I suppose I should reflect a little bit on the session we presented at NECC. I talked about this a little in a previous post, that we decided the night before to scrap our original plan and only "present" for 30 minutes, then have 30 minutes of conversation. It seemed to work well, and reinforced what we’ve seen in our staff development efforts at our school – that we learn the most from each other, from the conversations.
Well, it turns out that Kristin Hokanson recorded our session and then kindly uploaded it to the web, so I had a chance to listen to it. The audio quality is pretty good – I was the only one miked, but all of our voices came through pretty well and there are only 2 or 3 questions from the audience that you can’t hear very well. If you’re really interested, you can listen to it online (55 minutes) or download it (mp3, 50 MB).
If you do decide to listen to it, keep a couple of things in mind. First, there are five of us presenting. The order that we appear on the podcast is: Me (I’m miked, so you might want to turn the volume up a little after my initial part is over), then Anne Smith (Language Arts teacher), then Brad Meyer (Social Studies teacher), then Barbara Stahlhut (Math teacher), and then Brian Hatak (Science teacher). After that we are all interspersed, but hopefully you can figure out who’s who.
Second, the podcast starts two or three minutes into our session, so you miss the intro. I think it’s important to know that part before listening to the podcast, so here’s the quick version. We talked about scrapping our plans the night before and leaving more time for conversation as I mentioned above, and we let the audience know that we were counting on them to come through.
Then we talked about why we were offering this session. At NECC 2006 (which was the first any of us had attended), as well as at other conferences, we had all had the experience of seeing some amazing presenters. And while we usually came away with some good ideas, we also came away thinking, "We have no idea how they got there, or how we could get there ourselves." So it was great to get ideas, but we felt like we rarely saw a path we could follow to help our school move forward. So we wanted to give a presentation from the perspective of a school that had gone "this far" (picture me holding my thumb and forefinger about 2 inches apart) along the path. We felt like we could share some approaches that had worked for us in staff development, as well as some classroom examples of the changes we’ve made, and perhaps help others figure out how to chart their own path, to help them see how they could "get there themselves."
It’s always hard to tell (for me, anyway) exactly how well a presentation goes, but from the comments we received we appear to have at least partially succeeded (and only a few folks left before the end, which is a pretty good sign considering we had the 3:30 to 4:30 slot and the room was pretty full). I think what I like most as I listen to our presentation is that you can really hear our passion come through. Thanks Anne, Brad, Barbara and Brian – both for the presentation and for all that you do day in and day out for the teachers and students at our school.
Showing posts with label NECC2007. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NECC2007. Show all posts
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
NECC Reflection #3: Schools I'd Like To Visit
One of the continuing failures in my career has been isolation. When I was in the classroom, I rarely visited other teachers' classrooms even in my own building. Now that I’m out of the classroom I see much more in my own building, but rarely visit other schools in my own district, much less elsewhere. I imagine this is true for many teachers – teaching (traditionally, anyway) has been a very isolating profession.
While the Internet has decreased that isolation somewhat, it’s still not the same (for me anyway) as visiting real, live schools with real, live teachers and real, live students. One of the things NECC provided me with is a list of schools I would like to go visit. (If there are any independently wealthy readers of this blog that would like to pay for me and my planning team to take a road trip, please drop me a line.) While there are many, many schools I would like to visit, this is simply a list of a few that I came into contact with at NECC (there were more, but I lost track after a while). Perhaps those of you who are geographically close to one of these schools might decide to visit (or feel free to suggest others in the comments).
The Urban
School of the Future (
Westwood Schools (
Schools in Doug Johnson’s school district (MN,
Schools in David Jakes’s school district (IL,
Sharon Peters’ school (Quebec,
Barbara Barreda’s school (Los Angeles, CA,
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
NECC Reflection #2: Do We Need NECC?
(Note: I was composing this post in my head – a vast wasteland – and lo and behold Chris Lehmann posts something similar yet infinitely more eloquent on his blog. I’m going to ask those of you who haven’t read his post yet to read through the next few paragraphs before going to his post, that way you can see how my thinking was progressing, and then I’ll link to him below when I bring his thoughts back in.)
There was some conversation in the blogging community at NECC, and even more so on the blogs after NECC, about whether NECC was the best way to accomplish what we need to accomplish. A lot of bloggers specifically mentioned the Bloggers’ Café and how they often found that environment more conducive to their learning than the formal sessions (more than one person noted they didn’t attend a single formal session).
Now, I didn’t spend too much time at the Bloggers’ Café, perhaps 45 minutes one day and maybe 25 minutes another, but I did find the environment very stimulating and thought provoking. And when you contrast that with the formality (for lack of a better word) of many of the sessions, it was clear that there were at least two very different learning paradigms occurring at NECC. I know that conferences have always had informal learning going in between and around the sessions, but somehow by setting up a physical space devoted to that purpose (for at least one small subset of attendees), it seemed to shift that into overdrive (at least for me).
But that’s part of the problem – it was a very small subset of attendees that used that physical space. And all four of the teachers that went with me had an outstanding conference attending formal sessions – with almost all their sessions being very good to outstanding. They left excited, motivated, and with additional tools and techniques to try.
