the disruption?

People + Technology break cartels
- how would the cartel of education be broken (who is the customer for education? the pupil? the state?)

Khan Academy, OER, TedED
- I think these are just illusions
- I am not thinking the future of education is start/stop videos
- stay at home to learn / go to school to play is marketing
- I don’t think this is the future of education

What would these look like if it was genuinely disruptive
- attacking the way we test: the assessment paradigm?
- we’re not seeing that, however

Mobile learning is not Khan Academy on an iPad
- we need to do something far better than that
- what if we asses students based on what they can do?

Kurzweil: By 2013 computers will be sentient
- will we allow that to transform education?

Einstein: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a the it will live its whole life thinking it’s stupid.”

Why is this important?
- bigger challenges than we have ever faced

MY COMMENT: REMINDS ME OF THIS VIDEO SHARED BY JENNY ASHBY

Trailer: We are the people we’ve been waiting for

Climate change is a sideshow compared to some other things
- value of the dollar/pound to natural resources
- how do we get through these challenges of resource shortages

Our global economic footprint is horrific
- we are overshooting massively
- graphs of fueling population growth: oil, coal, biomass..

Robert Reich: “Growth is really about the capacity of a nation to produce everything that’s wanted by its inhabitants. That includes better stewardship of the environment as well as improved public health and schools.”

We need a system change

The purpose of education: enlightenment or indoctrination?

- do you train for passing tests or educate for creative inquiry

“Be obedient, don’t ask too many questions, don’t cause a crisis of democracy” – Noam Chomsky

John Dewey nailed this in his writings about young people following their own path of learning (in contrast to ‘you were born in Detroit, so you’re headed for the factory)

My point is our problems are bigger than we’ve ever had before
- we need to enable our young people to reconstruct our superstructures in ways that may scare us
- extinction may be on the line

Is the purpose of education to support economic growth
- “Countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us today” – Obama
- “Higher education in this country can’t be a luxury it is an economic imperative” – Obama
– interesting comment when you look at the cost of higher education now

DAvid Cameron
- “So for the future of our economy, and our society, we need a first class education for every child”
- he worked in PR before becoming Prime Minister
- we are dismantling our educational system in the UK now
- biggest transfer of education in the UK right now, not providing education for the poor
- this is BS

education automation potential is huge
- when politicians start getting interested in education like this, I get worried
- education is a new football
- what they mean is: How can we reduce the costs of education

In business, how do we reduce costs
- look at fast food like McDonalds
- based around mediocre and standardization
- could we abuse the art of teaching to the point where we turn our teachers into factory workers?
- I think this could happen: online learning (show a video, give students some questions)
- I tweeted recently cynically: why don’t we just make an app to help kids pass tests

we have to be very careful about how we use technology with education
- it can be abused for only certain groups to get education
- just give the poor some computers, some rooms, and

Sculleyfication: where the creative brilliance is automated out of the process to the point where things become bland
- this is a story between Steve Jobs and John Sculley

Commodification and automation process: we saw this in the dark ages of Apple
- remember System 7
- it became bland
- only when Steve Jobs came back he changed it into the most successful company in the world

Simple question: What if Steve Jobs designed schools?
- completely closed, everything had to be approved, only eat carrots…
- no, I”m talking about design

We now have something designed in the industrial revolution
- what if we designed schools so it could transform
- instead of medicating ADHD, creating structures where all children can succeed / fly

education + technology = #fail

Research on OLPC showing reading skills not improving
- maybe we should have given them computers to play WOW and

stop doing dumb things with technology, we need to do transformational things
- QR codes

Technology is like a pedestrian conveyor
- some use them to accelerate
- some coast and look at the view
- some fall off

Are we just accelerating the same thing with technology in education: reinforce old practice (new wine in old skins)

Failure is GREAT, that is where you get your best learning

conrad wolfram
- mathematician
- story of the 2 maths

TEDx Brussels – Conrad Wolfram – 11/23/09

Most of our kids now have a pretty powerful computer in their pockets
- 80% of what we do in math class is calculations
- we need to put more emphasis on teaching

Why do we learn maths?
1- technical jobs: drives economic development
2- world is a quantitative place, it’s hard to survive in a modern society if you’re not being quantitative and mathematical
3- critical thinking: structuring thinking in a critical way

When we say we are learning math, what are we really doing
1- asking the right questions (what is the problem – this is SO critical)
2- let’s take that theoretical world picture and turn it into a mathematical form
3- verify me

What are we doing today in schooll?
- spending about 80% of our time on part 3, which is exactly the part computers do
- we should be using computers to do step 3 in almost all cases
- some estimating and mental arithmetic are still needed, but for the most part we should focus on types 1 and 2

math is not equal to calculating, it is a much bigger subject
- not surprising that we get this confused
- typically calculations have held us up
- computers change this

calculations are the machinery of maths

This process doesn’t dumb down maths, it liberates students to go further and beyond

We have generations of learners convinced they can’t do maths and don’t like maths, yet we see they can in video games and so many other contexts
- kids now at age 8 and 9 can do calculus

We are doing a similar thing in science now
- too often math is taught like Latin: a dead language (yet it should be taught as a dynamic, exciting topic)

Michael Brooks, scientiest
- wrote book: “Free Radicals”
- now learning about “brand science”

Michael Brooks – The Anarchy of Science

When kids are asked to identify scientists from a group of photos, most kids select the people who aren’t smiling because their stereotype is that scientists aren’t fun

Let’s turn this on its head with examples:
- Crafty Galileo
- Sneaky Einstein
- Rebellious Crick and Watson
- Reckless Barry Watson
- more

These are excellent role models for teenagers
- kids love science up to age 10, then their opinions drop off the scale

Thanks to brand science, however, you’re not allowed to tell students this is what science is all about

so mobile learning..
- innovations rely on disruptive thinking

how to you embrace and allow that kind of thinking in a school science lab

STEM subjects are no different than learning guitar or piano, they are DOING subjects
- we learn by doing
- now we have sufficient technologies so we CAN transform learning

Mobile has transformed the world: I’ve traveled a lot in Africa and seen this
- never before have so many people been connected or shared so much information, mobile is the driver

Global incidents are first reported, shared and discussed by the world via social, mobile media

OUr great grandchildren will look back on this time in the same way we look back at the industrial revolution

The economic, social and technological changes that are occurring in today’s society are not begin reflected in today’s education superstructure

Our objective must be to make the term ‘mobile learning’ obsolete

we ARE a movement

If every child is connected via a high-spec personal device how would learning and teaching change?

It’s the economy stupid

We have to recognize the central role and purpose of education in supporting transformation
- because of the economic times we are in, we need to make the case for our change
- we need to make sure that we are living for a foundation worth living for… (showing Britney Spears “Toxic” video of her as a airline stewardess)

UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE TO LEAVE NOW AND CATCH MY PLANE.

