The Fischbowl

Tis the Season

2009-12-17T16:22:00.003-07:00

Just like the last three years, I can't afford the postage to send this to all of you in my PLN. If you celebrate a holiday this time of year, then I wish you a good one. Thanks for all you do. And I wish all of you peace and happiness.

Blogging for The Huffington Post: I’m Gonna Need Your Help

2009-12-11T07:14:00.004-07:00

In the next week or so, The Huffington Post is going to add some new "blog topic" pages within their existing Technology section. One of those topic pages is going to be "Tech + Education," and I've been asked to be a contributing blogger to that section.

(Update 12-16-09: They've decided to delay the Tech + Education section until January 11th, 2010, so that it doesn't get lost in the holidays. This is perfect, as it gives me almost four more weeks to lose sleep over this.)

This was not an easy decision for me for a variety of reasons. The Huffington Post is a different space than this blog, and that brings with it both some good things and some not so good things. One of my concerns is that the conversations on that blog can get both off-topic and somewhat uncivil at times. Not only do I not have a very thick skin, but I'm not particularly interested in contributing to something that generates a lot of noise but doesn't actually move the conversation forward.

The Huffington Post is also generally considered to have a political bias, and – while I realize everything has a political aspect to it – I don’t want what I write about (and what we’ve all been talking about these last few years) to be viewed as being on one political "side" or the other. I'm not very much interested in "sides," I'm more interested in solutions. I know it's naïve, but I don't view any of this stuff through a political lens, I just want to write about and think about and talk about learning. And students. And teachers. And technology. And how best to do this thing we call school. And I want it to make a difference.

So I thought about this for a while, went back and forth with myself, and finally decided to give this a shot for a couple of reasons. First, it's an opportunity to take this conversation to a wider and different audience than typically reads this blog. We've all talked about "preaching to the choir" and the "echo chamber," and how we need to engage with folks that typically are not present in our spaces, and this is an opportunity to do that. I've written more than once about teachers and students being willing to take some risks in their teaching and learning, so I guess I better walk the walk and take a risk myself.

Second, and this is the main reason for this post, I'm counting on a secret weapon to help me out with this.

You.

(Stop looking around, I'm talking to you.) I figure if I can bring all of you with me, then I have a much better shot at making this work.

So, here's the deal. Whenever I post to The Huffington Post I'm going to cross-post here, and I'm going to both ask and count on all of you to get involved in the conversation there as well as here. Now, I'm not asking you to always agree with me (although, you know, it would be nice if you occasionally did). What I'm asking is that you bring your perspective as thoughtful people that have been thinking and writing and commenting and struggling with these issues for a while now into a space where many of the folks reading and commenting are coming at this from a different perspective. That doesn't mean their perspective is wrong or that we can't learn from it, it simply means that we need your perspective as well. If you'll join me there, then maybe, just maybe, we can do some good.

What do you say?

Which Campaign is More Effective?

2009-12-09T16:10:00.001-07:00

Both LG and MTV have current campaigns centered around CyberSafety/Bullying/Sexting/Ethics. Alec Couros tweeted about the LG Give It A Ponder Campaign which stars James Lipton from Inside the Actors Studio fame. Here’s one of the videos:

I like the spots, but tweeted back that I wondered if this campaign would be effective with the target audience – presumably pre-teens, teenagers and young adults. Did I like them because I know who James Lipton is and can appreciate the context?

Then a day or two later I came across MTV’s A Thin Line campaign. These videos are very, very different than the LG ones. I’m sharing one below, but fair warning that some folks might find these offensive and, if you plan on showing these in your school, you might want to clear it with whomever you typically clear controversial things with. Now, I think this is appropriate at least for high school students (otherwise I wouldn’t share it on this blog), but others might disagree.

My first thought was that the MTV videos would be much more effective at stimulating a class discussion, and also grab the target audience’s attention even if seen “in the wild.” But then I wondered if any public service campaign on this topic (or any topic, for that matter) can really make a difference. I certainly think that most high school students, if you sat down and talked to them about these issues, could tell you the perils of sexting or cyberbullying, yet obviously some of them are engaging in these activities anyway. If that’s the case, then can/will a PSA convince them otherwise?