So what I’m struggling with is my very strong belief that ongoing, sustained staff development (which is what we presented on) is the key to long-term change and improvement in schools, yet a one-time conference – even one as large as NECC – doesn’t fit that model. How best can a conference like NECC be part of an ongoing, sustained staff development effort in my (or anyone’s) school? So, do we need NECC? My answer would be yes, but perhaps with some changes. I guess I have a couple of thoughts surrounding this. Perhaps the format of the sessions at NECC can change, and perhaps we need some more informal, “un-conferences” to meet the ongoing, sustained piece.
The first thing I'd suggest changing at NECC would be the session length. In our debriefing sessions, my team of teachers and I all agreed that an hour seemed too short for sessions. A couple of us had attended our state technology conference the week before, where sessions are either two or three hours long (and usually hands-on), and felt like that provided much more opportunity for conversation. After some discussion, we decided that 90 minutes might be a better length for most sessions at NECC (one hour is too short, but two is perhaps too long). For our session, we basically threw out our plans the night before. We had about five hours of content to “deliver” in sixty minutes, yet also wanted to allow time for conversation. As we have seen in our own staff development efforts, it’s from the conversations that we learn so much. And that had been duplicated at NECC at the sessions we had been to that allowed for conversation. So, we shortened our formal presentation to 30 minutes (minor miracle for us) and then left 30 minutes for conversation. We were very nervous because, like most teachers, we dread silence. What if no one asked any questions or contributed any ideas? Luckily, that didn’t happen, and it appeared to work very well. (whew!) But if we’d had 90 minutes, we could’ve shared a few more examples (well, if our Internet connection had worked – neither wired or wireless worked for us – arghh!) and had even more time for conversation.
The second thing I’d change (if I was King of NECC – I’m trademarking the t-shirt right now) is the seating arrangements. Row after row of chairs, crammed together with no leg – or computer - room is just not conducive to conversation (much like we’ve argued about our classrooms, but I digress). Particularly at a conference where quite a few attendees (and even more next year) bring laptops, I think some kind of table arrangement makes more sense. The few sessions I was in that had tables were much more favorable to learning. I know that causes problems with space (you can cram more folks into chairs in rows), but tough – we know the other way doesn’t work well, so why do we continue to do it? Somebody smarter than me - and there are bound to be at least one or two :-) - at NECC can figure this out before San Antonio next year.
The third thing I’d change is size. While it’s great that there are so many things to attend at NECC, I also think it ends up being somewhat overwhelming and something is lost because of that. The research tends to indicate that smaller schools are more successful, even though they may not be able to offer as many choices. I wonder if the same is true of conferences? I’m not sure I even agree with myself on this one, but this is my reflection so I’ll put it out there.
The last thing I'd change I've already blogged about - include students.
The second thought I had was about how to make the excitement and energy of NECC more of an ongoing, sustained event for educators – one that doesn’t culminate at the closing keynote and slowly dissipate over the rest of the summer. (I’m not saying that this is true of everyone, or that folks don’t get a lot out of it, but I think I’m fairly safe in assuming that this applies to more than a few folks.) So I thought about the idea of some kind of “un-conference,” that takes the best of the Bloggers’ Café and edubloggercon, throws in a little bit of the formal session nature of NECC, and happens throughout the year in locations around the world.
(Okay, this is where you might want to read Chris Lehmann’s post, as he’s got a much better handle on this than I do, and in fact is actually hosting one in January.)
A big problem with NECC is the expense. Before last year I had never been to one, and it’s only because of some grant money and the generous support of my superintendent that I’ve been able to attend the last two years. We can argue all we want that in the scheme of things it’s money well spent, but it’s still darn expensive. My district doesn’t have $800+ each to send a bunch of folks to this conference year after year. So, no matter how good the conference is, it’s not particularly good for those that can’t attend (podcasts, vodcasts, blogs and twitter help, but that won’t reach most of our educators, much less our communities).
So, it seems like we need a series of conferences, perhaps regional in nature, that allow us to extend the energy and ideas of NECC throughout the year. Something that is much less expensive (I’m thinking free, perhaps with donations accepted for food or something), much more informal, and perhaps much less intimidating for most educators. Initially I was thinking of replicating something like edubloggercon (which, since I didn’t get to Atlanta in time for that, might be hard for me to do), but now I’m thinking of more of a hybrid model. In a recent podcast, Bud lamented the fact that at a recent conference he was at so many of the folks didn’t know what they didn’t know, and that it was very hard for them to see the possibilities of some of these technology tools because they were unaware of what’s out there. So I’m thinking of some kind of hybrid cross between folks that are fairly savvy technology users, interested teachers, school and community leadership, and students. (It wouldn’t be a requirement, but perhaps we’d ask everyone to bring at least two others along – a teacher that’s interested but not very knowledgeable on the tech piece, and a school leader – building or district administrator, school board member, etc. And, if possible, one or more students as well.) A way to bring all those folks Bud was talking about together in an “un-conference” to learn and explore ideas. A conference where folks can become educated to a certain level about some of the tools, but then have rich, deep conversations about what school could – or should – look like in the 21st century. A conference where conversation and reflection were built in.