GREAT PRESO BY GRAHAM – VERY CHALLENGING, THOUGHT PROVOKING AND INSPIRING!

Technorati Tags: education, learning, mobile, mobile2012, technology

Education as a Superstructure by Graham Brown-Martin originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 13, 2012.

Students today have the world in their hands. Geography couldn’t be easier using various apps on the iPad. Excursions right in their hands without leaving the school. We’ll be using work?ows to enhance geography learning and share to the world.

A “lightly-edited” audio podcast of this session is also available.

Intro video: Ice Age 4 – First Look Teaser

National Council for Geographic Education
1- the world is in spatial terms
2- places and region
3- physical systems
4- human systems
5- environment and society
6- uses of geography

Geography no longer has a standardized test in Australia

Sometimes kids can be tapping away at apps, like place location apps, but not really learning a lot

We want a learning workflow that includes:
1- a product/information/eida
2- modify and add vale
3- then share it

This is our basic workflow with the iPad

The beauty of the iPad is: Screenshots are so easy!
- it’s very easy to collect information
- no file system, stuff getting lost like you do on a desktop operating system

Adding value to modified bits of information

QR codes allow “bring your own screen” (BYOS)

Putting your information into Book Creator for iPad
- beautiful app, easy to use
- can add audio to it, can’t do that now with Keynote for iPad

If you learn something, you need to share it
- imagine at this conference if you weren’t allowed to share what you learn in sessions

Who has ‘yard duty’ here? (like recess duty in the U.S.)
- kids always want to share and show what they can do when you’re on yard duty

Apps to get information from, 1000s of apps
- WolframAlpha is magic
- Pocketweather World
- National Geographic HD
- Water Storage
- Idea Flight
- FotoPedia Pro
- Disaster(game)
- Quiz
- Surfwrite (I think this is now WebNotes)
- Time Zones (World Clock)
- iSeismo
- Quakefeed
- Tripjournal
- World geog (game)
- Altitude
- Geocaching
- Qwiki (a curator like Flipboard)
- Wikipanion
- Typedrawing
- Compass
- Landformer (game)
- Volcanoes (Volcanic?)

iCreate apps
- Book Creator
- Explain Everything
- AudioBoo
- iBrainstorm
- Comic Life
- Strip Designer
- QRcodes (Scanner)
- iMovie
- Keynote
- Easy Bib
- Sonic Pics
- QR Code apps: i-nigma and QRcode gen

iSharing apps
- Posterous
- email
- Dropbox
- Bump
- Mover+ (don’t have to bump, flick it off my screen to yours, works on wifi and bluetooth also)
- EchoFon for Twitter
- Blogpress
- DropVox lets you record audio and send directly to DropBox
- Soundnote
- Plaintext is great because of sync with Dropbox (like text edit)
- Sendtodropbox.com (kids don’t have to have a Dropbox account, they can send to YOUR teacher account and even select the folder you want)
– when students use their name in the subject line, then it goes into THEIR box
– just change subject line if you want student work to go into the same folder

MY COMMENT: NICE – THIS IS HUGE! I THOUGHT BOX.NET WAS THE ONLY CLOUD STORAGE SOLUTION WHICH SUPPORTS EMAIL FROM STUDENTS TO A TEACHER ACCOUNT. THIS IS SUPER!!!

Google “classes who Tweet” to follow teachers in different countries and classes
- don’t have to worry about timezones

Twitter apps in addition to EcoFon
- Trickle
- Spout
- Tweetsheet
- Tweetdeck
- Twitterific

Great idea for the library: Make QR code and put it on the back of a book for “meet the author” videos, kids can scan them directly on their mobile device
- if you have a static display in your room, add a QR code to the student discussing / reflecting on their work

MY COMMENT: THESE ARE SUPER IDEAS FOR QR CODES!!! WHAT A GREAT WAY FOR SCHOOL STORYCHASERS TO AMPLIFY GOOD LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM!

Duplicam was created before iPads had cameras (free – works on wifi and bluetooth)

Use apps to answer these questions about “Melbourne to Perth”
- how far?
- Which states do you travel through? Maps
- Major cities and towns
- get a picture of a landmark and use it in 4 different towns
- if going by horse how long, car and flying? Make screenshots
- Add your pictures in order, add to Sonic Pics and add a commentary about it
- Share your trip to DropBox

We started using these kinds of workflows with kids
- eventually we left it up to the kids to select the Apps to use
- we no longer are very “app directed” with students, they are much more independent / self-directed to find the apps that suits the purpose and their learning

Another task: Phoenix to New York
Remember the workflow:
1- Collect
2- Modify
3- Add value
4- Share

Using SimCity HD to learn social studies

Kids are really loving Minecraft
- Minecraft Lite (full version too)
- Use it!
- Geography in Minecraft is AMAZING
- use app called FastFinger to add handwriting

John Sayers Geography Blog is GREAT

“Who is not on Twitter here?”

YouTube: options for removing related clutter:
- ViewPure
- QuietTube

The button on YouTube for ‘most viewed’ leads to inappropriate stuff, so for that reason we block/don’t authorize the YouTube app on our kids iPads

Easy Assessment App by Jarrod Robinson
- “Easy Assessment is the app teachers, trainers and coaches have been waiting for. A simple way to capture and assess performance in any context or situation. Experience a new level of efficiency.”

Great website for Geography: Global Issues
- “heaps of great stuff on this website!”

I’m a member of Slide to Learn Ning, we have a 1000 leaders from around Australia
- conference is coming up this summer, Tony Vincent is coming as the keynoter
- students have to have an iPad to attend (no printed books required for students)
- school was rebuilt from the ground up

Technorati Tags: education, geography, ipad

iGeography by Jenny Ashby (Workflows for Learning with iPads) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 13, 2012.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” -Alan Watts Learn what one technology team experienced from initiation to implementation of iPads in a school in the heart of Coconut Grove, Florida. “Computer teachers” have transformed into “technology integrators” and move from within the lab to the classroom, the campus, and beyond. Integrators must understand the 4 C’s of 21st century skills and how project based teaching and learning supports it. – What comes ?rst? Teachers? Students? Devices? Professional development? – Obstacles to overcome – Resistant teachers: “This is just a fad!” – Hardware/Software logistics

St Stephen’s Episopal Day School
www.sseds.org
@SSEDSorg

Our school is in a smaller town in Miami, FL
- we have THREE technology facilitators in our small school, this says a LOT about our priorities as a school and the role we believe is so important

We are endearingly called ‘the little school by the bay’
- we have enrichment classes on sailing, actually

WOW: BEAUTIFUL SCHOOL!

