Ideas For EduBloggerCon East

After virtually attending and reading about Edubloggercon in San Antonio, I have some ideas for our upcoming Edubloggercon East (not just for bloggers) at the Newton Marriott on July 14th (join us if you can - it's free!). So far we have about 20 people coming, so it should be a much more intimate experience than EBC in San Antonio. If you can join us please click on the wiki link and add your name to the list of people attending.

• Under-plan, let's arrive with ideas for what we want to do with the day, but let's also let the day shape itself. We have a few "session" suggestions, but I think it is important for us to keep these "sessions" as conversational as possible. Check out Ewan McIntosh's blog post about what an Unconference should be. (He also suggests we serve beer!)
• Start with an ice breaker of some kind, something that gets us walking around and meeting each other. Something fun and also physical and interactive. Something that gets us started with a bang - before doing any planning.
• Think together about the structure of the day. What are the topics we are most interested in? Do we need facilitators for the discussions? How big or small should our groups be? I think it would be nice to do some things in large groups and some things in smaller groups.
• Brainstorm our burning questions and create a wiki that we can fill in with any answers that we come up with over the course of EBC-East and of BLC. This idea comes from David Warlick's blog post on EBC08 in San Antonio.
• Make sure we remember at the end of the day to debrief the experience. Let's save at least 45 minutes to reflect together on what worked about the day and what we would change(plus/delta).

What do you all think? What suggestions do you have? Were you at EBC08 in San Antonio? What was the best thing about it? What would you do differently next time? Please share your advice and ideas, whether you can attend or not!

Seeing the World through Blog Colored Glasses

I continue to be amazed by the affect that blogging has on my thinking. Everything I do and see and experience is filed away as a potential blog post. I make meaning of my world in ways I never did before. I am constantly composing posts in my head. It makes for some incredible learning experiences, but can also make it hard to sleep.

I haven't posted in a while. I've been finishing up the school year and just ended 4 days of teaching a professional development class for teachers. There are lots of things bouncing around in my head that I plan to blog about. I thought I would give you just a taste of things to come and, in doing so, force myself to follow up on my ideas.

I have a new job! I just accepted the position of Director of Academic Technology at The Belmont Hill School in Belmont, MA. I am thrilled to be given the opportunity to help define and lead this extraordinary school in a quest to prepare students to succeed and excel in the 21st century. I am honored by the confidence in me that the leadership team of this school has expressed. It is truly an exciting new adventure that I can't wait to start.

Top Down or Bottom Up? Should every teacher in a school have a basic technology proficiency? Is it more important to focus on complex and creative technology projects with a few teachers and let the excitement and rewards spill down through the faculty, or should the focus be on making sure every teacher is at least proficient in using a mouse, a browser and setting up a Web page? I think there is a choice to be made, because I don't think there is enough time to focus on both.

Professional Development that works. I just finished teaching a 4 days professional development course titled Using 21st Century Technology Tools to Improve and Inspire Student Writing. I co-taught this course with an English teacher with whom I have worked a lot this year. I think our model overall really worked. We focused first on the learning goals and then on how different technology tools could help teachers achieve these goals and objectives. It was wonderful to have a teacher working with me who could really speak to the realities of using these tools in the classroom.

Professional Development Meme. I haven't forgotten that I was tagged for this meme a while back. I have a lot of things on my list - one of them being working on this blog. I do plan to dedicate an entire post to laying out my professional goals for the summer.

Trying out a new tool. In just the last two days I have been playing with a new Twitter like tool called Plurk. I'm not sure yet what I think of the tool, but I have been loving learning to use it. For me it has been a true constructivist experience. Together with my network, we've been working out how things work. Plurk may or may not be the hot new tool, but just learning to use it has been a great experience for me.

Here is a screencast of what I have learned so far.


So stay tuned for more on at least a few of these topics (let me know if you have a preference for where you would like me to start).

OK - now I just have to figure out when I'm going to take a vacation...

Photo Credit: Life Through Rose Colored Glasses from pangalactic gargleblaster's photostream on Flickr.

Trickle Down Tech-inomics

I have been working at a grassroots level to help teachers find ways to incorporate 21st century tools into their curriculum. I've made great progress with many teachers and they are spreading the word to their colleagues. The movement is growing and at the level of teacher and student we are making a difference. That is where it matters and slowly change is happening.