This would most likely be hosted at a school, for reasons of cost, space, equipment and the very fact that being in a school just might remind us of what we’re all about. It would be regional in nature, so that folks could drive to it to keep expenses down. It would probably be one day (perhaps repeated four(?) times a year), so that lodging cost wasn’t an issue (although folks that drove a long way could perhaps be hosted by teachers at that school for one night). It would have some kind of a formal schedule, yet be flexible enough for folks to reconfigure somehow on the fly. It would foster learning and conversation and connections, and it would share the results through the web through a variety of means. It would attempt to connect and build off the other regional conferences that had recently occurred. Each conference would have a fairly specific purpose and some goals – there would be an expectation of change when people left for the day, not just a hoped for change. (I think this is critical, imho.)
Now, Chris is hosting something similar in January in Philadelphia. He has some advantages, notably that he’s brilliant and he also has a very large population within driving (or shuttle) distance of Philadelphia. I’m wondering about trying to host a Mountain West EduCon at my school. We’re in the Denver metro area, so we have a fairly large population base to draw from (although it pales in comparison to the Philly area), and we could possibly attract folks from nearby states as well (parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, Texas . . . are reasonably short drives) – but that might be tough for some of them. Perhaps a regional conference works better back East (this is referring to the Eastern U.S.) with large populations close together, but out West we may have to settle for a much smaller “region,” I’m just not sure. And, of course, there’s the matter of picking dates. (I think Chris had the right idea by just picking a date and saying “come on down,” but I’m thinking about weather and state testing and . . . the list is endless.)
So, this brain dump is posted to hopefully elicit some thoughtful responses that will help me out with this idea. I could be very, very wrong with some (or most) of this, but I hope to at least get the conversation started and see if this has legs. I have a few folks in my school and district that would love to help with this, but we would need additional help. Bud? Ben? Other front range folks? Anybody out there think there’s even a little bit of a good idea here? Even if you don’t want to help, is there anyone in my “region” that would be interested in attending such a beast at my school? (Umm, I’ll ask my principal later if this is okay . . .) If the answer to any of the above is yes, please leave a comment and possibly add to the wiki (anyone can edit). This may not go anywhere at all, but I wanted to put it out there. What are your thoughts?
There was some conversation in the blogging community at NECC, and even more so on the blogs after NECC, about whether NECC was the best way to accomplish what we need to accomplish. A lot of bloggers specifically mentioned the Bloggers’ Café and how they often found that environment more conducive to their learning than the formal sessions (more than one person noted they didn’t attend a single formal session).
Now, I didn’t spend too much time at the Bloggers’ Café, perhaps 45 minutes one day and maybe 25 minutes another, but I did find the environment very stimulating and thought provoking. And when you contrast that with the formality (for lack of a better word) of many of the sessions, it was clear that there were at least two very different learning paradigms occurring at NECC. I know that conferences have always had informal learning going in between and around the sessions, but somehow by setting up a physical space devoted to that purpose (for at least one small subset of attendees), it seemed to shift that into overdrive (at least for me).
But that’s part of the problem – it was a very small subset of attendees that used that physical space. And all four of the teachers that went with me had an outstanding conference attending formal sessions – with almost all their sessions being very good to outstanding. They left excited, motivated, and with additional tools and techniques to try.
So what I’m struggling with is my very strong belief that ongoing, sustained staff development (which is what we presented on) is the key to long-term change and improvement in schools, yet a one-time conference – even one as large as NECC – doesn’t fit that model. How best can a conference like NECC be part of an ongoing, sustained staff development effort in my (or anyone’s) school? So, do we need NECC? My answer would be yes, but perhaps with some changes. I guess I have a couple of thoughts surrounding this. Perhaps the format of the sessions at NECC can change, and perhaps we need some more informal, “un-conferences” to meet the ongoing, sustained piece.
The first thing I'd suggest changing at NECC would be the session length. In our debriefing sessions, my team of teachers and I all agreed that an hour seemed too short for sessions. A couple of us had attended our state technology conference the week before, where sessions are either two or three hours long (and usually hands-on), and felt like that provided much more opportunity for conversation. After some discussion, we decided that 90 minutes might be a better length for most sessions at NECC (one hour is too short, but two is perhaps too long). For our session, we basically threw out our plans the night before. We had about five hours of content to “deliver” in sixty minutes, yet also wanted to allow time for conversation. As we have seen in our own staff development efforts, it’s from the conversations that we learn so much. And that had been duplicated at NECC at the sessions we had been to that allowed for conversation. So, we shortened our formal presentation to 30 minutes (minor miracle for us) and then left 30 minutes for conversation. We were very nervous because, like most teachers, we dread silence. What if no one asked any questions or contributed any ideas? Luckily, that didn’t happen, and it appeared to work very well. (whew!) But if we’d had 90 minutes, we could’ve shared a few more examples (well, if our Internet connection had worked – neither wired or wireless worked for us – arghh!) and had even more time for conversation.
The second thing I’d change (if I was King of NECC – I’m trademarking the t-shirt right now) is the seating arrangements. Row after row of chairs, crammed together with no leg – or computer - room is just not conducive to conversation (much like we’ve argued about our classrooms, but I digress). Particularly at a conference where quite a few attendees (and even more next year) bring laptops, I think some kind of table arrangement makes more sense. The few sessions I was in that had tables were much more favorable to learning. I know that causes problems with space (you can cram more folks into chairs in rows), but tough – we know the other way doesn’t work well, so why do we continue to do it? Somebody smarter than me - and there are bound to be at least one or two :-) - at NECC can figure this out before San Antonio next year.
