Month: March 2007

I ran into this very thoughtful post (Talking to Administrators about Podcasting) by Dan Schmit about podcasting in schools.  I’m including excerpts here with my comments, but please go read his original post and take a look at his new book,

…if you are heading to your administrator to ask for assistance in getting podcasting moving in your school, here are some key points to think about:

• Understand the things that are important to administrators
• Focus on student outcomes
• Describe technology needs – stay focused on low threshold applications and supports
• Begin thinking of your school as a network of content experts
• Begin thinking of your school community as a potential audience
• Describe a plan for sustainability

I like what he says about understanding what administrators need.  It’s what I wish I had thought to say at the large group conversation that Will Richardson and I moderated at NCAECT.  The key to making changes in schools is solving people’s problems.  They/we will go for it if it solves a problem.

Also in the post, Dan includes:

..if you are an adminstrator who wants to build capacity for podcasting in your school…here are some places to start:

• Identify the “Great Communicators” in your building
• Give them a mission
• Invest in a mobile podcast station
• Secure some server space
• Make your acceptable use policy – “podcast ready”
• Assign the content tasks to content people and the technical tasks to technical people
• Use your position to promote and encourage the development of your school’s content network

Do read this blog posting from Dan Schmit and his other writings.

NCAECT was an amazing conference this year, and not just because of the all star presenters the association brought in (Will Richardson, Leslie Fisher, Chris O’Neal, Elliot Soloway, and Cathleen Norris) — but also because of the attendees.  Many of them were not tech all stars.  They were rookies, just off the street.  They were elementary classroom teachers, science teachers, social studies teachers, health and PE teachers.  I just read this blog post from Hitchhikr, on my way to bed, and it made my heart sore.  I’ve been in a real funk since Will Richardson’s report on his conversation with Representative Lamarr Alexander.  But I’m all better now!

Technology Alarm Clock! « socializeit:

My alarm goes off every morning at 5:05 and I go to school to teach my 6th graders social studies. Nice school, people, students…….I feel good about my classes and oh such great lesson plans…..NOT! My technology alarm clock went off at the NCAECT Conference big time! Will Richardson led me to realize that I can’t hit the snooze button any longer….

Please read the rest of her post.

All I can say is that I’d take one Gale Fitts over a thousand…     

Well I’m not going to say it, but you know. 

You know!

Earlier today, I suggested that teachers might create commercials for their classes.  Neil Hokanson posted a comment pointing to his class commercial from several years ago.  The question is should have continued on with was, “How might a classroom commercial help you do your job?” 

What about asking students to make the commercial at the end of the school year?

Classroom Commercials « Hokanson’s Instructional Technology:

I have done this for my classroom the past few years. My goal was to get some pictures of students on the first day of school and prep the video to be shown the next day as I introduce the course. I only happened to find one of these “commercials” from the 2002-2003 school year (I never thought to hang on to all of them!), and I have uploaded it to YouTube. This activity can also be extended by having students create commercials for projects, places, books, etc. The possibilities are endless and fun!

This Video Games as Learning Engines presentation is starting to rock.  I had to do it in 45 minutes at NCAECT, but it still rolled along.  One of the best things about it is that I get to play a lot of media with some great music.  It’s a good session to present right after lunch.

One of the videos that I play is a commercial for Sid Meirs’ Civilization IV.  I originally found this commercial on a Video Games web site, so it is obviously pitched to young gamers, who aren’t watching all that much television.  It’s compelling and who can say, “no,” to President Bartlett.

Several weeks ago, while I was playing it at a conference and got to thinking about how this video is selling the game to its viewers, it occurred to me that if I had a commercial for my history textbook, it wouldn’t be much different from this.

So!

What if you had a commercial for your text book?  What if you made a commercial for your textbook?  Could You?

What if you had a commercial for your class?  What ifyou made a commercial for your class?  Could You?

Schools are radio. 
Set your channel and listen. 
I choose Tivo-School!

             My very first Haiku 😉

I’m in the back of the room, with the electricity — though the buzz throughout this conference center hall indicates an electricity of anticipation.  Will Richardson is known by all.  It’s the magic of blogging that so many can become so famous by publishing.  He, of course, deserves all of the notoriety, which he uses skillfully to press forward a case for retooling education, what we teach and how we teach it.

It’s not an all together comfortable place to be.  I’m back against the wall, but there is just enough room for people to across in front of me getting from one part of the hall to another, and they keep stepping on my feet.

Oh!  The referees have just marched in blowing — were those whistles?   Great fun!  The theme is taking it to the net.  Think UNC, NC States, and Duke.  They’re all no more than a basketball’s toss from where we are right now. 

Will tells me that I’ve seen all of his…

just a sec.  A member of the Science & Technology Committee in the North Carolina House of Representatives.  She’s actually staying for the entire conference.

Will has them spell-bound!

Anyway, Will says I’ve seen everything in his keynote before.  Well, I’ll be the judge of that over the next hour.  So comments and commentary follow…

Will has already been coached by the young man who introduced him and by me to talk slowly, because he’s down south.  We like to savor our words.  Will’s wiki handouts are at:

http://willrichardson.wikispaces.com/

An emerging theme of his speech is that the world of our children is dramatically different from the world we grew up in (1950s and ’60s in my case).  It’s the YouTube generation.  We are watching the YouTube presidential campaign.  It’s about learning.  Will Richardson is a learner, and he learns through his blog.  Everyone he interacts with, who reads his blog, who blogs about his blog, who comments on what he’s written — is a potential teacher for him …and they come to his blog because they believe that he is a potential teachers for them.