What are your thoughts? Would you use these in a high school classroom? Do you think these videos can be effective – either on their own, or paired with classroom discussion? And, no matter your opinion on those questions, are you addressing this topic in some way in your school?

I Read (?) The News Today, Oh Boy

2009-12-08T14:41:00.004-07:00

Just a quick post to share this concept video from Sports Illustrated (digital breadcrumbs: Scott McLeod, Judy O’Connell, Daniel Pink, Apple Insider, Peter Kafka).

More evidence that the way we interact with “text” is changing. To combine and paraphrase something I’ve heard David Warlick say more than once with something Jason Ohler says:

We need to stop paper training our students. We should spend less time training our students how to use paper, and more time helping them use digital tools to interact in meaningful and productive ways with the media forms of the day.

Also reminds me of this post:

Note that this is additive - no one is suggesting that words don't matter, that what we traditionally think of as "writing" is no longer important, but that the very nature of composition is more complex now, and that our instruction, our pedagogy, our learning spaces need to reflect that.

. . . Writing (composing) is no longer exclusively a solitary activity. And we need to expand our definition of composition beyond only text and beyond only a specific medium (book, research paper, academic journal).

"Text" is changing. Is your classroom?

Google Goggles: Why Didn’t I Think of That?

2009-12-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

So, Google Goggles is now in beta in Google Labs and available on Android phones.

Humorous name aside, the product looks to be a huge leap forward in the field of visual search — by which I mean, you point a camera at something and Google figures out what it is.

Here’s a little video explanation.

As the Tech Crunch article mentions, it’s somewhat similar to ShopSavvy. I’ve used the ShopSavvy demo video in my last couple of presentations, replacing another video I had been using of an iPhone app called Bionic Eye. That made me think of an earlier post of mine where I said:

This is a nice little app for what it does, but imagine what it’s going to evolve into: a portable heads-up display for everything. Yes, right now it lists restaurants, subway stations (in certain cities), and wifi hotspots, but it’s not that hard to extrapolate a few years into the future where this app – or something like it – connects you to all the available information about whatever you’re looking at.

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s on an iPhone-type device, or whether it’s mounted on your eyeglasses, it’s going to be with you effectively 24/7/365 (only “effectively” because you can still choose to turn it off), have 99% uptime, and is going to get better every hour of every day as more information is added to it. Practically every urban location will be geotagged and infotagged (think Google Street View on steroids), extending further and further beyond urban areas with each passing year. In fact, I imagine the app will evolve into a two-way app, with users adding to the database as they go about their daily routines, constantly adding more locations and more data to the database.

Perhaps a few more years down the road artificial intelligence object-recognition software will be embedded, maybe even with some simple sensors to analyze the material it’s looking at, so that the app will be able to peer into just about any object and return information about it’s chemical composition, various useful facts about it, and ways the object can be used.

Huh. Maybe I shouldn't have changed my major.

Seriously, though, the truth is ending up stranger than fiction . . .

We Have the Technology

2009-09-27T13:20:00.007-06:00

When I was growing up I liked watching the Six Million Dollar Man on television. Looking back, it was a pretty hokey show, but I really liked it at the time. In the opening for the show, there’s a line that says, “We have the technology.” I thought of that – for pretty obvious reasons if you’re familiar with the show - when viewing the video for the Bionic Eye iPhone application.

This is a nice little app for what it does, but imagine what it’s going to evolve into: a portable heads-up display for everything. Yes, right now it lists restaurants, subway stations (in certain cities), and wifi hotspots, but it’s not that hard to extrapolate a few years into the future where this app – or something like it – connects you to all the available information about whatever you’re looking at.

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s on an iPhone-type device, or whether it’s mounted on your eyeglasses, it’s going to be with you effectively 24/7/365 (only “effectively” because you can still choose to turn it off), have 99% uptime, and is going to get better every hour of every day as more information is added to it. Practically every urban location will be geotagged and infotagged (think Google Street View on steroids), extending further and further beyond urban areas with each passing year. In fact, I imagine the app will evolve into a two-way app, with users adding to the database as they go about their daily routines, constantly adding more locations and more data to the database.

Perhaps a few more years down the road artificial intelligence object-recognition software will be embedded, maybe even with some simple sensors to analyze the material it’s looking at, so that the app will be able to peer into just about any object and return information about it’s chemical composition, various useful facts about it, and ways the object can be used.