The third thing I’d change is size. While it’s great that there are so many things to attend at NECC, I also think it ends up being somewhat overwhelming and something is lost because of that. The research tends to indicate that smaller schools are more successful, even though they may not be able to offer as many choices. I wonder if the same is true of conferences? I’m not sure I even agree with myself on this one, but this is my reflection so I’ll put it out there.
The last thing I'd change I've already blogged about - include students.
The second thought I had was about how to make the excitement and energy of NECC more of an ongoing, sustained event for educators – one that doesn’t culminate at the closing keynote and slowly dissipate over the rest of the summer. (I’m not saying that this is true of everyone, or that folks don’t get a lot out of it, but I think I’m fairly safe in assuming that this applies to more than a few folks.) So I thought about the idea of some kind of “un-conference,” that takes the best of the Bloggers’ Café and edubloggercon, throws in a little bit of the formal session nature of NECC, and happens throughout the year in locations around the world.
(Okay, this is where you might want to read Chris Lehmann’s post, as he’s got a much better handle on this than I do, and in fact is actually hosting one in January.)
A big problem with NECC is the expense. Before last year I had never been to one, and it’s only because of some grant money and the generous support of my superintendent that I’ve been able to attend the last two years. We can argue all we want that in the scheme of things it’s money well spent, but it’s still darn expensive. My district doesn’t have $800+ each to send a bunch of folks to this conference year after year. So, no matter how good the conference is, it’s not particularly good for those that can’t attend (podcasts, vodcasts, blogs and twitter help, but that won’t reach most of our educators, much less our communities).
So, it seems like we need a series of conferences, perhaps regional in nature, that allow us to extend the energy and ideas of NECC throughout the year. Something that is much less expensive (I’m thinking free, perhaps with donations accepted for food or something), much more informal, and perhaps much less intimidating for most educators. Initially I was thinking of replicating something like edubloggercon (which, since I didn’t get to Atlanta in time for that, might be hard for me to do), but now I’m thinking of more of a hybrid model. In a recent podcast, Bud lamented the fact that at a recent conference he was at so many of the folks didn’t know what they didn’t know, and that it was very hard for them to see the possibilities of some of these technology tools because they were unaware of what’s out there. So I’m thinking of some kind of hybrid cross between folks that are fairly savvy technology users, interested teachers, school and community leadership, and students. (It wouldn’t be a requirement, but perhaps we’d ask everyone to bring at least two others along – a teacher that’s interested but not very knowledgeable on the tech piece, and a school leader – building or district administrator, school board member, etc. And, if possible, one or more students as well.) A way to bring all those folks Bud was talking about together in an “un-conference” to learn and explore ideas. A conference where folks can become educated to a certain level about some of the tools, but then have rich, deep conversations about what school could – or should – look like in the 21st century. A conference where conversation and reflection were built in.
This would most likely be hosted at a school, for reasons of cost, space, equipment and the very fact that being in a school just might remind us of what we’re all about. It would be regional in nature, so that folks could drive to it to keep expenses down. It would probably be one day (perhaps repeated four(?) times a year), so that lodging cost wasn’t an issue (although folks that drove a long way could perhaps be hosted by teachers at that school for one night). It would have some kind of a formal schedule, yet be flexible enough for folks to reconfigure somehow on the fly. It would foster learning and conversation and connections, and it would share the results through the web through a variety of means. It would attempt to connect and build off the other regional conferences that had recently occurred. Each conference would have a fairly specific purpose and some goals – there would be an expectation of change when people left for the day, not just a hoped for change. (I think this is critical, imho.)
Now, Chris is hosting something similar in January in Philadelphia. He has some advantages, notably that he’s brilliant and he also has a very large population within driving (or shuttle) distance of Philadelphia. I’m wondering about trying to host a Mountain West EduCon at my school. We’re in the Denver metro area, so we have a fairly large population base to draw from (although it pales in comparison to the Philly area), and we could possibly attract folks from nearby states as well (parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, Texas . . . are reasonably short drives) – but that might be tough for some of them. Perhaps a regional conference works better back East (this is referring to the Eastern U.S.) with large populations close together, but out West we may have to settle for a much smaller “region,” I’m just not sure. And, of course, there’s the matter of picking dates. (I think Chris had the right idea by just picking a date and saying “come on down,” but I’m thinking about weather and state testing and . . . the list is endless.)
So, this brain dump is posted to hopefully elicit some thoughtful responses that will help me out with this idea. I could be very, very wrong with some (or most) of this, but I hope to at least get the conversation started and see if this has legs. I have a few folks in my school and district that would love to help with this, but we would need additional help. Bud? Ben? Other front range folks? Anybody out there think there’s even a little bit of a good idea here? Even if you don’t want to help, is there anyone in my “region” that would be interested in attending such a beast at my school? (Umm, I’ll ask my principal later if this is okay . . .) If the answer to any of the above is yes, please leave a comment and possibly add to the wiki (anyone can edit). This may not go anywhere at all, but I wanted to put it out there. What are your thoughts?
Sunday, July 01, 2007
NECC Reflection #1: Where were the students?
As my team of teachers and I reflected in the evenings and on the plane ride on the way home, we wondered: Where were the students? I know there were some poster sessions that had students present (although unfortunately I didn’t get to any poster sessions – too many things to choose from), and of course Tim Tyson brought a couple of students to talk about their amazing work in his closing keynote. But, overall, it was a bunch of adults talking about what’s best for students. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think a bunch of adults talking about what’s best for students is a fine thing (it’s what I spend most of my time doing, after all), but I can’t help but wonder how much more powerful it would be to have students involved in these discussions as well. Particularly at my level – high school – I believe student voices would add a ton.
