Clif’s Notes

It’s Good to Be Back

I’m excited to be working with Kannapolis City Schools again (Previous Posts: 1, 2). I’m helping provide professional development for part of their grant funded technology integration initiative called IMPACT. I’ve been asked to facilitate the following workshops:

• Instructional Design in the Digital Age
• Interactive PowerPoint Games and Modules
• Selecting and Implementing WebQuests
• Telecollaboration in the Classroom
• Educational Podcasting

Please share any resources, information, cases, scenarios, etc. that you think will help teachers learn more about these topics by clicking on the session titles above and adding your contribution to the Notes and Resources from My PLN section at the bottom of each wiki. Rest assured that I welcome your input in this endeavor!

Noteworthy from NECC

I’m still trying to catch up from my recent trips to Kannapolis, EduBloggerCon and NECC. I have notes, pod/vidcasts and photos that I intend to share but more pressing matters (Family, research and writing, preparations for professional development workshops and 2nd summer semester courses) have kept my attention. Here are a few things that I want to make sure I at least go ahead and point out.

Measuring What Really Matters: The 21st Century Skills Assessment Project
“…a collaborative effort designed to create viable methods of assessing of higher order learning outcomes, and the higher-order skills required by independent, lifelong learners.”

• This handout provides a good overview of the project and includes the current iteration of the assessment instrument.
• SIGTE Forum: Assessing 21st Century Skills–Next Steps - NOTE: I’m interested in exploring this further with those sharing an interest in this. Perhaps we could set up an online discussion group or something. Drop me a line if you are interested.

ISTE’s Classroom Observation Tool (ICOT)
"A FREE online tool that provides a set of questions to guide classroom observations of a number of key components of technology integration."

Ed Tech Action Network
"ETAN provides a forum for educators and others to engage in the political process and project a unified voice in support of a common cause – improving teaching and learning through the systemic use of technology. ETAN’s mission is to influence public policy-makers at the federal, state and local levels and to increase public investment in the competitiveness of America’s classrooms and students."

Possible Federal Funding for Educational Technology
There is a possibility that we will see more funding for educational technology and perhaps even a large funding program similar to the PT3 initiative.

Write Elected Officials about Educational Technology Funding

We learned about this possible opportunity during the Teacher Educators (SIGTE) meeting during NECC. I’ve been intending to write a post about it, but I think my good friend, Drew, covers all the high points. The following message was originally posted on The Playground.

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved legislation to fund an educational technology initiative. However, the U.S. Senate looks to be undecided on whether they will support funding. You can be involved. Go to the Ed Tech Action Network and put your zip code in the box at the top of the page. It will generate a letter to your U.S. Senators that you can modify as you see fit. In the next month, there is a chance that we will see more funding for educational technology and perhaps even a large funding program similar to the PT3 initiative.

Please take some time and voice your opinion,
Drew Polly

NECC This Afternoon

Here are the presentations/discussions that I attended/ participated in during the first half of this afternoon.

A Plan for Wiki Adoption by Ken Pruitt
Ken’s presentation was an adaptation of Stewart Mader’s Wikipatterns. Ken shared suggested strategies for implementing the use of wikis at all levels.

Educational Technology and the Law facilitated by Jon Becker and Scott McLeod
While preparing for the Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 seminar I’ve realized how important it is that I become more knowledgeable about copyright, intellectual property, plagiarism, and related topics. I especially liked how they were able to pose existing IRL analogies for the virtual situations under discussion.

I’m off to the the much anticipated (at least by me) poster presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Tool. I plan to share what I learn soon.

NECC This Morning

I’ve spent most of today participating in the following sessions and meeting online friends in the Bloggers’ Cafe. I’m looking forward to the presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Instrument (ICOT) later today. I’m curious to see how it stacks up against similar instruments like LoTi. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to post my thoughts about it. For now, here’s what I’ve attended to day.

Diigo: A Swiss Army Knife for Your Browser by Maggie Tsai, Diigo Co-Founder
Maggie gave a crash course in the basic features and use of Diigo. After her presentation she asked to interview me on camera and I reluctantly agreed. I shared some of the most common ways that Diigo is being used by my students, teachers with whom I mentor in professional development, and by me. She also asked me to share ways that I thought their technology could be improved and I reiterated ideas that I’d previously shared on Miguel’s discussions (here and here) related to this topic. I was pleased with her responses to my technical and design suggestions (She even contacted the engineers about one of the issues while we were talking.) and she provided Diigo’s rationale for why the ads, for now, will continue to exist throughout the tool. She assured me that they are indeed considering

Creating a Ning Network from Scratch by Steve Hargadon
If you want to learn about setting up your own Ning you might as well learn from the master. I’m comfortable using this “tool” but Steve provided useful insight regarding design and implementation which I found valuable.