Paradigm shift: 2 ways to deal with the constant of change
- fight it
- go with it

Mobile 2011 was a huge catalyst for us as a faculty

GREAT movie!

2 years ago and a few weeks ago, there was NO iPad! Can you believe it?!

What is project-based learning?
- when you define what something is, you get help defining what it is NOT

Our activity:
- What is PBL?
- What is PBL not?
- What is 21st century learning?
- What is 21st century learning NOT?

Using http://linoit.com

Continuous professional development is key
- we had Travis Allen out to talk to our teachers from the parent perspective
- then he introduced Tony Vincent

This led our head of school to decide: WE need to get iPads for every student
- in short order we were distributing iPads to all students at our school

SHARING is essential
- get the enthusiasm going!
- do yo want engaged students? fewer discipline problems?

We have great quotations from students saying, “Lunch already?”
- email from a teacher who said, we just noticed we missed recess using Edmodo (“Facebook for kids, but safe”)

In-house, faculty PD plus weekly planning sessions
- PD plus weekly planning sessions

Today’s session is about using iPads to facilitate PBL and 21st century skill learning

We asked Tony in some of his PD sessions with us to provide workshops on PBL without technology
- teaching teachers how to ‘uncover’ rather than just deliver content/information
- we try to send as many teachers to ISTE each year as we can

We had a PD focus called, “Speed date your iPad”
- 8 possible sessions, teachers attended 5

Phenomenal bookmarks shared on delicious.com, great to share as a social bookmarking site for teachers
- example we used recently: http://delicious.com/tonyvincent/ipad+research

Inge meets regularly with teachers to find out what they need, what they want to learn
- also facilitates and co-teaches with teachers in the classroom

Keep in mind your faculty is at all levels

MY THOUGHT: GOOD GRAPH TO REFERENCE IN THIS REGARD IS EVERETT ROGERS RESEARCH AND DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION:

From computer teacher to tech integrator
Obstacles we’ve encountered and advice
- patience is key
- strive for baby steps
- the level of willingness to adapt to new ways of teaching and learning varies wildly
- from moving to ‘this is a fad’ (whole language / phonics) versus this is the way we learn now
- process of me looking at their curriculum, looking at CCSS and their curriculum and thinking of ‘driving questions’
- some teachers are still thinking chapter by chapter for each month
- do all the students have to ‘get to California’ in the textbook by the end of the year?

We have our technology team, but you also need to support anyone willing to support you
- be part of that meeting

Definitely emphasize

We bought book from Buck Institute for Education: PBL in the Elementary Grades

Felix is both the technology coordinator (wearing the education hat) at the I.T. Director

Any relationship has to have GREAT communication
- things need to be clearly defined: who reports to whom
- Felix’ bias: IT person should report to an educator because this is a SCHOOL and it’s about the learning

How many of you know about #pencilchat
- was an explosion on Twitter in Nov 2011 with this hashtag
- full of great quotations

Great video: Ode to #Pencilchat: Technology Integration in the Classroom

Follow the Twitter hashtag #edreform and share it

Past:
- books
- pencils
- encyclopedias
- lecture
- memorization

Today
- internet
- mobile devices
- collaboration
- project based learning
- discovery

GREAT step for us was having Travis Brown come out and share his story from the recent student perspective

Share Dan Brown’s open letter to educators
- huge eye opener, some could be taken as shocking, but everything inside the truth

So now we look at hardware and software options
- we went with the iPad and found covers on eBay
- has elastic band that goes around
- consider the cover of the iPads are protected, break of the screen is going to happen with the screen

Our 4th and 5th grade students take the iPads home
- we don’t call iPad covers colors, we call them flavors: Blueberry, Banana, etc.

Optional “iPad Protection Program”
- parents pay $50
- covers damage, stolen, etc
- 1st incident parents can purchase an iPad for $100
- if parents didn’t join, they had to sign to cover replacement of the iPad in full ($500) for replacement if needed
- almost 70% of parents got this plan, and we’ve had 3 broken student iPads, all glass breakages
- I have a local guy who replaces iPad glass for $99 each

You’ve got to have as much bandwidth as you can have
- robust wireless: We went with Aerohive Networks (doesn’t require a physical controller on your network, just sent you the separate access points, we’ve had no problems with failure)
- last year at Mobile 2011 the wireless went down at the first session, wireless at THAT hotel (not this year’s) couldn’t handle it

Other important considerations
- volume purchasing program
- device management

JAMF – Casper Suite is an option, some people don’t like lack of lock down features

Part of our acceptable use policy at our school is students CANNOT install any personal apps on their iPads

Apple Configurator is an option

Meraki is a cloud-based option

sseds.us/apps is our app list, all categorized

iear.org is great source of apps

learninginhand.com

#edapp Twitter hashtag (great for app discovery)

You know about Air Server on the Mac? ($12, can install on up to 5 computers)

Discovr apps is a discovery app

Technorati Tags: edtech, ipad, mobile, mobile2012, school

Combining 21st Century Skills, Project Based Learning, and iPads originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 13, 2012.

Not only is collaboration an important life skill, but it can have a positive in?uence on student engagement and is an essential skill for the 21st century. Collaboration is also a powerful component in project-based learning. Web-based tools and apps for iPad can enable collaboration among students in the same classroom or among students anywhere in the world. Experience terri?c tools that can fuel productive collaboration through text, discussion, whiteboard spaces, mind mapping, and more.

All resources today are linked from learninginhand.com/collaboration

Collaboration is the act of working together for a common goal
- video of ants collaborating to bring a spider back to their home
- ants collaborating on a dead grasshopper
- fire ants during an Amazon flood collaborating

Ants create a lifeboat in the Amazon jungle – BBC wildlife

I’m a fan of Phil Schlechty’s work, “Working on the Work”
- mentions factors which affect engagement, including Affiliation
- collaboration plays a big role there

“Powerful Learning” by Linda Darling Hammond is also great
- super chapter on collaboration
- “Studies have shown that groups outperform individuals on learning tasks, and further that individuals who work in groups do better on later individual assignments as well.” (quotation from the book)

21C identifies the 4C’s
- Critical thinking and problem solving
- Communication
- Creativity and innovation
- Collaboration

Sometimes collaboration gets left out
- this isn’t the easiest thing to teach
- lots of skills are required and important
- crucial role in project based learning

“mastering collaboration requires the ability to
-
- “be helpful and make necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal”
- takes constant modeling and practice: these are ‘people skills’

Skills include:
- active listening
- respect
- manners
- positive attitude
- being focused
- having social awareness

We are going to use Edmodo today
- I setup a group for us and we’ll contribute ideas
- here’s a 1 minute video about Edmodo

Modeling is key
- role playing
- fuel your role playing with apps with something like Puppet Pals
- discussion: talking about teamwork

“what could go wrong?”
- we’ll use a collaborative drawing board

Today we’ll use http://awwapp.com
- app invitation links expire after a few minutes

Our group created an AudioBoo for our assignment!