So we talked about the possibility of bringing some of our students with us next year to NECC in San Antonio (assuming we go). And we came up with the usual problems – money and liability. It was hard enough to come up with the money to send the five of us to NECC this year. Our superintendent kicked in $3,000 to help out (thanks Scott!), but that’s a fairly rare occurrence. It cost us around $800 each to attend NECC (not including meals), so bringing even three or four students would be a significant expense. And then there’s the permission and liability issue . . .
So, while we’re not giving up on that idea yet, we may save that for 2010, when rumor has it NECC will be in Denver. The cool thing about that is that last year’s freshmen – who were the first group at our school to have any classes with laptops – will graduate just before NECC 2010. (I wonder if my school will look significantly different by then?)
Then we talked about involving our students much more in our own staff development efforts. We’ve talked about this some before, but I haven’t devoted the time to figure out how to make that work. That’s something I really need to do. And I’ll be encouraging my teachers to involve our students in their lesson planning efforts (for lack of a better term) – helping plan, implement and assess what goes on in their own classrooms - more on that in a (hopefully soon) future post. As other folks have said recently regarding including students in all of this, we really need to hear from “the horse’s mouth.” Perhaps if we listened to students more, we might learn a few things.
So we talked about the possibility of bringing some of our students with us next year to NECC in San Antonio (assuming we go). And we came up with the usual problems – money and liability. It was hard enough to come up with the money to send the five of us to NECC this year. Our superintendent kicked in $3,000 to help out (thanks Scott!), but that’s a fairly rare occurrence. It cost us around $800 each to attend NECC (not including meals), so bringing even three or four students would be a significant expense. And then there’s the permission and liability issue . . .
So, while we’re not giving up on that idea yet, we may save that for 2010, when rumor has it NECC will be in Denver. The cool thing about that is that last year’s freshmen – who were the first group at our school to have any classes with laptops – will graduate just before NECC 2010. (I wonder if my school will look significantly different by then?)
Then we talked about involving our students much more in our own staff development efforts. We’ve talked about this some before, but I haven’t devoted the time to figure out how to make that work. That’s something I really need to do. And I’ll be encouraging my teachers to involve our students in their lesson planning efforts (for lack of a better term) – helping plan, implement and assess what goes on in their own classrooms - more on that in a (hopefully soon) future post. As other folks have said recently regarding including students in all of this, we really need to hear from “the horse’s mouth.” Perhaps if we listened to students more, we might learn a few things.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Presenting at TIE and NECC
We'll be presenting at both TIE (Copper Mountain, Colorado, Wed 6/20/07, 1:00-3:00, Wheeler A, Copper Station) and NECC (Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday, 6/26/07, 3:30–4:30, GWCC B208, blog tag: n07s647) in the next few weeks. The presentations are pretty much the same to begin with, but I think they'll end up being different due to the different audiences and the different structures of the sessions.
At TIE, we'll have two hours and everyone will have a computer in front of them. That means they can explore some of our examples on their own - and also that they can explore other things if we aren't engaging enough. The two hours will also allow us more time for conversation and it will likely be a fairly small audience (could be as many as 50, but probably 15-20). TIE also attracts a wide range of attendees, from veteran ed tech folks in Colorado to never-attended-an-ed-tech-conference-but-really-want-to-learn folks.
At NECC, we'll only have one hour and only those folks that bring their own laptops will have a computer in front of them. We really hope to create a conversation, but with that limited amount of time - and with possibly a much bigger audience (the room is big, but who knows how many will attend) - that's much harder. And I would guess that - overall - the NECC audience is more experienced than the TIE audience (but I could be wrong about that).
If anyone is planning on coming to either one, we have a quick blog set up for each session (blog for TIE session, blog for NECC session) where you can see the links to our examples (note that we will not be "covering" all of this, just there for reference later) and also a post where you can submit questions to us ahead of time. After the session there will then be another post up for feedback on the session and/or additional questions.
It will be interesting to see how they go - and how many people come to each session. It might turn out that it's easy to have a conversation because it might just be the five of us who are presenting in the room. At TIE we're opposite one of Will's sessions (as well as many other interesting looking sessions). And at NECC we're opposite a plethora of great sessions. Hmm, is it considered bad form to sneak out of your own session in order to go to someone else's?
At TIE, we'll have two hours and everyone will have a computer in front of them. That means they can explore some of our examples on their own - and also that they can explore other things if we aren't engaging enough. The two hours will also allow us more time for conversation and it will likely be a fairly small audience (could be as many as 50, but probably 15-20). TIE also attracts a wide range of attendees, from veteran ed tech folks in Colorado to never-attended-an-ed-tech-conference-but-really-want-to-learn folks.
At NECC, we'll only have one hour and only those folks that bring their own laptops will have a computer in front of them. We really hope to create a conversation, but with that limited amount of time - and with possibly a much bigger audience (the room is big, but who knows how many will attend) - that's much harder. And I would guess that - overall - the NECC audience is more experienced than the TIE audience (but I could be wrong about that).
