Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Learning from Angela, Kern and Konrad

These are my notes from several K12Online09 presentation videos I watched this evening riding the Heartland Flyer Amtrak train from Fort Worth, Texas, back to Oklahoma City on my iPhone. This post was blogged on my netbook running Win7 using free Windows Live Writer software, downloadable from Microsoft as part of Windows Live Essentials. A Windows Live account/login is not required to download or use the software, if you have your own blogging site not hosted by Windows Live. I will share a separate post about configuring and using Windows Live Writer. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS.

Angela Maiers: Engaging Our Youngest Minds

Angela makes the case for bringing passion into teaching and learning, and differentiating instruction for students based on their individual interests and passions using technology

Kern Kelly: The iPod Touch in the Classroom

Kern highlighted 12 different iPhone / iPod Touch applications
– Stanza
– Google Mobile
– Skype
– RSS Flash g
– DropBox
– Recorder
– DataCase
– StoryKit
– Air Mouse Pro
– Google Earth
– Dictionary! (free, downloads offline)
– Kindle for iPhone
– Memos provides a way to edit Google Docs offline on an iPhone or iPod Touch

Amazon now owns Stanza (I HADN’T REALIZED THIS PREVIOUSLY. I SURE HOPE AMAZON DOESN’T KILL STANZA, I REALLY LOVE IT, ESPECIALLY HOW IT PERMITS THE CREATION OF EBOOKS FROM DIFFERENT DOCUMENT TYPES.)

Use Headset with microphone to use Skype on an iPod Touch Thumbtack Mic works well with iPod Touch

Use recorder and put a provided IP address in a web browser connected to the same network

as the iPod Touch to download recorded audio

Kern’s site with all these links: tinyurl.com/itouchineducation

Cheaper to get Applecare warranty for an iPod Touch through Amazon than on the Apple store

Notes from Konrad Glagowski’s keynote address in the "Leading the Change" stand of K12Online09. (Self-driven and Classroom-based: Professional Development in the 21st Century)

We need to view our classrooms as sites for professional development

We need to know who we are as teachers, understand our context and our needs as teachers,

to have a good schema as background to understand things we can learn from a PLN

Health of our PLNs should be measured by our reflections and conversations which come about

as a result of our PLN and interactions with members of our PLN

should enage with 2 or 3 critical colleagues
– otherwise we will "learn from" not "learn with"

we need to listen to our classrooms first
– classrooms should be the first node we explore and connect to/with

Quotation from Claxton in 2002:

If the main thing we know about the future is that we do not know much about it, then the key responsibility of the educator is not to give young people tools that may be out of date before they have been fully mastered, but to help them become confident and competent designers and makers of their own tools as they go along.

The 21st century demands that we help our students become inquirers and critical thinkers. To do this as teachers, we must become inquirers, critical thinkers, and researchers ourselves. Our professional practice must be in a state of continual experimentation.

Relationships between students and teachers are critical for classroom-based professional development

– should see our classrooms as places for democratic engagement

Transformative practice begins with reflection

3 critical elements in reflection: describing, questioning, confronting

critical to articulate our context, discover limiting forces and practices behind our everyday practices which define and may limit who we are / what we do, work to effect change to move beyond our limitations

Definitions of reflection:

Dewey in 1933: “Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.”

When we reflect from a content perspective, we can focus on our:

  • context
  • instructional practices
  • assumptions
  • goals and values

Reflections on classroom practice are NOT just about solving problems, but primarily about identifying them first (Schon, 1983)

asking ourselves “what are my weaknesses” is one of the toughest things we can do as professionals

An essential question to address as a reflective practitioner is: “How do my beliefs and values affect my classroom and my students?

Our teaching does not have to consist of “immutable practices” (changing our practices depends on identifying what our current beliefs are, and where they come from)

Today we need to examine our classroom practices regularly

  • we need to engage students regularly in inquiry and knowledge-building
  • we should challenge our existing frames of reference and assumptions
  • critiquing our daily practice on a regular basis is critical
  • everyday contexts should be used for our PD focus

We can find our own voices as teachers through this reflective process

Quotation from Claxton in 2002:

What is needed now is “reconceptualization of education as the creation of cultures and contexts within which young people develop the epistemic mentalities and identities characteristic of lifelong learners.”

Schools need to become communities of learning, sites of inquiry

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH KONRAD’S POINTS HERE, BUT ESPECIALLY LIKE THE FOLLOWING QUOTATION

Quotation from Claxton in 2002:

Schools should become communities of practice where the predominant practice is ‘learning’ … and where, concomitantly, the ‘elders’ of the community are themselves exemplary learners and skilled coaches of the arts and crafts of learning.”

Our students do not need schools which see their role as providing pre-packaged knowledge

THESE WERE ALL GREAT SESSIONS. SUPER TO BE ABLE TO TAKE THESE IN AND REFLECT ON THEM IN THE TRAIN, SINCE I’D PREVIOUSLY SUBSCRIBED TO THE K12ONLINE09 VIDEO PODCAST CHANNEL AND DOWNLOADED ALL THE VIDEOS PRIOR TO OUR TRIP!

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On this day..


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