Other apps to use: GroupBoard website

SyncSpace app

Popplet app: has free and $5 version, can invite people to work with you on the same mind map

T
E
A
M
together everyone achieves more!

Technorati Tags: mobile2012, New Tag, collaboration, ipads

Collaboration in Hand with iPads by Tony Vincent originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 13, 2012.

Students create these videos in my classroom after school because they want to
- they don’t get grades or extra credit for making these videos
- students use mostly computers that I have purchased and brought into my classroom, many are tablet PCs

At ‘some’ schools there are cell phones which also require teachers not to use mobile devices at school “to set a good example for students”

Our entire project started when I brought a TabletPC to our classroom and decided to make it “our computer”
- this was a BIG deal: trusting students

My biggest message to teachers: “Let students touch the computer!”

Tablets are a real game changer: Students being able to draw directly on the tablet

Alan November is very important to this story
- I shared one of my student videos

When watch other people get excited and fired up about work we’ve shared, that makes a huge impact both on me as a teacher and on my students
- this shows what a big ‘thing’ we are on to

MY COMMENT: REMINDS ME OF 7TH GRADE TEACHERS MORGAN CUTHBERT AND MIKE HAGERTY IN YARMOUTH, MAINE, WHOSE 7TH GRADE STUDENTS ARE ALSO CREATING MATH TUTORIAL VIDEOS. SEE MY MARCH 2012 POST, “Serving or Delivering does not equal Teaching or Learning” FOR MORE DETAILS.

The same Math Train video is featured in “TEDxNYED – Alan November – 03/05/2011” – advance to 11:15 to see it:

MY COMMENT: IN THE EDUCATION WEEK LEADERSHIP FORUM / GLOBALSCHOLAR VIDEO CLIP WHICH ERIC JUST SHARED, ALAN MENTIONED THAT “IF YOU GIVE YOUR STUDENTS PSYEUDONYMS WHEN YOU PUBLISH THEIR WORK ONLINE YOU WON’T BREAK FERPA OR CIPA, OR LOSE YOUR ERATE FUNDING. IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE WITH PARENT AND STUDENT PERMISSION, STUDENT WORK CAN BE PUBLISHED WITH NAMES AND NOT VIOLATE U.S. LAW. SEE BALANCEDFILTERING.ORG AND THE UNMASKING THE DIGITAL TRUTH PROJECT FOR MORE ON THIS.

Students in many cases spend hours and hours on videos because they wanted to make it right
- lots of effort, high levels of motivation

Tiana:
- my teachers know the answers, but my classmates don’t
- When you explain it in a video, you are learning how to teach it
- “In order to teach someone, you really have to learn it”

Quotation from Alan November: I show other kids kids work
- “my teacher doesn’t have a rewind button”
- “my teacher explains things as if you’re supposed to understand it the first time in class”
- “kids I talk to universally say, I want to learn that way”

MY COMMENT: IT’S VERY INTERESTING TO NOTE THESE PURPOSE FILLED ACTIVITIES ERIC’S STUDENTS ARE DOING ARE TAKING PLACE AFTER SCHOOL. WE NEED TO GET PURPOSE FILLED ACTIVITIES LIKE THIS TAKING PLACE DURING SCHOOL TOO! IT’S OFTEN INTERESTING TO SEE HOW MUCH VALUABLE LEARNING CAN TAKE PLACE WHEN LEARNERS HAVE AUTONOMY / FREEDOM.

UPDATE: ERIC AND HIS STUDENTS DID A GREAT JOB CLARIFYING AND EMPHASIZING HOW IMPORTANT THE ‘AFTER SCHOOL’ AND ‘NOT FOR A GRADE’ ASPECTS OF THEIR WORK WERE AND CONTINUE TO BE.

Tiana: Everything we do should have purpose
- these videos have so many purposes
- I remember spending 3 hours on a single math video because they were so fun to do, and because I cared so much about them
- we get a lot of ‘kid language’ when we share and view these kinds of videos
- vocabulary used by kids can be different, also kids don’t always skip steps like some adults do with more life experiences
- When a kid teaches something, sometimes we can understand it better
- It was a big deal because it was “on my own will” not for extra credit, I spent much more time on these videos for this reason

Who has read “Drive” by Dan Pink?
- if you have, you’ll ‘hear’ almost exactly what Tiana just said
- what motivates people
- people are more motivated when they are NOT getting a grade, when there is not extrinsic rewards / carrots

Tiana: When all these people are viewing the videos, it puts some pressure on
- don’t ‘pressurize’ this process if you do this with your kids
- the natural spontaneity of this is important

I discovered Camtasia Studio software one day and I LOVE their product
- I don’t work for them, they are not sponsoring us
- such a big deal to be able to

Our Mathtrain.tv site is setup with Moodle
- was originally created pre-Facebook

Tiana: These videos helped us understand ‘the why’ of math, not just how to work the problems and get the answers

Remember: It’s NOT just the A students / gift students who make these videos and benefit SO much from this work!

Tiana: When you give us a Tablet PC, be patient with us [as students] when we want to play and draw hearts

THIS IS GOOD WISDOM FROM A YOUNG STUDENT: SAME ADVICE WE GIVE TO TEACHERS USING MATH MANIPULATIVES IN THE CLASSROOM

“Bob and Paul” videos inspired “Ben and Jerry” to create videos: Example – “Probability by Ben & Jerry”

No Camtasia Studio software
- use Jing, Screenr or ScreencastoMatic

iPad Apps for Screencasting
- ShowMe (free)
- ScreenChomp (free)
- ReplayNote ($5)
- Educreations (free)
- Explain Everything ($3)

Doceri (free app, but software to put on your computer costs $)
- is an app for remote controlling your computer
- has a special pen that you can flip over, one side is an eraser and the other is a ‘normal’ stylus

Reflection App ($15)
- share your iPad screen on your Mac computer connected to a projector

I do not have a blueprint of what to do
- students like Andrew drew art, organized content, did all the work which made Mathtrain great

MY COMMENT: JUST SAW SKITCH (FREE) ON ERIC’S IPAD! I NEED TO DOWNLOAD IT! THE DESKTOP VERSION OF SKITCH IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE MAC APPS

OVERALL GREAT PRESENTATION BY ERIC, TIANA AND ANDEW! I HOPE WE’LL SEE THEM AS ISTE CONFERENCE KEYNOTERS SOON!

Kids Teaching Kids by Eric Marcos originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 12, 2012.