If anyone is planning on coming to either one, we have a quick blog set up for each session (blog for TIE session, blog for NECC session) where you can see the links to our examples (note that we will not be "covering" all of this, just there for reference later) and also a post where you can submit questions to us ahead of time. After the session there will then be another post up for feedback on the session and/or additional questions.
It will be interesting to see how they go - and how many people come to each session. It might turn out that it's easy to have a conversation because it might just be the five of us who are presenting in the room. At TIE we're opposite one of Will's sessions (as well as many other interesting looking sessions). And at NECC we're opposite a plethora of great sessions. Hmm, is it considered bad form to sneak out of your own session in order to go to someone else's?
Friday, March 30, 2007
Did You Know - The Sequel?
I mentioned in the previous post that we were working on a new and improved version of Did You Know?/Shift Happens. Scott McLeod and I have had contact from some folks at XPLANE. What’s XPLANE?
As part of this, we need to address what steps viewers should take after watching the video. When the XPLANE folks first brought that up, I was pretty stumped, because this is such a complicated issue to try to narrow down to a few bullet points. And the next steps might look different in different places (while the themes we are talking about are universal, all education is local). But then Scott McLeod suggested for me to think about it in terms of questions. Now you’re talking – I’m good at questions (not so good at answers, but good at questions). What questions could we suggest that viewers ask of folks that would spur action and change? Scott McLeod is also thinking about this from his perspective at the higher education/school leadership/data-driven change level, and I’m focusing on K-12. I have some of my own ideas for what those questions/actions might look like, but I figured throwing it out to your collective wisdom made much more sense.
So, here goes. You’re not limited to the way I’m framing this – feel free to go in any direction you’d like. But, to get us started, here are some categories for the questions that could appear at the end of this new version of Did You Know?. I’d like you to fill in the ellipses for each one.
Like many bloggers, I enjoy getting comments. But – this time – I’m practically begging you for them (constructive comments, of course, either on this post or Scott's). If you have suggestions for the questions I proposed – or if you have a better way to frame this – please, please do so. As I tell my staff all the time, if you think some (or all) of my ideas are nuts, then you better join the conversation, because how else is your voice going to be heard? Please help us develop this. XPLANE is actively working on this and we hope to have it completed fairly soon. Our target – NECC in Atlanta. Let’s change the world.
We use visualization to convey complex ideas, processes, and services, and know the discipline of visual thinking is a key enabler to improve clarity of thought, better decisions and faster action.They contacted us via email (excerpt):
We’re a global information design and consulting firm, and we specialize in visualizing information so it’s more easily and quickly understood. We’d be interested in working with you to produce your presentation into a more visually-charged event. The addition of some compelling information graphics and data visualization could add impact and help the presentation cross more language and learning boundaries that it does in words alone. With your content and our visualization, we’re pretty confident that your work would reach a much broader audience, furthering its mission.XPLANE has done great work for some very large corporations as well as government agencies (including the U.S. Department of Education). They are currently brainstorming and gathering more data to clean up and repackage Did You Know?/Shift Happens into a more polished production. Now, I’m not saying that this is “the” video that I talked about previously, but it is something real and tangible that we can be working on.
As part of this, we need to address what steps viewers should take after watching the video. When the XPLANE folks first brought that up, I was pretty stumped, because this is such a complicated issue to try to narrow down to a few bullet points. And the next steps might look different in different places (while the themes we are talking about are universal, all education is local). But then Scott McLeod suggested for me to think about it in terms of questions. Now you’re talking – I’m good at questions (not so good at answers, but good at questions). What questions could we suggest that viewers ask of folks that would spur action and change? Scott McLeod is also thinking about this from his perspective at the higher education/school leadership/data-driven change level, and I’m focusing on K-12. I have some of my own ideas for what those questions/actions might look like, but I figured throwing it out to your collective wisdom made much more sense.
So, here goes. You’re not limited to the way I’m framing this – feel free to go in any direction you’d like. But, to get us started, here are some categories for the questions that could appear at the end of this new version of Did You Know?. I’d like you to fill in the ellipses for each one.
Now that you’ve watched this presentation, we would suggest the following:Maybe this is too many questions, or maybe not enough. Or maybe there should be one series of questions that gets asked of all these folks. Or maybe questions are the wrong way to go. You tell me.
- Ask yourself this question: . . .
- Ask your child(ren)’s (school’s?) teacher(s) this question: . . .
- Ask your child(ren)’s (school’s?) principal this question: . . .
- Ask your child(ren)’s (school’s?) superintendent/school board this question: . . .
- Ask your state representative/senator/governor this question: . . .
- Ask your congressperson/senator this question: . . .
- Ask your employer this question: . . .
Like many bloggers, I enjoy getting comments. But – this time – I’m practically begging you for them (constructive comments, of course, either on this post or Scott's). If you have suggestions for the questions I proposed – or if you have a better way to frame this – please, please do so. As I tell my staff all the time, if you think some (or all) of my ideas are nuts, then you better join the conversation, because how else is your voice going to be heard? Please help us develop this. XPLANE is actively working on this and we hope to have it completed fairly soon. Our target – NECC in Atlanta. Let’s change the world.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Presenting at NECC, Palm Beach, TIE, and ?
There are a couple of interesting side effects that have arisen as a result of this blog. The first is that we are being encouraged - and sometimes even invited - to present at conferences and school districts. There are three that we are definitely presenting at, and several more that have made initial contacts.