Using Understanding by Design (UbD) to Create Technology Rich, Deep Learning Unit Plans by Chris Lehmann and Marcie Hull
There are oodles of similar models out there but I found this one to be practical but thorough. I’m going to take another look at Understanding by Design when I return home.

When I become a Teacher

What kind of teacher do you want to be?

This Afternoon at EBC

Diving Deep into Google Earth and Google Maps

• Lucy Gray’s presenter notes
• Adding images in Google Earth
• Geotagging
• Maps, directions, and more
• Google Book Search Library Project

Web 2.0 in Teacher Education (Program Info)

1. My presenter notes
2. Alternative to the term Web 2.0 is the Read, Write Web
3. Teacher education and professional development that effectively helps teachers better integrate technology with teaching and learning
• Allow the teachers to select their own goals and help them reach them
• Online social networks can more easily provide the in-time assistance, coaching, mentoring, etc. that individuals during development/learning, but teachers often don’t think about using the networks
4. How do we prepare teachers to teach in the 1-to-1 environment?
   • The emphasis should change from "teaching" to designing learning that engages the students.
5. Resources for future teachers
   • Social Network
   • Bookmarks

Designing the 21st Century Global Learning Environments (Program Info)

1. Building on some online discussion that has been ocurring for the past year here and here.
2. If there were no barriers what would education look like? Brainstorming notes

This Morning at EBC

I’ll be updating this post throughout the day to alert you of things happening here at EBC San Antonio. The full list of sessions is here. I’ll be sharing information form the sessions that I’m attending. The session titles are in bold.

Social Networking for Professional Development

Scott Merrick is sitting next to me and streaming this discussion live.

1. Should it be organized or self-forming?
• Should the tool(s) be dictated?
2. An atmosphere promoting risk-taking is imperative.
3. Teachers know what they want to learn. Professional development should be tailored around them rather requiring them to attend PD in which they had no say.

Social Networking in the Classroom

Vicki Davis is sitting by me and is streaming this seession here.

1. Teachers in the room are using Ning, Elgg, and several private online communities.
2. Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis updated us about the Flat Classroom and the Horizon Project.
3. How important are digital citizenship and pedagogy in these decisions?
4. If someone says a curse word in the classroom do we close the school? If there’s a fight at recess do we quit having recess? Why do we over react to these problems in online spaces?

The Death of Theory

by Trevor Acy

Is theory dead? Did Google kill it?

Models have oft been employed to test correlations; but in an age with so much data, correlation may have simply became enough. No longer is proving causality necessary. Companies like Google are approaching data the way the geniuses behind the Baseball Prospectus began approaching baseball, which is to look at a collection of data for its mathematical significance first and worry about the context in which it is found later. Google was one of the first companies to capitalize on this in the business world. They approached advertising this way, only finding where an ad would work the best and not caring why.

An article on Wired.com shows why George Box’s famous quote “All models are wrong, but some are useful” may be becoming only half true. Many come to the defense of models in the comments section claiming that this era of copious amounts of data will strengthen method and not destroy it. But whether the scientific method is obsolete or not, this is surely a new movement in the scientific world unlike anything that has ever been seen.

*Illustration by Marian Bantjes from Wired.com

Greetings from North Carolina

I’m spending the next couple of days providing professional development for some of the tech-savvy outstanding teachers with Kannapolis City Schools. My classes will be focusing on teaching and learning with Web 2.0 (Becoming my new thing, I guess.) and creating and using podcasts in the classroom.

Note to my online PLC:

I hope to demonstrate the power and benefits of an online personal learning community (PLC) during my time here, but I’ll need your help with that. Please share your ideas, resources, examples, and advice on these topics. I’m sure the teachers here at KCS would appreciate and benefit from your input. You can respond in the comments section of this post or add information to the related section on my wiki.

PLEASE share!

Firefox Is the Browser of Choice

This blog does not support Internet Explorer! Web developers have to add special coding to webpages and blogs to keep things from going wonky in Internet Explorer, although everything will look perfect in other browsers without the special code. I’m tired of fooling with it. There are several better and more secure browsers available and I don’t think anyone should be using IE anymore. Here’s the perfect opportunity to switch to Firefox (The browser I recommend using). Download today and help set a new world record.

Summer Wiki Challenge

I finally setup and began using my own wiki recently and have found it to be a useful technology. Use of the technology was quickly integrated into my productivity strategies and I’m left wondering how I ever managed without it. In a very short time I’ve already found the need to setup additional wikis and have begun collaborating with colleagues on several other wikis that aren’t mine. As with most Web 2.0 tools, wikis are very easy to use and offer a wide variety of possible uses.

I received an email from Wetpaint’s Education division stating that “wikis are a fantastic way to keep your students engaged in learning over summer vacation — and to help them prepare for the coming school year.” They suggest the following strategies to help you get started.

Create a summer reading wiki where students can choose summer reading titles and post their thoughts — all before the first day of school!