TEDxNYED – Alan November – 03/05/2011

TEDxNYED – Andy Carvin – 03/06/10

TEDxNYED – Chris Lehmann – 03/06/10

TEDxNYED – Heidi Hayes Jacobs – 03/05/2011

TEDxNYED – Henry Jenkins – 03/06/10

TEDxNYED – Brian Crosby – 03/05/2011

TEDxNYED – Will Richardson – 03/05/2011

TEDxNYED – Gary Stager – 03/05/2011

TEDxNYED – Dennis Littky – 03/05/2011

Technorati Tags: change, education, video, videos, tedxny, ted, inspiration

Great Educational Ideas from TEDxNYED originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 12, 2012.

This workshop will offer a hands-on opportunity for teachers with no prior programming experience to learn how to develop a working mobile app for the iPhone/iPod touch that is suitable for publishing to the iTunes App Store. Participants will also learn about a number of non-programming mobile app authoring tools that can be used in the classroom by students to create their own applications as well. All participants should bring a Mac laptop with Gamesalad Creator from gamesalad.com installed and create a free account at ibuildapp.com. There will be a limited number of Macbooks available for check out for this session.

Chris Thompson is @ctceismc on Twitter. Slides from today are available as a PDF. Chris’ handout for “Tools for App/Game Creation” is available as a separate PDF.

Kinds of Mobile Content / Apps
- DropBox Documents
- On Device Creation
- iBooks, Kindle eBooks, Podcasts.Vodcasts (interactbooks.com is hybrid book creator)
- Web Aps
- Native Apps

The program we are using today, GameSalad, will let us create native apps (it’s Mac-only)

Jquery is a framework for javascript on iOS devices

ibuildapp.com is free tool for building web apps
- easy and pretty free

Native App Generators
- AppMakr.com (RSS feeds, Medai, PhoneGap)
- Appbreeder.com (pre-built gadgets)
- Buzztouch.com (hyrid)
- Many more

PhoneGap is like a wrapper for a mobile website
- this was bought by Adobe
- great technology, hugely popular now

Click and Point app creators )native app non-coding tools)
- GameSalad
- ClickTeam.com
- Stencyl.com (like Scratch)
- UNITY3D
- AppInventor

GameSalad requires Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7

To start we are going to create a Piano with GameSalad

Rules for creating games
1- Save often
2- Do small pieces at a time (build/test/try, then move on to add something noew)

Think of SCENES as screens on an app
Actors are object on the screen that the user can interact with
Tables are spreadsheets where you can save information

MY THOUGHT: ALEXANDER (MY SON) OUGHT TO CREATE AN APP ABOUT LEARNING DIFFERENT KINDS OF STRING FIGURES

There is nothing more annoying than a ‘cat piano’

This is what we see for our Piano project when we click SCENE 1

The preview button shows us our app in action

Let’s create an actor
- click +
- rename actor “C”
- Double click your actor
- in upper right corner click CREATE RULE
- choose ‘when actor receives event’ and set it to ‘touch’ make it play the C sound

It really helps to have resources already in a project so students can immediately start building an app, instead of having them build an app successfully
- students are on the edge of cognitive overload at times with this, so having a pre-loaded

Now we need to put the “C key” actor on the stage
- drag it on
- resize its handles
- right click/control click and send to back

Fire up app “Game Salad Previewer” and you can send your app over a wireless network to your iPhone

I recorded this video during our break about the morning’s learning: Learning GameSalad at Mobile Learning 2012

Now we are going to create a Maze game
- add actions to the ball actor

Problem is, the ball doesn’t stop on the walls
- create a new actor and call it ‘wall’
- then drag pre-defined behavior “collide” and define it to interact with

Make the ball not moveable (fixed) by changing this attribute for that character:

Make the ball “bouncier” by changing

The “restitution” value is “bounciness” of the ball
- under ‘physics’ change the restitution value to 0.1 for the wall and the ball

Now make some things happen when the ball touches the hole

Can get much more advanced
- make a new, small actor called “ball sensor”
- adjust size to 10 x 10 and put it in the middle of the hole
- make a sound play (“Hit wall” sound)

MY COMMENT: WOW! CHRIS DID A GREAT JOB SCAFFOLDING THIS LEARNING TODAY… I WISH I HAD A WEEK TO WORK ON GAMESALAD. WHAT A GREAT APP AND SUCH SUPER “PRACTICE PROJECTS” TO USE / GET STARTED!

Here are links to the 2 practice projects we used today (as zip files with images and sounds – please credit Chris Thompson if using these! Chris distributed these via USB flash drives and CDs)
- PianoStarter.gameproj
- MazeStarter.gameproj

Another option: Gamestar Mechanic via @agardnahh
- a very scaffolded game learning experience

Technorati Tags: create, design, development, game, ios, gamesalad

Hands-on Introduction to Mobile Learning App/Game Creation for Non-Programmers originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 12, 2012.

This video is definitely a good example of educator creativity, but I think it’s thought provoking to contrast the tone with the May 2011 video from Steed Elementary students and teachers, “Gotta Keep Learning.”

High stakes testing has a powerful influence on the focus and tone of education in our public schools, especially in April.

Kudos to Regina Hartley and other educators at Steed modeling videography and digital literacy literacy skills in our “season” of high stakes testing in Oklahoma. See my May 2011 post, “Gotta Keep Learning! Video Remix by Steed Elementary Students in Oklahoma” for more background about the ways Mid-Del teachers and students are learning to be effective multimedia communicators. Can you tell “there are a few Storychasers in the house” at Steed?!

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, testing, video, youtube, middel, steed

Buckling Down Down for Oklahoma Standardized Testing Military Style [VIDEO] originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 12, 2012.

We want to think about the BEST ways to use technology in education today

Outline:
- challenges we face
- what matters the most
- the burning platform
- skills students need for tomorrow
- managing and scaling technology

The reason I got involved in education because it is the silver bullet
- I am a 1st generation American

“I didn’t know what a ghetto was then. Later I would learn that we lived in ‘the slums”; I thought we had just moved to paradise.”

In 1 generation major perceptions about college can change dramatically

I paid my college loans and all my bills now in a job and industry that didn’t exist when I was in high school
- What will work look like for graduates in 2036?

