NECC - Monday 6/30, part 3

Today has seen a little networking for this dork, saw a few peeps from Twin Town. Seriously I'm not cool enough to pull off that lingo. May have found a presenter group for the conference, that made me feel professional. Landed some Epson swag, luggage tag, gotta try to win an Epson projector later - White Trash Drive-In (movies on the deck at home) can't live on borrowed hardware forever and I'm too cheap to buy my own. hoping a former colleague will hook me up as a winner but unfortunately I don't think she operates like that.

Other sessions:
Poster Sessions
I like this addition to NECC. This is where I found some folks from New Glarus, WI. If you're not familiar, they have a delightful beer called Spotted Cow. Beside the beer, they've successfully implemented a technology grant from HP and registered measurable results. great job to New Glarus Elementary!

There were a few others, but I liked them and they gave out Cow Pie candies.

Where in the World? An Interactive GPS Lesson
Good idea, boring lesson to watch. I'll go to the web ste and get the info here. I wish I'd have arrived sooner to be one of the participants instead of member of the gallery.

Implementing and Managing a Successful Online Professional Development Program
This woman was straightforward, I like that. Question though, dork...was it useful? In the end for me, yes. It's a very simple planning process for developing and implementing almost any new system or process. I like that, I like step-by-step instructions for things I haven't done before. I just wasn't that impressed with the level of new information.

What I was hoping to get out of this:

1. Ideas for what I submitted to the EM conference in October - Google stuff so you can meet without meeting.
2. Ideas for setting up a professional development system in your district that utilizes online collaboration rather than physical meetings.
3. Ideas for professional development in our Second Life space.

I'll try to apply her ideas here. 'til tomorrow, off to win a projector!

NECC - Monday 6/30, part 2

Immersive Collaborative Simulations and Next Generation Assessments
Chris Dede

I like this guy. He was at TIES' December conference last year as a keynote and I missed his presentation. I didn't at the time realize what I had missed. Let me preface with this statement - I HATE EDUCATIONAL THEORY. Now, please let me explain.

I still consider myself a teacher even though I'm teaching adults instead of middle school students. In my seven years in Massiveurban Publicschool System I learned that it takes several years of consistent practice in a school or district to see real change in and the average life of a principal at a site seemed to be about 1-3 years (I was at 2 sites in my last 5 years and had a different admin team EVERY YEAR). Soooooo every principal that wanted to keep their job had a new theory presented every August for how to make the students perform, succeed, accomplish or whatever catch phrase that theory used.
(Breathe)
It was exhausting to try to keep up with every new idea that seemed only to rehash what some other researcher said, just with their own new glossary.

Chris Dede is a middle-aged guy who's thinking like our students. I'm much closer in age to digital natives than him and he's a better picture of their minds than I do. He's applying previous educational theory - Formative/summative assessments, scientific method and applying current technology to improve data gathered.

As I interpret, simulations are great but difficult to assess, if you can't assess, NCLB encourages decision makers to keep it out of the curriculum. Not in writing but by default. Built-in technologies in River City track every access, click , visit that a participant makes. Those activity logs allow teachers to assess what is being done and how. A simple example is seeing the pattern in how boys and girls learn with the game. Boys gathered data more by reading, seeking experts and using tools. Girls gathered more by interacting with characters and other avatars.

I also agree with his statement: If formative assessments are done correctly throughout the learning process (or unit) summative assessments are not necessary. Now, my agreeing with this mantra amounts to as much as can ft into the change pocket of circa 1990 Girbaud jeans, however I want it known that I think he's right despite the summative assessment climate sustained by NCLB.

If you're not using River City, which is probably most of the three of you that are reading, pay attention to what systems you have available. Collaborative tools like GoogleDocs and wikis let you revet to previous versions of a document and also track who has contributed what information. No longer do students have the anti-group argument that "I'll do all the work and they'll get the same grade," because you have a record of activity. Moodle tracks every mouse click. If you talk to your administrator (or get admin level access yourself like some dorks I know) you can see what students have done or not done.

Off to another session...

NECC - Monday 6/30, part 1

Orientation:
I left early, I liked the part about the maps and the guy there was funny for 7:15 AM. I think they hired an actor/comedian and gave him a script or else he has a side job at corporate parties.

Professional Learning Networks in Second Life:

You may recall my wicked kung fu from January. TIES' Second Life space is growing, we have a more permanent building but we just don't know how to develop the community we are looking for. This session is from a group of educators that created DEN, the Discovery Educator Network. It's exactly what it sounds like, a network of teachers in SL collaborating.

What I like: people doing what we are hoping to accomplish in SL. There are people behind me that are a part of Lighthouse Learing Island (Kathy Schrock's area). I want to talk more with them.

What I didn't: Not much on the how. I want to know more about how they are doing professional development. I agree with what they said, you need a little time to play, to learn how to operate in SL, but what I wanted was to know more about a formal structure of how they are meeting in SL. Meeting times, locations, how to set up a classroom or meeting space?