I know that scenario is frightening to a lot of folks, and certainly there are going to be more and more privacy/ethical issues we are going to have to figure out as a society. But, for the moment, let’s focus on the incredibly positive side of this – what kind of learning apps can be built on this platform? What will we be able to do as teachers and students that we can barely even conceive of today, but will be commonplace in the very near future? What happens when the sum total of the world’s knowledge – updated in real time - is available in a portable heads-up display?

Just imagine the possibilities. How many years is it going to be before we see something of this sophistication? I don’t know. My guess is more than three and less than thirty. So you’ve got to ask the question, does your school/district want to be ahead of the curve in figuring out best practices, or behind it?

Shift Happens Statistic of the Day 12-2-09

2009-12-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

From the December 7, 2009 issue of Time Magazine:

In 1979, GM's U.S. employment peaked at 618,365. Today it's at 75,000 and falling fast. GM's U.S. market share, once about 50%, has fallen to about 20%.

That's about an 88% decline in U.S. jobs at GM in 30 years. Interestingly, it's only a 60% decline in market share, which illustrates the automation/productivity portion of the shift.

Flickr Photo Credit: two GM dealerships out of business, originally uploaded by marina.

A Shift in the Digital Divide?

2009-12-01T07:23:00.020-07:00

NPR has a short, but interesting story on the use of mobile devices by young people. Citing research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the story states that in regards to "robust" uses of mobile devices, "most of those hyperusers are young Latinos and blacks."

Chart from NPR, source data from Pew Internet and American Life Project, refers to above uses on mobile devices only

Now, the story is certainly not saying that the digital divide is no longer an issue, but it does bring up some interesting points. It attributes the higher and more sophisticated use of mobile devices among Latinos and blacks to four factors:

Networking teens that spread the use to older members of their ethnic group (happens in all ethnic groups, but faster among blacks and Latinos, perhaps due to the relatively higher proportion of young people)
Cheaper than a home connection (mobile upgrade cheaper than buying a computer and broadband)
Communication across borders (easier on both sides)
Convenience (the phone is always there, always gets a signal, no need to worry about wifi or battery)

I see some similarities to the cell phone versus landline access in countries like China and India, where lots of folks have gone straight from no phone to cell phone, skipping the landline phase. I wonder if we're seeing a similar leap among the traditional "have-nots" that have been on the "losing" side of the divide, where they are skipping the home computer/broadband phase and going straight to the mobile Internet phase.

If mobile devices (think phone, not laptop) become the dominant way of accessing the Internet - and I think that's still very much up in the air (pun intended) - then this just may signal a coming shift in the digital divide that might mirror the demographic shifts in the United States. We still have a long way to go in eliminating access issues, but perhaps this is an encouraging sign that the divide might be narrowing.

K12 Online Conference 2009

2009-11-30T07:46:00.005-07:00

The 2009 Edition of the K12 Online Conference has now begun. Here's the schedule and here is a flyer you can use to promote it in your building if you'd like something you can print.

If you aren't familiar with K12 Online, here's the description from their site:

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2009 conference theme is “Bridging the Divide.” This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote by classroom teacher and international educator Kim Cofino the week of November 30, 2009. The following two weeks, December 7-11 and December 14-17, over fifty presentations will be posted online to our conference blog and our conference Ning for participants to view, download, and discuss. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” are listed on the events page of our conference Ning and Facebook fan page, and live events will continue in 2010 through twice-monthly “K-12 Online Echo” webcasts on EdTechTalk. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during and after the conference as well as asynchronous conversations. Over 122 presentations from 2008, 2007, and 2006 are available, along with archived live events. Follow the K12 Online Conference on Twitter and Facebook!

Giving More Than Thanks

2009-11-25T11:45:00.001-07:00

Last year I wrote a couple of posts about Kiva, so I'll keep this one fairly short (please go read those two posts if you want more context).