What really matters the most?
- nothing matters more than the teacher
- at the end of the day it comes down to having great teachers
- that is going to matter the most no matter what technology

I clearly remember my 4th grade teacher, my 6th grade teacher, my 8th grade teacher… those memories

Managing the crisis of low expectations
- especially for kids living in disadvantaged circumstances

My test of “what are you going to be when you grow up” in high school came back: You’ll be an IRS agent

“Success is related to effort”
- students rated this at about 2%
- 78% of low income students disagreed with this
- Boeing engineers

The X factor: What is it that motivates kids
- for some it is sports
- what is it for low income students
- arts
- sciences
- after school programs

“Understanding what motivates our kids is essential to understand what drives learning”

Do you remember when we used to have to call the Internet?
- sometimes it would say it was busy, call back later

The Internet is where we find resources and manage relationships

Technology is increasingly web-based

Concept of “cyber Monday” (online Black Friday)

Remember technology is NOT new to this generation
- my 10 month old has no idea what an operating system is, or the difference between a Mac and PC
- not waiting for version 8.9 of operating system XYZ
- growing up in a completely different world, where technology is a part of their world

How students are learning how to do things is completely different from how we learned about things

MY COMMENT: THIS IS TRUE TO AN EXTENT, I’M REMINDED OF MY SON LEARNING NOW VIA YOUTUBE ABOUT MINECRAFT CONSTANTLY

Travel tip: Never buy your child a ukulele on the first day of vacation

Story of a 2 year old after using an iPad1, asking why it doesn’t have a camera?
- hour hold technology not meeting the expectations of a two year old

More stories of kids living on the web…
- what are today’s 2 year old’s expectations of technology use going to be like when they come to your school?

Key skills:
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
- Analyzing Information
- Problem solving

Everyone needs these skills no matter whether they go to college or not

How we communicate has changed
- I can’t control what you all are writing about me on Twitter right now

Collaboration is more important than ever
- why is collaboration cheating? it is how we do things today

I can’t imagine going to my boss at Google with a report, like our global education strategy, and saying “I developed this all by myself”

How can kids build skills together and learn together while developing their literacy skills?
- this is key today

My team at Google is made up of people from around the world
- we’re expected to create documents, make things together

We have to stop memorizing things, we need to start thinking
- instead of memorizing we have to learn how to process and make sense of information, and use it in collaborative environments / in communication

Information is at EVERYONE’s fingertips today

Analyzing and making sense of information is key

What percent of the world’s information is now online
- it’s about 15% now

For every minute of YouTube video you watch today, 60 hours of YouTube video gets uploaded
- that means you can NEVER catch up with it!

Most of you are probably bad searchers
- if you type a question mark into the search bar, you are a bad searcher
- how are we teaching our kids how to properly do advanced searches?

We learn and solve problems in different ways
- lots of research supports this

If we all learn in different ways, doesn’t it make sense we should be testing in different ways?

In 1980 a gigabyte of information cost around $200,000
- the hard drive alone in my current cell phone would have been worth over $6 million

The digital divide is getting greater
- tech is cheaper to get
- but less than 45% of kids whose parents make less than 30K per year have access to technology at home

MY COMMENT: THIS IS WHY 1:1 LEARNING INITIATIVES IN SCHOOLS ARE SO IMPORTANT!

If we are not using technology in our schools, where are kids learning technology skills

Remember, technology is JUST a tool
- don’t think of technology as any different than desks

MY COMMENT: I DISAGREE WITH THIS

Desks are a huge detriment to learning in schools, they are perfectly setup for falling asleep on them

How is the technology helping us in schools build the skills we need
- we all agree technology can be useful, we need to utilize it

Great teachers, expectations, motivating factors, and content are still the keys
- technology just enables this

I am very concerned about the FEAR we have about technologies in our schools
- when my kids were born I taught them how to cross the street. I didn’t try to ban cars.
- how are we teaching our kids to cross the digital street?
- we need to teach our kids how to be digital leaders

MY COMMENT: THIS IS A GOOD ANALOGY.

Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it both accessible and useable
- tools you can use anywhere and on anything

These tools are going to just

Remember when you thought you’d be able to bookmark the web?

Leveraging our students and what they know / can do is essential
- we have to find better ways to work TOGETHER

The web is here to stay
- the Google leverages our ability to create apps and tools that we can use on multiple devices

“Education is the most powerful weapon that can change the world”
- change a family’s destiny in one generation

I ASKED A QUESTION ABOUT EFFECTIVE WAYS TO HELP SCHOOL SUPERINTENDNETS NOT OVERBLOCK THE WEB

Jamie’s answer
- when I was 10 years old I had some access to bad things
- working on what expectations we can have, and making reasonable efforts at protecting our students
- a lot of the responsibility is on providers like Google to provide clean access
- responsibility is also on administrators
- I’ve seen this addressed more in the past three years through superintendent education

I encourage superintendents to see the importance of helping students learn to behave responsibly offline as we do online

Technorati Tags: edtech, google, innovation, mobile2012, technology

Technology & Innovation in Education by Jaime Casap originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 11, 2012.

ARIS is a powerful tool for making location based games; however its true power lies when it is combined with ?eld trips and location based learning. Teachers can author their own “games” creating virtual characters or items like videos and awards that can be picked up and viewed by students using their iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. During the ?rst half of the session participants will experience, hands on, the power of ARIS with a demo tour around the Sheridan Hotel. During the second half of the session, participants will learn how to create their own interactive ?eld trips. Before attending this session, please download the ARIS app from the App Store. Note that the editor used to create ARIS ?eld trips are Flashbased and thus require either a Mac or PC.

I’m an anatomy and physiology teacher and also a technology staff developer / technology coach
- I’m not a game maker, programmer, or technology specialist
- not even an avid gamer
- I love integrating technology in my classroom and helping others integrate

ARIS is a wonderful opportunity to create GPS-based games and experiences using links and media
- open source platform

iPhones are the perfect platform/tool for ARIS because of the GPS aspect

App lets you upload pictures into a teacher database
- see the pictures kids took and the location where they took them
- see characters
- create vast and complicated games, or really simple things that popup on your screen
- could be link to Google Form
- so many things!

Simple ARIS Game I created for a Marine Biology teacher
- Chicago Shedd Aquarium
- Open ARIS App
- Create username/password
- Search “Shedd”

All of things on plaques at She’d aquarium are not designed for high school kids who have been studying marine biology all year
- more designed at the elementary level
- we designed this app to provide access to higher level content for students

For all the characters I’ve created in this game, they are marine characters
- since we are

I’m using the app Reflection that turns my Macbook into an AppleTV for $14.99
- works well but you have to be on the same network

After people read or view a ‘conversation’ in your ARIS game, you can put conditions that specify things like “show this video”

THE ONE WES CREATED IS PRETTY BASIC, ESSENTIALLY IT’S A WAY FOR STUDENTS TO ACCESS AND CONSUME DIFFERENT BLOCKS OF TEXT WITH ASSOCIATED IMAGES THAT ARE GPS-TRIGGERED

People who created the ARIS app made the “Dow Day Example”
- much more complicated game, a good example to view
- you meet characters, as you meet them it asks you to go t

I’M THINKING YOU COULD MAKE SOME PRETTY SWEET ‘GHOST TOUR’ APPS/GAMES WITH ARIS!