NECC - Sunday 6/29

Bags packed, kids with my in-laws, alarm set for (SWEET MARTHA!) 4:00 AM. Of course our bedroom clock is 9 minutes fast so we were in the kitchen at 3:54, I’m not sure why we went to the kitchen, neither of us are must-have coffee drinkers in the AM. I think we just wanted to know it wasn’t a joke. We hit the airport at 5:00 after a very pleasant cab ride with a wonderfully polite driver, met another chipper TSA security officer who checked our ID’s and hobbled to the gate.

MSP airport was smooth sailing, my compliments to American Airlines and MSP.

Dallas/Fort Worth was another story. Except for the Dunkin Donuts coffee (it really is good, especially for a first-timer) they almost screwed us over. Gate change one came over the intercom, two doors down, no biggie. Gate change two came without announcement and we had to catch the tram to a different section – slightly more harrowing.

I met Andrew Trotter from Education Week at the gate – it was he who checked with the gate and realized that it had changed – thanks to him. Also thanks for my first networking opportunity.

We had an hour of down time before I went to the ABC’s of Advocacy. Overwhelming on day 1 but everything made sense. We’re going to slowly create a community of action. We from MN were realizing that there is not a strong state level presence to influence policy, so we’re going to create one. HOW? I will not reveal my secrets. I always wanted to be a magician – now I’ll just keep the secrets like one.

Scratch - MPS Tech Academy

E-Learning Summit - Michael Wesch

Most people in educational technology have seen the video, A Vision of Students Today, put together by Michael Wesch and his students at Kansas State University. If you haven't, GO HERE. I saw this video last year, but had forgotten about it. I'm not exactly sure but when I first saw it I never got past the "that's really insightful" phase of recognition. Do you like how I just created the "phase of recognition" out of nowhere? I should have become a psychologist. But let me return from my digression.

My immediate response - "Holy smokes we are doing an incredible disservice to students."
My secondary response - "Holy smokes we need to fix this."
My tertiary response - "Slow down smokey."

I operate my life on the theory that nobody will change their behavior unless they are forced to by a change in situation. It's the reason that spouses think they can change their partners and fail. The other person won't change unless they are threatened with losing something valuable. When I was in the classroom I taught as I remembered good teachers teaching, that is, the teachers that I liked best because I learned from them. I was patient, creative, funny (at least I thought so). I found interesting readings, made real world connections, performed simulations but I still missed the mark on many students. I was still the authority in the class not letting the network of learning relationships develop.

The reason was that I always fell back on my experiences in education as a student - the classes I liked and believed were taught well. I emulated those teachers and classes. I wasn't taking what was in front of me - the change in students' ability to network and understanding that we needed a paradigm shift.

To follow my earlier logic, I wasn't forced to change because I didn't see the same students as others in, shall we say, more fortunate locales. Some stats about the last group of students I worked with:

• 94% free/reduced price lunch (high poverty)
  
• 15% ELL
  
• 25% of my students had internet access at home
• 45% had access within walking distance
• behavior - I ratcheted down rules and structure to keep behavior problems at a minimum
  

They weren't like Wesch's students, at least that's my excuse. Does anyone believe it?

What I want to take from his session:

• Understand that ubiquitous networks are almost here - everyone will be connected and multi-tasking. We need to harness that idea and work it into class structure not try to prevent it.
  
• Platform for Participation
• Use the Web 2.0 and 3.0 tools available - collaborative, constructive.
• Ensure students are using the media for communication and collaboration.
  
• Facilitate - set the stage, direct and let the students learn.
• Despite not wanting to (the tendency is to use an authoritarian system), you need to manage the network of relationships in the class [n(n-1)/2].

To close, I'm a fan of Wesch. As an anthropologist he has a solid understanding of cultural trends including technology in education. I will be happy to continue following his research in the field. More to come.

Epiphany analyzed. End rant.

Scratch it up

MIT, the technical wizards of the United States, developed a programming language called Scratch. It's not for super dorks writing code all day long so they can feel smarter than anyone else. It was designed with education in mind. I am in favor of teaching computer programming as a skill in school but not so they can program a computer for the rest of their lives. Believe it or not, knowing a computer language isn't that important - it's understanding the process of program development that is. Anyone can learn syntax, but the great programmers know how to manipulate commands to do what they want . They are the mad scientists of the computer world.

Relying on rote language and syntax restricts some students from learning well. I previously taught in a large urban district with a high ELL population (that's English Language Learners). I had bright, hard working kids whose grades didn't always reflect that because they didn't have a commanding grasp of English.

Enter Scratch. Students learn problem solving, developmental process, cause/effect, game theory, artistic themes, animation... all without relying on language because of how Scratch is applied.

It's also versatile. You can create animated scenes, slide shows, games - my favorite because of it's nostalgia is a perfect recreation of Nintendo's Duck Hunt, click the screen to go there.



Awesome. As big a Nintendo geek as I was, this is impressive. But it's not just recreating my childhood, Scratch opens the door for students and teachers to use it to teach concepts and skills in a constructive, interactive and authentic way.

I'll leave you with a project I created for the purpose of explaining RSS feeds. Let me know what you think.


Learn more about this project