In a nutshell, this is the time of year when lots of folks in my neck of the woods are celebrating holidays, and many of us have lots to be thankful for. So, here's what I did last year and am doing again this year:

First, I’ve donated $25 to an entrepreneur ($25 is the minimum they accept). But I’ve also purchased two $25 gift certificates that I then emailed to two members of my PLN. I’m asking those folks to then do two things. First, they can choose which entrepreneur to loan the $25 to. Then I’m asking them to consider doing the same thing – purchasing two $25 gift certificates and emailing them to two members of their PLN (with the same request that those folks continue the cycle, a Kiva Pay It Forward plan). It would also be great if they blogged about it and left a comment on this post.

Since I’m apparently always going to be connected to the phrase Shift Happens, I thought I’d try to use that to do some good, so I created Team Shift Happens on the Kiva site:
We loan because Shift Happens, and we want to be the change we want to see.
So, those email requests will also ask that when they make those loans they add them to Team Shift Happens so that we can keep track of the total (they still direct where the loan goes, it just gets aggregated under the team).

Team Shift Happens has loaned $3900 so far. You don't have to join the team, but please consider giving. I'll be sending out my gift certificates tomorrow (Thanksgiving here in the U.S.), but these obviously make great gifts for many of the holidays coming up.

There are many worthy causes out there, this is obviously not the only one. But, if you're like my family and you already have more than enough "stuff," perhaps you could dedicate some of that disposable income to this cause.

Update: Bill Ferriter has compiled some nice classroom resources you can use with students around microlending.

It Was Amazing

2009-11-24T14:39:00.001-07:00

Kristin Leclaire (who needs to blog more often) just posted about her 10th graders reading The Kite Runner. I wrote about this last year, but this year she knew about Rob ahead of time so could plan a little better. As Kristin writes:

I explained that our contact, Rob Dodson, had contacted me last year after reading my class blogs, and that he was a military officer stationed in Afghanistan. I had invited him to become a part of our discussion this year, and he immediately accepted the invitation.

Kristin goes on to describe the interaction Rob had with her class, and the effect it had:

For the first time in my teaching of The Kite Runner, students were genuinely, authentically interested in the cultural background of this book.

. . . Ask any of my 4th hour students how they liked The Kite Runner, and their faces actually light up as they respond with an enthusiastic, “It was amazing.” And it was.

Go read her post for more details, and here's one post on her class blog where Rob addresses some student questions.

As I've said many times before, why aren't we doing more things like this?

Welcome Huffington Post Readers

2009-11-22T19:53:00.008-07:00

So, if you're just arriving here as a result of this (update: and this) nice to meet you. You can probably find out more than you ever wanted to know about the presentation on the wiki, including this page which has links to posts that take you through the history of the presentation. The particular version that the Huffington Post featured is discussed here (update: subsequent article also talks about the original version, version 2.0, and version 4.0.

If you're at all interested in what this blog is about, then here are some other posts you might investigate:

Gotcha Day

2009-11-21T20:21:00.002-07:00

(Note: This post is personal and a departure from the regularly scheduled content for this blog.)

Today is Gotcha Day in my house - nine years ago today we adopted our daughter Abby in China. We traveled with six other families and tonight four of them were able to come over for dinner. As I was gathering some memories this morning I tweeted out a story and a few pictures and videos, so I thought I would share them here as well. (After all, the 'P' in PLN stands for Personal, right?)

First, a then and now picture.

Then: Now:
Then the famous "red couch" picture from the White Swan Hotel (Abby is on the far right).

Then I found the amazingly Web 1.0 website we created that told the story of our trip to get Abby, I was a little surprised it was still active.

Then, just because I like to make my PLN cry, here's a link to the first iMovie I ever created, Our Trip To Get Abby (.mov, 21 MB). (Fair warning: it's a tear jerker.) For the techies out there (you know who you are), I'm pretty sure that movie was created in iMovie 2 and the camera we purchased for the trip - our first digital camera - was a Sony Mavica CD1000 (partially because the mini-CD's were the cheapest and easiest form of removable storage to take on a two-week trip to China).

Finally, here's a picture of the girls from tonight (five from our travel group plus one older sister).

Nine years ago. Hmm, nine years from now they'll be freshmen in college . . .

A Good Day

2009-11-19T14:41:00.001-07:00

Anne Smith’s English Literature class recently discussed Act III of Hamlet with Debi Ohayon’s AP class. Not that unusual, perhaps, except that Anne’s class is here at Arapahoe in Centennial, Colorado, and Debi’s class is at The Lovett School in Atlanta, Georgia.