How do we start creating games with ARIS?

What can ARIS do?
- scavenger hunts
- simulations
- historic
- economic
- math/money
- gathering data/images/video
- enhance field trips with media

Advance ARIS requirements
- has/has not met a character
- uploaded image/media
- has acquired a number of an item
- has visited a website

To create your own ARIS game, go to arisgames.org/alphaeditor and create a new userID

I AM THINKING IT WOULD BE GREAT TO USE A BRANCHING, VISUAL TOOL TO BUILD YOUR GAME TOGETHER
- PROBABLY YOU COULD JUST DO THIS KIND OF PLANNING DOCUMENT WELL ON A WIKI
- THIS COULD BE FUN AT A SCHOOL FOR A ‘MEET THE STAFF’ CHALLENGE… YOU COULD GET CLUES ABOUT A MEMBER OF THE STAFF, AND THEN WHEN YOU GO TO THAT TEACHER’S CLASSROOM YOU’D MEET ANOTHER CHARACTER THAT WOULD GIVE YOU THE NEXT CLUE

Pictures that people take who are playing a game you create are ONLY visible to the game creator

MY QUESTION: CAN YOU MAKE A GAME A TEMPLATE?
- answer: yes, you can duplicate games you’ve created and share editing rights to other people

Are good training videos on http://arisgames.org/make/training-videos/

Authoring Basic Objects

Using Requirements and Doing Simple Data Collection Activities

From Chris Thompson is @ctceismc:
Scvngr.com is a commercial company/app for creating scavenger hunts, limited free features before you pay
- 7Scenes is another option

Technorati Tags: edtech, education, mobile, multimedia, technology, tour, field, trip, aris, interactive, geography

Using ARIS to Create Interactive, Multimedia Enhanced Field Trips by Wes Molyneaux originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 11, 2012.

Until recently development of mobile learning apps/games has been limited to the technical elite because of the complex development and publishing process. Coupled with the recent lifting of restrictions by mobile device manufacturers and the proliferation of user-friendly authoring tools this is no longer the case. Not only is interactive mobile learning app/game creation now possible by most teachers and students; it is also emerging as a highly engaging classroom learning strategy for middles and high school students. Participants will be introduced to both the why and how of mobile app/game creation for learning.

Chris Thompson is @ctceismc on Twitter. Slides from today are available as a PDF. Chris’ handout for “Tools for App/Game Creation” is available as a separate PDF. An audio recording this session (with permission from Chris, of course) is available as a free podcast on “Fuel for Educational Change Agents.”

I’m from Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA
- Chris’ website: www.ceismc.gatech.edu

Using surveys from PollEverywhere

Do you think mobile app development is too difficult for most students and teachers?
- most respondents today: Not sure

Reason #1: Mobile app creation and development is not as hard as you think
- young and old are doing it
- 3D game created by a 70 year old
- 9 year old boy in Korea has created published app

Thomas Suarez is app creator of “Bubble Ball” game
- created it in a month and a half

HERE’S A VIDEO “Bubble Ball – Robert Nay 14 years old developer” (NOT THE SAME ONE CHRIS SHARED, BUT SIMILAR)

ANOTHER ONE ON TOPIC, BUT NOT SHARED BY CHRIS: “TEDxManhattanBeach – Thomas Suarez – iPhone Application Developer… and 6th Grader”

BElieve is a free game development program for kids ages 5-12

Other game examples created by kids, 99¢ on Apple App Store:
- Butterfly Bubble Burst
- Valley Girl Buttons

Now watching Chris create a game in 4 minutes using GameSalad
- I could wirelessly transfer that app directly to my iPhone and play it there

PEW Internet Study from 2009: Demographics of teen cell phone users
- 75% of teens in each demographic group

Chris was evaluating a handheld grant in Georgia and found an extremely draconian cell phone policy
- hastily captured photo

Reason #3: New Tools + Old Ways = No Change
- mobiles not just for consuming

Biggest complaint from teachers on iPads: No flash video
- shows how many teachers just view a mobile device as a consumptive device to access/watch content online

Loeve 2: Access Information Anytime
- apps: from superhighway to Bypass
- August 2011 PEW Tracking survey, #2 most popular use for adults was “learning something new”

Level 3: Create Content (apps/games)

Why create mobile content?

Watching: “Baby Thinks a Magazine is a Broken iPad!”

Value proposition
- best way to learn something is to teach it
- gives kids and parents something to talk about

Reason #3: Mobile Content Creation = Learning

It’s incredibly engaging for kids to be creating apps and games
- motivation can be high

Just say no to PowerPoint!
- easy to share
- direct business connections

STEM connection
- all STEM jobs require some kind of computational thinking

You think a lot of people are getting rich creating mobile apps/games?

Is there gold in them that apps?
- 500,000+ apps
- 1 of the top 10 jobs in demand today
- the new American dream
- most popular categories: games, books, entertainment, education
- 400 new apps a day now
- 25 billion downloads to date on Apple App store alone

What can you learn creating a mobile app/game?
- user interface design
- instructional design
- media production
- game design
- programing
- robotics
- collaboration
- critical thinking
- marketing/business
- presentation / public speaking
- subject related content of the app / game: STEM skills

NET-S Alignment

STEAM – Integrating the Arts with STEM
STE@M

Reason f#5: Why Kids Should be Taught How to Code
- article by John Naughton, Open University

It’s becoming a moral obligation to teach kids MORE about technology and how these things operate
- if we don’t they are going to be cut off as users, who don’t know what is behind the curtain
- literacy in the future is not just about searching and finding information, but also being able to figure out when information is being manipulated

Let’s not forget Google manipulates information based on multiple factors when they present it in their search results

Kinds of Mobile Content / Apps
- Dropbox Documents
- images, movies
- web pages
- text and text rich files

On Device Creation
- iMovie, Keynote, Animoto, Flash Cards, TouchApp Creator, Creative Book Builder

iBooks, Kindle eBooks, Podcasts/Vodcasts
- interact books in hybrid forms

Web Apps
- HTML5 browser based, built with webkit
- don’t have to go through the app store

Native Apps
- faster execution than web apps, they are compiled
- full hardware access: accelerometer, GPS, camera, phone, email, gypos, accelerated graphics, etc

eBook / iBook Creation
- Apple Pages export
- Storyist for Mac
- Adobe InDesign
- Apple iBooks Author

Amazon Kindle has SDK, ADobe InDesign Plugin, converter apps

PDFs

iTunesU

Cartoon: Mom, you forgot to load my apps

Web App Creation Tools
- TouchApp Creator (App Store) – runs on iPad
- iBuildApp.com is browser-based application, has widgets to select
- NSBasic.com – GUI application, lets you program in basic and javascript
- Scirra.com (even driven point and click)
- Tersus.com
- AppCobra.com (Windows only)
- Appmobi.com (HTML5, javascript)