First up is the School District of Palm Beach County 2007 Technology Conference on March 19th. This looks to be an impressive annual conference that the school district (in West Palm Beach, Florida) puts on. It's a non-student contact day, and they put on quite an event, with hundreds of sessions and even a vendor area. Anne Smith and I will share our staff development efforts and what teachers have been doing in the classroom at Arapahoe, with two sessions for teachers and one for administrators.
Next up is the TIE Conference in Copper Mountain, Colorado in June. TIE is Colorado's statewide technology in education conference. Will Richardson is the keynote speaker this year. (I don't know how much credit I can take for that, but I did suggest him to the TIE Board and then "campaigned" via email once or twice - so until somebody tells me otherwise, it's all because of me!) Anne Smith, Barbara Stahlhut, Brad Meyer, Brian Hatak and I will be presenting on Wednesday, June 20th, from 1:00 - 3:00 (in Wheeler A in Copper Station for those of you who might be attending).
The third conference that is a definite at this point is NECC in Atlanta in June. Once again all five of us will be presenting, and it will take place on Tuesday, June 26th from 3:30 - 4:30 pm (location TBD).
While all three presentations will be similar, I think they will end up being quite different due to the different audiences and formats. It looks as though Palm Beach will have a wide mix of teachers in terms of both their technological background and their knowledge of the read/write web, plus we do one session with administrators (probably 50-75 principals plus a few other folks - yikes!).
TIE tends to draw folks that are fairly knowledgeable about technology and come every year, although there are always quite a few educators that are there for the first time. It also has a couple of advantages over most other conferences. First, most sessions - including our session - are in rooms where everyone has a computer, so we can give them some time to explore some of the technologies (and even if we don't give them the time, they will anyway). Second, it's two hours instead of the typical 50-60 minutes that we'll get at Palm Beach and NECC. That's good, since we have about 8 hours worth of "content," plus another 8 hours or so of "conversation" we want to have. So it should be much easier to squeeze sixteen hours into two instead of one.
I'm not sure what to expect at NECC since I went for the first time last year myself. I think this tends to draw fairly tech-savvy folks as well, plus the expectations are different - and probably higher - since this is a national conference. I also don't know whether to expect 20 people in the audience - or 200. One thing I definitely did not like about NECC last year was that the majority of sessions were in large rooms with rows and rows of chairs crammed together. One of the things we're struggling with as we are planning these sessions is how to create a conversation among such a large group of people in a short amount of time, while still sharing some of the "stuff" that we want to share. I know many other folks out there have struggled with this as well, so any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. And if anyone out there is planning on attending NECC and doesn't have anything better to do at the prime time of 3:30 in the afternoon (nope, nobody's going to be tired, worn out, and sleepy from lunch at 3:30 are they?), please stop by so the room isn't completely empty, would ya?
It will be interesting to see how these go. I was hesitant at first to even entertain these conversations with folks about presenting, because I feel like we still have a whole lot more questions than answers, but I think that may be why they are asking us. It's because we are asking those questions about what learning should look like in the 21st century, working hard at figuring them out, and sharing both our successes and failures on the blog. We ultimately decided to go ahead for pretty much selfish reasons - we hope to learn as much or more from the conversations when we present as the so-called "audience" learns.
And the second interesting side-effect? Job inquiries. I've had several nice conversations with folks who've made initial contact with me wondering if I'd be interested in a particular position they had available. These were certainly not job offers, just initial contacts, and so far nothing that would make me consider leaving my wonderful position at Arapahoe High School (just in case my principal is reading this - Hi Ron!). Seriously, I think I'm doing important - and hopefully good - work here, and it would have to be something that was more important and where I could do more good to make me even consider it. (Cue violin music.)
Now, this is interesting and - yes, somewhat flattering. But what I find most interesting is that I mostly write on this blog about what other folks are doing in their classrooms. While I'm in classrooms pretty much every day, none of them are my classroom. It's been a few years since I've had a classroom of my own. All the great - and sometimes not so great - things you read about on this blog are happening in other folks' classrooms. (This is also why when I'm approached to present, one of my first questions is, "Can I bring at least one of my teachers along that is actually doing this in their classrooms?) I think - and hope - that I have helped a lot of those things happen in those classrooms, but it sure seems like those teachers are the ones who should be getting the job inquiries, not me. Now, having said that, if anyone was reading along and about to offer me six figures and unlimited use of the company jet, I'll be happy to delete the previous seven sentences and take your call - operators are standing by.
So, I guess I'm still processing all this but, to me, this is just another example of the way the world is changing. I wrote a grant and got it. I started this blog in support of our staff development efforts as part of that grant. I wrote a second grant and got it, which allowed us to bring even more folks into the staff development effort, which of course gave me more to blog about. The blog got noticed by some folks and people started reading it. They apparently found value in it, so many of them subscribed in their RSS aggregators. I apparently blogged something interesting at least often enough to keep them from removing it from their RSS aggregators. Now we're getting invitations to present and job inquiries.
This couldn't have happened to me/us ten years ago, or five years ago, or probably even three years ago. The tools may have been there (although they've improved tremendously), but the critical mass of audience wasn't in place (and the key tool - RSS - wasn't known to enough people). This is an important idea that I need to think about a lot more, but I think it holds a tremendous lesson for our students about the flattening of the world and the power of the read/write web.