Anne tweeted out that she was looking for classes that might be interested in interacting with her class around Hamlet, and Laura Deisley – who’s the Director of 21st Century Learning at Lovett (great job title, btw) – responded that she knew a teacher that might be interested. Anne’s students are pretty comfortable using the fishbowl with live blogging method of discussing a book, but we wondered if we could make it work with two inner circles, one in Anne’s classroom and one in Debi’s classroom in Atlanta. As Laura writes:

after some traditional back and forth emailing and a Skype conference call, Anne, Karl, Upper School English Department Chair Debi Ohayon and I settled on a collaboration: two joint classroom Skype and live blog sessions on Hamlet.

So, one inner circle of discussers in Anne’s classroom, and an outer circle of live bloggers. One inner circle of discussers in Debi’s classroom, and an outer circle of live bloggers. One Skype connection so the two classes could see (sort of) and hear (most of the time) each other and have an oral discussion. One CoverItLive blog so that the outer circles could discuss via live blogging. While the technology wasn’t perfect (pretty wide shot with the webcams and at times the audio broke up a little, but the students just asked each other to repeat what they said), it worked pretty well (see Anne's post for pictures from her classroom). As Anne writes:

Debi’s students rose to the challenge that the technology and new discussion method presented, and my students didn’t back down when discussing Hamlet with an advanced placement class. Both sides walked away commenting about how great it was to hear different points of view than from the students in their own class.

And, on Laura’s blog, Debi reflects that:

Boy, am I glad my curiosity or sense of duty or both propelled me forward, as it has been a thrill to watch this pilot project become reality, despite the time commitment, logistical challenges, and alterations of my syllabus. The excitement that both my students and I have felt being pioneers as well as participants in a joint classroom experience across the country has been enormous. As Laura suggested, just the concept of kids in the 21st century talking in different time zones about an early 17th century text is intriguing. It's certainly not just about the fun (though it is really fun); the students agree that the Skype/LiveBlog shared classroom has enriched their learning experience. Meredith captured this sentiment today in class during our feedback session when she said, "We got to branch out beyond our own classroom and discuss similar ideas as well as gain insight about other ideas from students we didn't know." Furthermore, Mark said, "It was not only a blast, but a highly intellectual experience that I will always remember." I know many educators fear technology being pushed for the wrong reasons, but I'm quite convinced this was an example of technology enhancing pedagogical goals.

We’re going to do this again on December 9th (over the entire play) and it will be interesting to see if it goes even better. I expect it will, as we’ll probably position the microphones a little better and certainly the students will have more experience under their belts and should be more comfortable with the format.

I think this was not only a valuable experience in terms of students learning about Hamlet, but also because of the sense of community that it engenders. As Debi said:

I'm pretty certain that the something special was a uniquely communal learning environment. Since I also have a personal invested interest in character education, I would be remiss not to note as a bonus what a delight it was to see teenagers from different parts of the country, representing both public and private schools, using literature to discuss timeless, universal moral issues.

Yeah, it was a good day.

Copyright: Living Life Against the Law

2009-11-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

Lawrence Lessig (now at Harvard) has another thoughtful presentation regarding copyright that he gave at EDUCAUSE 2009. He makes a compelling case about how "things have changed" but that our copyright laws have not kept up with those changes. In the past, "copyright had a tiny role." He quotes Jessica Litman:

At the turn of the century [the last century, not this one], U.S. copyright law was technical, inconsistent, and difficult to understand, but it didn't apply to very many people or very many things. If one were an author or publisher of books, maps, charts, paintings, sculpture, photographs or sheet music, playwrite or producer of plays, or a printer, the copyright law bore on one's business. Booksellers, piano-roll and phonograph record publishers, motion picture producers, musicians, scholars, members of Congress, and ordinary consumers could go about their business without ever encountering a copyright problem.

Ninety years later, the U.S. copyright law is even more technical, inconsistent and difficult to understand; more importantly, it touches everyone and everything. In the intervening years, copyright has reached out to embrace much of the paraphernalia of modern society. The current copyright statute weighs in at 142 pages. Technology, heedless of law, has developed modes that insert multiple acts of reproduction and transmission - potentially actionable events under the copyright statute - into commonplace daily transactions. Most of us can no longer spend even an hour [emphasis Lessig's] without colliding with the copyright law.