Share a preview of your syllabus with your students to give them a sense of what they can expect when school is back in session.

Collaborate with other teachers to share your ideas for a successfull fall semester.

Personal profiles let students get to know each other before the bell rings on the first day.

SOURCE: Wetpaint.com Education - Ideas for wiki-ing this summer

I had a few other ideas that might encourage teachers to begin using a wiki this summer come to mind.

• Use a wiki to collaborate with colleagues as you prepare instructional units, assignments, field trips, supply lists, and more for the coming year.
• Provide a weekly math challenge for students to encourage them to keep their math skills and knowledge sharp.
• Allow students to share their creative writing or poetry on your wiki. This would be an opportunity to encourage practice in writing, reading, critique, peer review and editing.
• Host an online art gallery, photo essays or video journals around a specific topic or theme.

Take a look at this list of ideas for using wikis this summer being compiled at Wetpaint’s Wikis in Education.

Discussion

1. What other strategies for using wikis do you suggest?
2. Will you accept the challenge to begin using a wiki this summer?

Listen to RSS Feeds

Jott has added another useful feature to its list of services. Jott feeds makes it possible for you to “listen to your favorite news & RSS feeds, like those from your favorite blogs, Twitter, Google Calendar, or Facebook, all from your phone.” Like everything else from Jott, this service is very simple to use and it works well.

I see positive potential for this free service to be used in education and by those that have visual impairments, have difficulty reading, spend time commuting, and more. It could also be useful to learners that learn best through audio, to help students “hear” their writing during the editing process, to practice pronunciation and for public speaking as well as many other examples. While this particular service may not make its way into many classrooms it is exciting to know that the technology has arrived and consider the possibilities such tools and services bring to teaching and learning.

I set the service up for this blog. It took about 30 seconds. Would any of you be interested in using it?

Additional Resources

• Introducing Jott Feeds - Jott
• Jott Reads Feeds to Your Cell Phone - LifeHacker

Developing Educational Technology Courses

As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m teaching a special topics course this summer titled Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0. I’ve enjoyed engaging with many people from around the world on the topic and content of this course and encourage anyone with an interest to join the fun.

Kimberly McCollum left the following comment regarding one of my previous posts on this topic.

I also teach a course about technology in k12 education, so I [am] really interested in your curriculum. What is the balance between pedagogical theory and tool training in your course? Also, with so many tools out there, how did you decide what will be included or excluded from the course?

I think Kimberly has asked some very important questions – questions that many others will be facing in the very near future – and I’d like to start a dialogue here. Here is my slightly edited reply to Kimberly’s inquiry.

Wow, these are good questions that do not have simple answers.

This course will primarily focus on teaching and learning with the understanding that the technology is meant to enhance learning. You can look at the draft version of the Course Topics and see that we’ll begin by looking at various instructional models, rationale for networking, the principles of web 2.0, related current topics and issues, and more before we ever look at any specific tools.

We’ll survey a variety of Web 2.0 technologies and the learners will have some flexibility in which tools they choose to use (For example, for the social bookmarking unit the learners could choose to use Diigo, Del.icio.us, etc.). Again, the tools are not the primary focus as many will be vastly upgraded or obsolete 18 months from now. The idea will be for the learners to become familiar with each general group or genre of tools and begin developing strategies for integrating them with teaching and learning in their own classrooms during the coming school year.

I’ve tried to group the tools according to use in the classroom. For example, I’ve grouped everything related to audio together. This class does not seek to be on the bleeding edge of innovation so we’ll look at tools that have examples of being implemented in classrooms and have at least a small community of edu-users. I intend to allow for some flexibility to allow for emergent learning opportunities as learners discover topics and technologies of particular interest to them individually.

The number of groups of tools that can be studied will likely be more than we can study in the course, so I anticipate that we’ll all learn some of the most common tools together (blogs, wikis, microblogging, etc.) and then I’ll allow the learners to customize their learning by picking 4 or so of the remaining half dozen groups as they deem most appropriate for their needs, interests, personal/ professional development, etc.

As we survey all these tools, we’ll always bring the conversation back to the educational merits each brings to the design of instruction. I do not believe in using technology for the sake of using technology, nor do I wish for anyone to leave my class with that misconception.

I encourage you to join in the development of the content through the course wiki and welcome your input, suggested resources, ideas, engagement before, during, and after the course.

Those are my thoughts at this point. I still have just over a month until the course begins, so let’s discuss this more.

• How would you balance the "pedagogical theory and tool training" in a course like this one?
• How would you suggest organizing the content?
• With which technologies do you think it is most important for educators to be familiar?
• What suggestions for improvement can you offer?

Related Resources

• Course Resources
• Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 (Introductory Post)
• Traditional Approaches and Digital Alternatives
• Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy
• Teach Web 2.0
• MSU Grad Students Technical Tools
• OpenPD
• TechnoThursdays

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