A Piece of My Mind

Wow. This was one of the best sessions I have attended at NECC this year. Not because there was any new solution to any problem. Not because there was actually a debate of an issue with opposing sides (there was). Not because I got to see and hear a lot of great minds all in one place (I did). I say it was the best session because it was a nice extension of the conversation we all need to have, but it was broader. We heard voices of those fearing their presence of even being in the room due to not grasping much of the concepts and terms being thrown around, yet they stepped up and voiced that opinion. We heard from those who truly wanted a line drawn between “tools” and “technology integration” from a pedagogical view. Contextual use instead of forcing a tool because it is the cool one to be using now.  That is just the beginning of the hour we had.

So here is where I am at. Pick through the content from this session and you can find dozens of strands of discussion to choose from to start your own conversation. Find the others talking about it in the backchannel and search them out on blogs or Twitter and continue it with them. They are in this conversation because they care and want to better education for our kids. They WANT to keep up the conversation. I do not know of one person in my experience of ed tech that will shut you down and not converse with you because you are new or on a different path than they are. Most want to learn from others who have different perspectives and experiences. It is what I stay in it for. Link your blog post back to here (since the trackback will show me where you are talking/writing at) and I will join in. I look forward to it.

Linked here is the backchannel of the session. Here are Wes Fryer’s notes on the session as well.  If I find the video or audio files linked somewhere I will link to those as well.

Talk on!

It’s a funny thing being a presenter. While I really work hard to make my own presentations engaging (and fail at times, I’m sure) I find myself more critical of others. Now, by critical, I mean both good and bad. I am always looking to see what makes one a better presenter over another and also what was the “thing” that released the crowd from the stream of thought so they would day dream instead.

With that in mind, several posts and conversations were had this year at NECC that I took notice of. While Scott McLeod and Doug Johnson do nice jobs of sharing their thoughts and even offering suggestions, one of the things that got my attention was a conversation had at the Google gathering with several others including Scott Meech and Dean Shareski.

Standard sessions have turned into sit and gets and have lost their luster. Poster sessions might be the better option. What makes one better than the other? The conversations. My presentation this year was changed from a standard session to a poster session. At first it was mixed feelings, but after having gone through my two hours of the poster session, it is all good. I was able to have deeper conversations with more people than if I had stood in front of an audience sharing the same information. The engagement for both me as a presenter and them as an audience was a far better experience than I have had in other settings. Dean noted that he felt it might be the better route to have the session conversations take place (as opposed to the unconference sessions conversations).

While many of us say the best PD takes place in the halls of the conference, maybe the poster session is the next best thing. Should that idea be expanded?

Now, let’s take ourselves from the position of teacher/learners at a conference and move into the position of learner in a school setting. Yeah, I would have preferred this type of setting in school as well.

necc09

Photo Credit: Me
My son told me the other day he was using an educational site his teacher (Mrs. Richeson) had bookmarked in her delicious account, and then he proceeded to recite her URL from memory and say it was easy to do. And he is 8.

Okay, so Alan Levine was kidding in his comment to the post introducing this video to me when he called them “little copyright thugs.” One has to kid about the topic after seeing the following video posted on Alec Couros’s blog. But let me say before you watch it, art and music are SOOOOOOO important for all of us to be able to express our emotions and life lessons in a format rather then keeping them pent up inside and not letting the world see how great a person each of us can be on the inside. We all have our favorite picture or song or poem that means the world to us for personal reasons. I think this teacher and many of the kids just found one of their own. 

With that being said, here are the “little copyright thugs.”

Can you see the engagement in the song that the kids had? It was not “hey we’re making a movie” or “watch me be the star of this thing.” It was a genuine expression of engagement brought out by an educator that we all hope to see in our classrooms (albeit, I never had poetry written or recited in my class with such passion as these kids shared). Oh, and the kicker is that these kids have been invited by Stevie Nicks after she saw this video on YouTube to sing it in Madison Square Gardens. Feel free to drop by the kids’ blog and let them know how great they really are: http://www.ps22chorus.blogspot.com/ Not bad for a campus where 3 out of 4 are on free/reduced lunch, huh?

Quick point here. Notice they blog. Notice that we now notice how great these kids AND their teacher both are. Enough noticing. Read on.

Now, let’s consider what Alec was getting at. This explicitily shows why we should be publishing our kids’ work. They are going to experience things because of this short 2 minute video that most of us only dream about. Why? Their teacher thought enough to show off what they can do to the world. Sure, it might all be a fluke that Stevie Nicks saw the video and invited them, but the fluke was not possible without that teacher making that concious choice to publish the work. Also, think of the lives this can touch with those kids. Already fighting their way out of a hole poverty-wise, they can now see they have value, skills, hope, and a teacher that obviously loves them very, very much. Did you catch his commentary at the end? It was three words: “That was goooooood.” I have not seen a bigger smile on any face than he had on his at that moment. Even Darren Kuropatwa zoomed in on that part of it. It just says so much.