Please note that he is not arguing to abolish copyright in this presentation, but that it needs "to be radically changed in important ways."

It's a full sixty minutes, and the money part for educators is at the end, but I think it's well worth your time. He's said it before, but the part that always gets me the most is when he talks about how our students (children) are "living in an age of prohibitions" and that they "live life against the law," and what that will mean for how they grow and develop if we don't find a way to change that.

What Makes a Chat a Chat?

2009-11-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity last week to participate along with the amazing Jim Burke from English Companion in an Education Week/Teacher Magazine chat on Social Networking and Teacher Professional Development. I hope some people found it useful and I appreciate the folks at Education Week/Teacher Magazine that put this together. None of the rest of this post is meant to disparage those folks, but simply to ask the question: What makes a chat a chat?

We used CoverItLive for this and Jim and I were fed questions throughout the hour long chat. People in the chat submitted a question, the moderator decided which questions to put through, and Jim and I responded (toward the end of the chat a few comments/thoughts were approved, not just questions, but for most of the chat it was just questions). So this seemed to end up being more of a moderated "panel" discussion than what I think of as a "chat." For most of the hour it was just Jim and I responding to questions, which is not exactly what I think of when I think of chat. Some people on Twitter noted the same thing, expressing some frustration that their questions/comments/thoughts were not getting approved.

As it was happening, I felt myself becoming frustrated as well that it wasn't truly a "discussion" as I've come to expect it. As I was thinking about it later, however, I began wondering exactly how I would've structured it that it would've been any better. My natural inclination was to suggest that it should've just been an unmoderated chat, or at least a moderated chat where every on-topic comment was immediately approved. But, with a large audience (apparently over a thousand people at least asked for email reminders of the event), I'm thinking that wouldn't work so well. So I'm guessing that the format they chose was actually not a bad choice, but perhaps I would've chosen not to call it "chat."

Which brings me to the point(s) of this post:

What exactly makes a chat a chat?
How many people can be in a chat before it no longer works?
What's the best format for these Education Week/Teacher Magazine "chats" that have large audiences? And is there a different tool than CoveritLive they could use that might work better?
Are there ways to meet the needs of diverse participants - some of whom are used to very fast and furious chats and some of whom are not? Or do we simply have to create different events for different online learning styles (keeping in mind that people's styles might change with experience)?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation (2010 Edition)

2009-11-17T07:03:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that the 2010 Edition of Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation will be hosted by Loveland High School on February 20, 2010. Like the original in 2008 and the 2009 Edition, this year's get together is free.

What is Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation?

Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation is a one day conference/meetup for teachers, administrators, students, school board members, parents and anyone who is interested in education. It will be held on Saturday, February 20th, 2010, from 8:00 am until 3:30 pm at Loveland High School in Loveland, Colorado, USA (different location than last year - here's a map. We assume most folks will be from Colorado, but everyone is welcome to attend, and we are working on some ideas for virtual participation.

Education is conversation.

Conversation creates change.

The future of education does not exist in the isolated world of theory and abstract conference sessions. Instead, it exists in conversations. It exists in creating a robust learning network that is ever-expanding and just-in-time. Learning 2.0 is not the beginning of this conversation. It is merely a stopping point, a time to talk about the visible difference that we all seek.

We read. We reflect. We write. We share. We learn. Come join us for a day of conversation about learning and technology.

You can learn much more about the conference on the wiki, including information about registering. Here are some highlights:

Tentative Schedule
We're still working on the details so this will be updated before the conference. Also, this may expand if we have more folks register than we are anticipating. (To quote Bud Hunt, "This conference stuff is hard!"). We also need folks to submit proposals to facilitate conversations.

Registration
You must register so that we know how many folks to expect.

Cost
Free, baby. We also anticipate that lunch will be included as in previous years, however - with our various school district budgets being what they are this year - this is not for sure just yet. We're working on it.

Wireless
BYOL (that would be Bring Your Own Laptop) - we'll have wireless access to the Internet (filtered) - we may test our capacity to handle density of machines, but hopefully things will go swimmingly. If not, we have wired machines in various places you can access.