Kids understand this in a personal way.  They do not understand it as a life-long learning skill.  It’s a personal living skill.  MySpace is where they go to learn, and it is not going away.  Will pulls up a MySpace account maintained by a young woman, and it is very much a glamor site — highly suggestive images.  Will compellingly makes the case that this young woman has put an enormous amount of time into maintaining her site.  Several educators are murmuring about the dangers and how she is making inapproproate use of her site.  I want to say, “She’s expressing herself exactly the way that our culture has taught her to express herself.”  Just watch TV!

Good Point!  Certainly some of what is available on the Wikipedia is not correct.  We don’t know how much, though studies indicated that the Wikipedia is amazingly accurate.  But — compare this with the probably percentage of what we teach today, that will not be accurate ten — or five — years from now.  We, educators, are swimming in a wikipedia style of curriculum, foundering in an ocean of rapidly changing times

Another good point!  Many kids are now doing their work in blogs and wikis.  They have readers and commenters.  They are engaged in conversations about their work.  They are invested in their work.  The rest of our children work on work sheets that are seen only by their teachers.  They have nothing invested in those pieces of paper.

An outstanding introduction to this 2007 NCAECT Conference…

The workshops were over, attendees were filtering out, and the conference staff was busily dashing around getting ready for the first general day of the NCAECT conference.  I’d just met Will Richardson in the hall when a group of educators floated up.  Their eyes were spinning.  Their complexion was a bit pale, while the willowy vapors of overheated brains rose from the tops of their heads.  I was correct in my original suspicion that they were suffering from six-hours of Web 2.0.  They had just stumbled out of Will’s workshop

     …and they hadn’t had enough.

Interestingly, a search of Flickr creative commons pictures for Senior Project brought up 169 photos.

The conversation came around to North Carolina’s move to require all high school students to submit and defend a senior project for graduation, and that it begins with this year’s freshmen.  You can read about it in a January 10 article from our capital paper, the News & Observer — an articled called Senior project goes statewide by Marti Maguire.

Throughout our conversation, we tried to repaint this concept with the spirit of the new web.  What finally came out was that perhaps the project should not be called a Senior Project, implying that it is something that you do your final year, and instead be called the High School Project — and that students be urged to begin their work on the first day of their freshman year. 

In addition, their work should be public, that their progress and evolving products should be something that is available to the public via a blog, wiki, or some other social information construct — and that the project would become a conversation between the learner, teachers, and the community.  I would suspect that the typical student would likely change the topic of their project during their four years, perhaps several times.  But that would be OK.  It’s part of being a life-long learner.

The affect, I think, would be the development of true learning literacies, an appreciation of, and membership in their adult community, and graduation with not only grades, test scores, and a project — but they would also be graduating with an expertise.  It would be one of many to come.

Image Citation:
Lacy, Adrianne. “Brendan’s senior project.” Adrianne Lacy’s Photostream. May 1, 2006. 13 Mar 2007 <http://flickr.com/photos/adriannelacy/138733300/>.

Will Richardson and I had a less than satisfying conversation yesterday about efforts to retool education for 21st century teaching and learning.  We struggled with the pivot points of power that might be tipped, and kept coming out at top leadership — a nearly unreachable audience. 

Then, upon returning to his room, Will gets an e-mail from the office of Lamarr Alexander (R-TN), inviting him to a conference call on Wednesday. 

Will’s blog (Talking Education with US Senators — Questions Anyone?) about this has already stirred up enormous conversation (at least by the standards of my blog) about what he should ask and what he should say.  I would recommend coming at it with no more than three main points from which to seek information and from which to express concerns and concrete ideas. 

From Three Bullet Dave, I would suggest:

• Economy — It’s global, constantly changing, and it increasingly relies on rich information skills.
• Our Customers — They are tech savvy, effective collaborators, who are accustomed to a rich, interactive, and dynamic information experience.  They know how to play the information.  They need to learn how to work the information.
• Our Schools — The very nature of information has changed.  It is networked, digital, and overwhelming, and it can’t be contained in any folder, book, bookshelf, library, or school.  How can we redesign schools (reinvent education) to address and harness this new shape of information?

My 2¢ Worth!

First, “It’s great to be home,” and it is hard to reconcile being in Minneapolis earlier this week, with sub-zero wind chills, and today, here in Raleigh, where it’s almost warm.  Here are some blooming daffodils from our garden.  During my walk with the dog this morning I actually saw some azaleas starting to bloom.  Unreal!

Alas, the NCAECT conference starts tomorrow, but at least I get to sleep at home.  It will be great to see Will Richardson again, especially to see his keynote address.  I’ve seen him present several times, but not the big show!

We’re both doing all day pre-conference workshops tomorrow, and then the general conference runs on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I’ll be doing a video games session and podcasting.  I’m also going to enjoy a team presentation with Frances Bradburn, the director of the Instructional Technology Division of the State Department of Public Instruction.  It will be a session on Web 2.0 and how to manage its use in education.

Will and I will also be doing a session together, a panel discussion, that I suspect (and hope) will be a general conversation among the audience, sort of EduBlogggerCon in nature.  With that in mind, and with other events on the horizon, I’ve set up a starter page on the EduBloggerCon wiki site, asking folks (you) to pose starter questions that might be a good springboard for these sorts of group conversations.  I’ve included three obvious ones, but encourage you to enhance these questions and add others.  I’d like to keep the list as short as possible, so if you can add your question by piggybacking on an existing one, that would be great. 

Go here for the EduBloggerCon starter page.