First up is the School District of Palm Beach County 2007 Technology Conference on March 19th. This looks to be an impressive annual conference that the school district (in West Palm Beach, Florida) puts on. It's a non-student contact day, and they put on quite an event, with hundreds of sessions and even a vendor area. Anne Smith and I will share our staff development efforts and what teachers have been doing in the classroom at Arapahoe, with two sessions for teachers and one for administrators.
Next up is the TIE Conference in Copper Mountain, Colorado in June. TIE is Colorado's statewide technology in education conference. Will Richardson is the keynote speaker this year. (I don't know how much credit I can take for that, but I did suggest him to the TIE Board and then "campaigned" via email once or twice - so until somebody tells me otherwise, it's all because of me!) Anne Smith, Barbara Stahlhut, Brad Meyer, Brian Hatak and I will be presenting on Wednesday, June 20th, from 1:00 - 3:00 (in Wheeler A in Copper Station for those of you who might be attending).
The third conference that is a definite at this point is NECC in Atlanta in June. Once again all five of us will be presenting, and it will take place on Tuesday, June 26th from 3:30 - 4:30 pm (location TBD).
While all three presentations will be similar, I think they will end up being quite different due to the different audiences and formats. It looks as though Palm Beach will have a wide mix of teachers in terms of both their technological background and their knowledge of the read/write web, plus we do one session with administrators (probably 50-75 principals plus a few other folks - yikes!).
TIE tends to draw folks that are fairly knowledgeable about technology and come every year, although there are always quite a few educators that are there for the first time. It also has a couple of advantages over most other conferences. First, most sessions - including our session - are in rooms where everyone has a computer, so we can give them some time to explore some of the technologies (and even if we don't give them the time, they will anyway). Second, it's two hours instead of the typical 50-60 minutes that we'll get at Palm Beach and NECC. That's good, since we have about 8 hours worth of "content," plus another 8 hours or so of "conversation" we want to have. So it should be much easier to squeeze sixteen hours into two instead of one.
I'm not sure what to expect at NECC since I went for the first time last year myself. I think this tends to draw fairly tech-savvy folks as well, plus the expectations are different - and probably higher - since this is a national conference. I also don't know whether to expect 20 people in the audience - or 200. One thing I definitely did not like about NECC last year was that the majority of sessions were in large rooms with rows and rows of chairs crammed together. One of the things we're struggling with as we are planning these sessions is how to create a conversation among such a large group of people in a short amount of time, while still sharing some of the "stuff" that we want to share. I know many other folks out there have struggled with this as well, so any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. And if anyone out there is planning on attending NECC and doesn't have anything better to do at the prime time of 3:30 in the afternoon (nope, nobody's going to be tired, worn out, and sleepy from lunch at 3:30 are they?), please stop by so the room isn't completely empty, would ya?
It will be interesting to see how these go. I was hesitant at first to even entertain these conversations with folks about presenting, because I feel like we still have a whole lot more questions than answers, but I think that may be why they are asking us. It's because we are asking those questions about what learning should look like in the 21st century, working hard at figuring them out, and sharing both our successes and failures on the blog. We ultimately decided to go ahead for pretty much selfish reasons - we hope to learn as much or more from the conversations when we present as the so-called "audience" learns.
And the second interesting side-effect? Job inquiries. I've had several nice conversations with folks who've made initial contact with me wondering if I'd be interested in a particular position they had available. These were certainly not job offers, just initial contacts, and so far nothing that would make me consider leaving my wonderful position at Arapahoe High School (just in case my principal is reading this - Hi Ron!). Seriously, I think I'm doing important - and hopefully good - work here, and it would have to be something that was more important and where I could do more good to make me even consider it. (Cue violin music.)
Now, this is interesting and - yes, somewhat flattering. But what I find most interesting is that I mostly write on this blog about what other folks are doing in their classrooms. While I'm in classrooms pretty much every day, none of them are my classroom. It's been a few years since I've had a classroom of my own. All the great - and sometimes not so great - things you read about on this blog are happening in other folks' classrooms. (This is also why when I'm approached to present, one of my first questions is, "Can I bring at least one of my teachers along that is actually doing this in their classrooms?) I think - and hope - that I have helped a lot of those things happen in those classrooms, but it sure seems like those teachers are the ones who should be getting the job inquiries, not me. Now, having said that, if anyone was reading along and about to offer me six figures and unlimited use of the company jet, I'll be happy to delete the previous seven sentences and take your call - operators are standing by.
So, I guess I'm still processing all this but, to me, this is just another example of the way the world is changing. I wrote a grant and got it. I started this blog in support of our staff development efforts as part of that grant. I wrote a second grant and got it, which allowed us to bring even more folks into the staff development effort, which of course gave me more to blog about. The blog got noticed by some folks and people started reading it. They apparently found value in it, so many of them subscribed in their RSS aggregators. I apparently blogged something interesting at least often enough to keep them from removing it from their RSS aggregators. Now we're getting invitations to present and job inquiries.
This couldn't have happened to me/us ten years ago, or five years ago, or probably even three years ago. The tools may have been there (although they've improved tremendously), but the critical mass of audience wasn't in place (and the key tool - RSS - wasn't known to enough people). This is an important idea that I need to think about a lot more, but I think it holds a tremendous lesson for our students about the flattening of the world and the power of the read/write web.
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