Invite Others
We strongly encourage you to invite other folks from your school, district, neighborhood, or learning network to attend as well. It would be great if everyone could bring at least one person with them that is perhaps new to this conversation.

Call for Conversations

Hey, did you miss it above? We need folks to submit proposals to facilitate these conversations. This doesn't happen without you.

Questions?
Feel free to leave a comment on this post or on the FAQ page on the wiki.

Promote Learning 2.0
Did we mention that you should tell others? Blog about this. Link to the wiki or this blog post. Or use this nifty image.

Diigo Ideas: Results from my Earlier Post

2009-11-09T13:53:00.006-07:00

I posted a couple of weeks ago asking how you used Diigo instructionally, and asking folks to complete a Google Form to share how they used it. Here’s a quick-and-dirty Google Site I created for a brief lunchtime staff development session on it. It includes the embedded results from the Google Form in that previous post. (Note: that Google Form is still active, so you can still add to the results.)

The Heritage School of Kabala

2009-11-09T10:55:00.005-07:00

I blogged previously about some of the great stuff that Heritage High School, our sister high school – and rival – is doing. For the last three years Heritage has held MAD Week (Make A Difference), and raised money to help children in Sierra Leone. (Arapahoe, my high school, does similar things with both the Make A Wish foundation and Toys for Tots.)

Well, this week something even more special is happening – they are opening a school in Sierra Leone, the Heritage School of Kabala. They’ve raised almost $60,000 in the last three years and a delegation from Heritage High School is presently in Sierra Leone to celebrate the grand opening of the school and to strengthen the connection between these two schools.

You can read more about MAD week, read about the trip itself, check out some of the blog posts, or join in the live blog from Sierra Leone and Littleton, Colorado this Thursday, November 12th, from 8:00 to 10:00 am MST (UTC/GMT -7). (The live blog is dependent on the connectivity in Sierra Leone, as electricity – much less Internet connectivity – is not always reliable.)

Way to go Heritage Eagles, you make all of us proud.

Twitter Lists & Aggregated Content: Are We Responsible?

2009-11-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

I was part of an interesting discussion on Twitter Friday night and I wanted to share it here, as well as add a few final thoughts. Participants that I reference are Bud Hunt, Brian Crosby, Dean Shareski, Anne Van Meter, Barbara Barreda, and Karen Fasimpaur. Thanks to all of you for helping me think through these ideas.

The discussion started with a tweet from Bud Hunt where he shared some of what his school district is doing with Twitter. Here’s part of the tweet trail (I’m sure there were comments from other folks as well, but these are the ones I remembered and grabbed).

I just want to add a few concluding thoughts. First, full disclosure, Bud called me on his way home from work and we talked for a while about this.

Second, I wasn’t arguing against what Bud’s district is doing. In fact, I really, really like what they’re doing, I was just trying to explore the ramifications and think through some of the issues.

Third, I wanted to “finish” my part of the discussion with Karen that was interrupted by my having to go make dinner. This is what I would’ve tweeted next (is this then a set of retroactive tweets?):

@kfasimpaur It’s not so much the linking that I see as the problem.
It’s the creation and the encouragement.
By creating the Twitter list, @budtheteacher’s district has created something *new*, not just linked to something.
I think the act of creation does imply some type of “ownership” and “responsibility”
And when they publicize it & encourage folks both to add themselves to the list & to follow, that also blurs the lines.
So, say a student in Bud’s district joins the Twitter list. Then he tweets that he’s . . .
. . . planning on hurting himself or others. Is there some kind of monitoring in place? . . .
. . . Should there be? Or say he tweets something offensive, then what?
The fact the district has a disclaimer http://blogs.stvrain.k12.co.us/twitter/opt-in/ that they . . .
. . . “reserve the right to determine the membership of the SVVSD’s Twitter Lists” implies some ownership . . .
. . . and that some quasi-monitoring might be going on.
So, again, I support what his district is doing and love the transparency and the community.
But I do think it’s really complicated and there are many things we still need to think through.

Now, I actually might have tweeted something different because there probably would’ve been some replies in there that would have altered my thinking, but you get the idea.