So, let’s review here. The kids practice a Fleetwood Mac song. The teacher decides to record them singing it. The outcomes:
1. We are inspired by what these kids can do with a passion.
2. The parents obviously know their kid’s teacher loves his job and his students a TON.
3. Stevie Nicks sees the video via a social networking video site, cries, falls in love with the kids, and invites them to perform at Madison Square Gardens.
4. Ed tech guys and gals jump on the story as a way to motivate their own teachers to do such things as publishing more (any) student content.
5. The students see a new value in school and learning and that there is light at the end.
6. Teacher gets a book and movie deal and becomes Mr. Holland’s Opus II: The Modern Version (I made that up, but it could happen).

I hope Alec finds a way to weave this post and video into his time with us in White Oak on June 12th. Did I mention he is one of the keynoters and a featured presenter? Feel free to join us.

In the meantime, fire up your class blog and get your students’ work out there. The world needs to see just how good they (and you) really are.

Last year I had the honor of attending Gary Stager’s conference Constructing Modern Knowledge. It was time very well spent. If you have the time and resources to make it to his event this summer, you will not regret it. He and his presenters will make you think, discuss, experiment, and collaborate like never before. If we are lucky, NECC will invite Dr. Stager to be a part of the debate at NECC, and you will be able to get a preview of what you have ahead of you.  Here is what you need to know:

Dear Constructing Modern Knowledge Pioneer,

As the director for Area 7, please accept my invitation to the following:

Area 7 TCEA is accepting proposals for presenting at our annual TCEA Area 7 Technology Conference to be held June 12, 2009, in White Oak ISD at White Oak Middle School (outside of Longview, TX).

Scheduled to be featured presenters are Dean Shareski, Alec Couros, and Jennifer Wagner along with great Texas talents Maria Henderson, Stephanie Sandifer, Randy Rogers, the GIS team from Bishop Dunne High School (Christine Voigt, Kyle Stevens, and Paul R. Wood), Diana Benner, 2009 TCEA Educator of the Year Pam Cranford, Janet Corder, and Joan Gore. 

One of the highlights of the day will be the closing session where some of the featured presenters will face off in a “Cool Tools Duel” sharing what they feel are the best online Web 2.0 tools available for educators in a rapid-fire style event (60-120 seconds per tool). This will allow all attendees to leave with a list of new things to try over the summer in preparation for the new school year.

Our local staff who were 2009 TCEA attendees are being asked to present at least one session at our conference sharing what they learned and implemented. Maybe you are asking your teachers to do the same in your district, and this is their chance to present to others. We already have sessions lined up for wikis, paperless classrooms, tools for the primary teachers, and Nings. But we need more!

The session might be a round table discussion about how to use different technologies in the classroom now and in the future, or it can demonstrate how you have used technology with your students, campus, or district this year. We would love more sessions on opensource software use, electronic portfolios, technology assessment (both educator and student), core area technology integration, elementary technology sessions, remote hosting/cloud computing, classes that have switched to electronic textbooks, and more.

Since we have all levels of educators that attend (admin, network directors, multiple grade levels, multiple levels of experience, etc), you can present on pretty much any tech topic at any level of expertise. If you presented at TCEA in Austin this year, submitted a proposal to submit (that did not get accepted), or are working on one to present at 2010 TCEA, feel free to use that same session in Area 7 for our conference. We anticipate having 50 minute sessions with 250 attendees.

We have a web form created for you to submit your session proposal online. This helps us organize the conference much easier than paper. We need to have your submission within the next three weeks in order for us to get our programs created and printed. We ask that you have everything submitted no later than the end of the school day on May 22, 2009. You will find the form here: http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/course/category.php?id=9

If you are interested in just attending the event, that is okay, too.  Registration is $25 for both members and non-members (free for presenters), and it includes the conference, Bodacious BBQ luncheon, a vendor area, and plenty of door prizes. Watch the Area 7 page on the TCEA site for registration information.  I also have updated information in the Area 7 Tech Conference Moodle located at http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/  There you will find an agenda, session listings (as they come in), vendor information, registration information, directions, and any updates to the conference including presenter handouts.  We will have on-site registration at the same $25 rate as well, but we prefer at least a heads-up on your anticipated attendance so that we can have plenty of promo bags and lunch for everyone.