Hypercard lives on via RunRev.com

OH MY GOODNESS… THIS BRINGS BACK SOME FLASHBACKS…

Noncoding tools for Native app development
- GameSalad.com (Mac-only, the program we’ve used for all our camps)
- ClickTeam.com click and point
- AppInventor (now revived by MIT, Android-only)
- Stencyl.com (iOS only, Scratch-like)
- Unity3D

For our first iPhone game camp, we had 80 applicants for 12 slots
- this year had 200+ applications from 4 states and 3 countries

This weeks we are doing 7 weeks of camps, 25 kids at a time
- HUGE Interest in crating this kind of content

REsults to date:
i 92% said this has increased their interest in CS strongly
- 100% more likely to choose STEM career

What else can you do with a handheld
- control real world robotic devices
- AR Drone

Sphero is $100 rolling ball robot, iOS controllable

Our camp model: Kids learn techniques for 3 days, and then have 2 days to work on their own apps, then parents come for a showcase

Technorati Tags: app, education, game, ios, learning, mobile, stem, student, teach, mobile2012, games, camp, steam

Why Every Teacher Should Become an App Creator by Chris Thompson originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 11, 2012.

During the keynote, Jared Arentson of Tridom Media in Redwood Falls, Minnesota, took a series of photos which he shared with me afterwards via Dropbox. I’m not a great marketing person, and I really NEED more photos to use for conference programs and other marketing materials for my professional development / speaking services which are “yet to be developed.” I’ve visited with both Kevin and Clif Mims over the past couple years about some ideas for getting additional presentation photos. The best set I’ve had to date is from eTech Ohio back in 2009. Clif took some in February 2011 when I was in Mississippi for MECA, and I’m actually using one of those photos in the marketing materials I’ve put together for a May 10, 2012, “iPad Business Productivity Apps” training workshop I’m leading in Oklahoma City. The photos Jared took in March are VERY professional and I’m sure I’ll find good uses for them in the months ahead. Thank you Jared!

Technorati Tags: fryer, keynote, photos, playingwithmedia, wes, wesley, minnesota, marshall, photo

Teaching with an iPad in Minnesota About Playing With Media originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 10, 2012.

Employment for these positions begins 1 July 2012, for a “10.5-month renewable contract based on funding availability” paying $48K per year plus benefits. “Expert knowledge in the use of standardized tests and formative assessment data and their impact on student learning” is third among eight identified “knowledge/skill/abilities” for the position. Individuals must have “Successful full-time public school administration or public school teaching experience” but a minimum number of years of teaching experience is not specified. These SDE employees will be paid by state funds funneled through school districts, but will office out of regional technology centers.

H/T to Tammy Parks for sharing this news following last week’s REAC3H meeting in Tulsa.

Technorati Tags: ccss, coach, common, core, oklahoma, teach, teaching, reac3h, reach, network, teachers

Oklahoma SDE Providing Funds for 1 Year Common Core Coach Positions originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 9, 2012.

As far as I know (please correct me if I’m wrong and share a link as a comment) our Oklahoma SDE has not yet created a website for the summit with information about the schedule, speaker presentations, speaker handouts, etc. In Jennifer Lindsey’s January 11, 2012, article for “The Daily Ardmoreite” newspaper, Superintendent Barresi was quoted on the subject of the digital learning summit:

Barresi said she would have a summit to ad­dress issues con­cerning digital learning in April, describing the virtual learn­ing world as the “wild, wild west,” because of a lack of regulations. The sum­mit would be open for people across the state to express their opinion.

In advance of this event I’m reading several different books as well as other publications. I want to commend them to you whether or not you’re planning to attend April 19-20 in Oklahoma City. The publications I recommend reading in advance include:

1. Book: Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World by Tom Vander Ark (October 2011)
2. Website: The “10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning” from DigitalLearningNow.com
3. Report: The “Roadmap for Reform” (available as a PDF file) from DigitalLearningNow.com
4. Report: “The online learning imperative: A solution to three looming crises in education” (PDF) by former Governor Bob Wise & Robert Rothman (June 2010, published by the Alliance for Excellent Education)
5. Book: “Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education” by Terry Moe and John Chubb
6. Book: “Disrupting Class, Expanded Edition: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” by Clayton Christensen, Curtis Johnson and Michael Horn

I commend these materials for reading NOT because I am in 100% agreement with everything these authors espouse, but rather because these specific authors (from what I’ve read and heard to date) specifically articulate the “vision of digital learning” which our Oklahoma state superintendent espouses and is advancing with our governor (Mary Fallin) and fellow Republicans in the Oklahoma legislature. It is very important to understand the different assumptions and elements of this agenda for educational change. There are some very good ideas in these books and documents, but also some issues of concern. It will be great to have opportunities to learn more directly from state officials as well as edreform advocates like Tom Vander Ark and Richard Culatta at this summit.

I do not know yet what the official Twitter hashtag of the event will be (I asked this weekend) but will share it when it’s announced. If you are an educator attending the Oklahoma Digital Learning summit or interested in these issues, and are not YET on my “Oklahoma-Ed” Twitter list, please let me know via a Tweet or with a comment here. This summit will provide another good opportunity for networking and sharing, just as the outstanding OTA/Encyclo-Media conference did in February.

On that note, save the following dates:

1. Plan to attend OTA/Encyclo-Media this fall. The date has been changed to Oct 2-3, however, and the call for proposals is open until May 4.
2. The next month, in November, there will be at least THREE digital learning events in Oklahoma City for educators. The first of these will be the OU K-20 Center’s Innovative Learning Institute on Tuesday, November 6th.
3. The Friday of the same week, the Oklahoma Distance Learning Association (ODLA) Fall conference is scheduled for Friday, November 9th at Rose State.
4. The Fall 2012 Oklahoma Creativity Forum will be held a week later on Tuesday, November 13th.

It’s going to be a fall full of opportunities to learn “face to face” as well as digitally about education and educational resources in Oklahoma! Remember to follow the Oklahoma EDUshare website, contribute, and join the Oklahoma CCSS Diigo group to share resources as well.

The conversations at the April 19-20 Digital Learning Summit will be important to follow. Thankfully, digital learning affords us more opportunities than ever to stay in the loop as we face a variety of changes together.

Technorati Tags: digital, leadership, learning, oklahoma, politics, school, summit, virtual

Recommended Reading for Oklahoma Digital Learning Summit: 19-20 April 2012 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 8, 2012.

I’m glad it’s over.

A Five Photo Story for this Week originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 7, 2012.