Transparency and community building by teachers, schools and districts is something I very much support, and I think what St. Vrain is doing is very compelling and very interesting, but I also think it’s uncharted territory and there are some pretty complicated issues involved. This is a really important conversation to have, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

How Do You Use Diigo Instructionally?

2009-10-26T12:48:00.002-06:00

I asked a couple of weeks ago about Google Forms and the response was so great, I figured why not ask about Diigo?

Do you use Diigo instructionally? If so, I'd appreciate you sharing that information via this Google Form, it will only take a couple of minutes at most. Feel free to share a description of how you're using it, including any links to blog posts, wikis, etc. that demonstrate how you're using it. You can also optionally include your name and email address if you don't mind being contacted by folks having additional questions (I will be sharing the results on the web, so please keep that in mind before clicking submit).

You can, of course, also leave information in the comments to this post so that everyone can see it immediately as well (although it would be great if you would also add them to the Google Form so I have them in one place). Thanks in advance for anything you're willing to share.

Update from the comments: We are doing a show this Saturday on Classroom 2.0 LIVE about the new features on Diigo v. 4 with Maggie Tsai, Miguel Guhlin and Russ Goerend. The focus will be on using Diigo instructionally and I'm sure there will be lots of sharing in the chat room and via the mic in the Elluminate session. We will announce your survey during the session and invite people to contribute to it. We'd love to have you and your readers join us to participate in the conversation/presentation. Saturday, October 31, 9:00am PDT, http://live.classroom20.com for additional information and login link.

How Do You Use Google Forms Instructionally?

2009-10-08T11:01:00.008-06:00

Do you use Google Forms instructionally? If so, I'd appreciate you sharing that information via this Google Form, it will only take a couple of minutes at most. Feel free to share a description of how you're using it, including any links to forms, blog posts, wikis, etc. that demonstrate how you're using it. You can also optionally include your name and email address if you don't mind being contacted by folks having additional questions. (It's possible I'll share this info out at some point beyond my staff, so keep that in mind before clicking submit on the form.)

You can, of course, also leave information in the comments to this post so that everyone can see it as well (although it would be great if you would also add them to the Google Form so I have them in one place). Thanks in advance for anything you're willing to share.

Update: Here are the results.

Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor . . . Tonsils

2009-10-26T10:59:00.000-06:00

Maura Moritz's daughter just had her tonsils out. Being the good Mom that she is, she's staying home with her until she's feeling better. Being the good teacher that she is, she didn't want her class to lose out on valuable instructional time. They were scheduled to do a fishbowl with live blogging over Fahrenheit 451, so what to do?

Well, it's a fishbowl with live blogging. The first thing she can do is participate in the live blog (period 3, period 4). The second thing she can do is Skype into class so that she can see and hear the in-class fishbowl discussion.

Just one more example of how Skype is becoming more and more valuable in a school setting. Tell me again why Skype is blocked by so many school districts?

Warrior Work 10-23-09

2009-10-23T10:13:00.005-06:00

Some recent work from our students and teachers.

Michele asks:

In a complete paragraph, starting with a focused topic sentence, agree or disagree (or somewhere in the middle) with the following statement: The individual is more important than the group.

Greg wonders:

Who is more heroic: Jason or Perseus?

Who doesn’t want to know about:

A summary of ionic bonding and Lewis dot structures along with a summary of lattice energy.

Lary asks for Thematic Thesis Statements from Whale Rider.

Jesse asks for reactions to the cadaver lab.

What are you views on Censorship?

1. Is it okay to have books on making bombs in the school library?
2. Will banning books keep people from reading them?
3. Television shows are censored, so are song lyrics—what makes books different?

A little live blogging of a fishbowl discussion on Fahrenheit 451: Smith 2, Moritz 3,Moritz 4,Smith 5

Google Form Ideas: Results from my Previous Post

2009-10-21T09:56:00.005-06:00

I posted a couple of weeks ago asking folks how they used Google Forms instructionally. Several people asked if I would share the results, so here you go (a quick-and-dirty Google Site I used for a brief lunchtime staff development session on this).

Please note that the Google Form I used for this is still active, so you can still add to it if you wish (and please do). Since the results are embedded on that Google Site, they will automagically update if folks continue to add to it.