We look forward to a great conference on June 12th and hope to have your participation. Email me for more information - floyds@woisd.net

I have a tab opened in my Firefox browser that I have not been able to close for several weeks because it keeps drawing me back to it. I figured I would post it here for my teachers to see as well in the hope that it will allow them to stop and ponder at the same time. The list is “20 Uses for Our Classroom Blog,” and it comes from Sheryl Forsman via Miguel Guhlin in San Antonio ISD. Thanks to you both. It is a great list that gives both wonderful ideas for immediate use and the opportunity to extend to newer ones.

20 Uses for Our Classroom Blog

Why did we create a classroom blog and how will we use it?
1. document our growth across the year
2. inform families of what we are doing
3. expand our audience
4. collaborate with other first grade bloggers
5. use another form of writing
6. learn about writing for an audience
7. learn about digital literacy
8. document favorite events of this year
9. integrate writing with other subjects
10. write book reviews
11. write journal entries
12. respond to class assignments
13. free choice writing
14. develop keyboard skills
15. communicate with each other
16. collaborate with reading buddies from other classrooms
17. collaborate with teachers from the university as blogging buddies
18.post pictures of our work
19. learn about visual literacy through the design of our pages
20. to have fun!

Now maybe I can finally close that tab.

To my friend from Chicago who does not get the opportunity to visit Chick fil A like we do.

Below you will find the presentation I gave at the ATPE conference in Austin titled Social Networking: not just for kids anymore. The focus of the session was how educators can use the power of social networks to create their own personal learning networks (PLNs). We discussed Facebook and MySpace, but we did not cover them in any depth since a lot of people are already using them personally.

While most of the slides are just visual representations of what I was talking about, it might help a few in attendance to remember some of that conversation we had. I am going to add a few more items here that we did not have time for in the sessions, though. As I said in the session, feel free to call, email, or comment below. I will get back with you ASAP (and generally it is pretty quick).

Find the links below for the sites we previewed. One thing to remember: A network is only as strong as each link in it. Jump in and enjoy the ride. You will learn so much from so many that you probably will never meet, yet, it will be some of the closest bonds you could ever create professionally. Consider it your education accountability group.

I want to thank Paul R. Wood for Skyping in to share with us how PLNs have changed the way he learns and does his job. He and his posse at Bishop Dunne are absolutely top notch educators in every facet. If I could just get them to move east just a little bit…..

When Paul and I had the connection issue during the second session, one of my other buddies from Texas just happened to shoot me a Skype chat at the exact instant I needed him (that seems to be how these PLNs work for us). John Maklary accepted an invitation to have a Skype conversation. He failed to ask if it was in the middle of one of the sessions. Which it was. Which worked beautifully. Thanks, John. I owe you some Q, buddy.

Then, one of the attendees made a valid point: those guys are not in the classroom everyday, so how would it work if they were and using Skype. So, I did what every person in my PLN would do; rely on the classroom teachers in my PLN to share. Pam Cranford, the 2009 TCEA Educator of the Year and fellow classroom blogger, answered the Skype call into her classroom. She grabbed her MacBook up and walked around her room and into the hall unknowingly demonstrating the power of a laptop, wireless, and a free program like Skype. Thanks, Pam!

I thoroughly enjoyed the two 1 hour sessions I was able to present. I look forward to future ones, and maybe even a longer session where everyone can get hands-on into building their own PLNs.

Skype: free audio, video, both or chat calls online
skype.com Find me on Skype - WOScholar

Twitter Links: social networking in 140 characters or less
www.twitter.com Find me on Twitter - WOScholar

Blogs: online workspace
Edublogs.org
Wordpress.com

RSS: allows subscription to bring content to you
reader.google.com
bloglines.com
feedburner.com

Delicious: social bookmarking
delicious.com - My Delicious account - Sabestian

Flickr: online photo storage
Flickr.com

photo credit: INCSUB

I have to say, James Farmer has done everyone in education an outstanding service by offering this new program of his. For just $195, he and his crew will have you set-up with your own personal Wordpress MU site (you provide the URL) without all of the frustrations of doing it yourself (or trying, anyway). Then, for $25 a month, pSek will provide the hosting. That’s a steal for WPMU hosting.

Now, if you are serious about growing a much larger WPMU system, maybe this is a great start with a move to more bandwidth in the future. I kept looking for pSek’s plan for that type of growth. I do have to say, though, that with our bloggers using embed codes instead of storing media on our server, it has helped in many areas, not to mention embeding is a good skill for them to learn anyway. Maybe James will leave a comment below or blog a little of his own about how many blogs he thinks this platform will handle at pSek before you need to look for some increased power on the server and bandwidth. This might actually be all anyone needs.

What I do know for sure is that James can and will provide top notch support. There is no doubt about that.

If I were a classroom teacher just now looking to start blogging with my kids in a serious fashion and lots of control, this would be money well spent.