I think it is now time for administrators to come on board. To truly make a difference, superintendents, principals, and department heads need to start blogging, podcasting, and participating in social networks like Twitter and Ning. We need to gear some of our technology professional development to the needs of administrators. Andrew Torres wrote a great post about Why School Leaders Should Blog. He articulates well the benefits that blogging brings to the entire school community. Dennis Richards is an excellent example of a school superintendent who is leading the way for his district.

How do we get school leaders to see these benefits? Are your district leaders using these tools? Do you have ideas about ways to make this happen? Please share them here.

Photo Credit: Trickle Down the Mountain from gkaren96's Flickr photostream

Why I love So You Think You Can Dance

As some of you may already know, So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) is one of my favorite TV shows. It is basically American Idol for dancers. This show features talented people who excel in a variety of dance genres including hip-hop, lyrical, jazz, and ballroom. And no, I am not a fan of Dancing with the Stars. As Andrew Wallenstein puts it in his NPR piece, Why 'Dance' is Hotter than Idol, "watching Dancing with the Stars is like watching a Ferrari pulling around a golf cart".

SYTYCD features strong dancers in their own area of expertise and pushes them to step out of their comfort zones into different genres of dance. Some of these dancers have been trained by dance teachers and others have never taken a dance class. We watch these people struggle as they go from being an expert to being a novice. The ones who succeed are learners at heart and truly love dance. They push themselves and don't give up. And, if they don't make it to the top 20 this year, many go home and get more training and come back again and again. They attribute their "failure" to their strategy and not to their ability. This is a message that I have blogged about in the past, so I'm sorry if y'all are tired of it. But I believe so strongly in a growth mindset that I just have to keep coming back to it.

We as educators can learn so much from watching these dancers grow and push themselves and work hard to overcome their weaknesses. As experienced teachers we are used to being good at what we do. When we come to a challenge, like using new technologies in the classroom, it can feel very uncomfortable. We don't like to look "dumb" in front of our students. Stepping out of your comfort zone while others are watching makes it that much harder to do. These dancers inspire me to keep working, not give up and continue to try different strategies when things don't go the way I had hoped.

Oh yeah, and the dancing is amazing to watch.

Preparing Students to Succeed in the 21st Century

I often talk about this as a goal. Lately, I've been trying to articulate what this really means. It is easy to say, but what does a school look like that is actually preparing students for the 21st Century?

Many of these ideas are inspired by the 21st Century Skills Initiative.

Preparing students to interact in a global economy. In order to prepare students to work with an international community of colleagues we need to provide them with opportunities to interact with people from around the world. Teachers also need experiences collaborating globally. Online social networks, such as Ning, Twitter, and even Facebook, provide teachers with a way to meet colleagues from around the world and around the country. These Online relationships provide opportunities for classrooms to connect.

Preparing students to navigate and sift through an excess of information. In order to prepare students to search for and evaluate information, we need to provide them with opportunities to do just that. We need to ask students to find answers to questions and then have them not only share their answers, but also describe their search processes and defend their sources.

Preparing students to contribute to and consume in a media rich market. In order to prepare students to consume and create multi-media messages, student should be both evaluating and creating Online video, podcasts and blogs. Students need to learn to be both educated consumers and producers of these messages.

Preparing students to tackle new innovations. In order to prepare students to face and conquer new technology tools, we need to provide them with opportunities to solve their own problems. We can't provide them with step by step directions, but instead encourage them to seek out new tools, figure them out and communicate their learning with classmates.

Preparing students to think creatively, take risks and come up with new ideas. In order to encourage students to discover new ideas, we need to create learning environments that encourage and support failure. Students must be provided with challenging questions to tackle that don't have obvious answers.

Preparing students for digital citizenship. In order to teach students how to interact Online, we must openly discuss issues of privacy, copyright, and Online behavior. Students need to understand the difference between private and public spaces and how to behave in each place. They also need to learn how to interact Online in responsible and ethical ways. Students need to be given opportunities to share information with a larger audience. They need to be given opportunities to interact Online with classmates in a public space where their behavior and contributions to the community are an important part of how they are assessed.

What else? What does it look like in your school? What are students and teachers doing to prepare for success in the 21st century? What have I missed? I welcome your ideas and suggestions.

This I Believe...

Beth Knittle tagged me for the This I believe meme started by Barry Bachenheimer. I blogged a while back about my Common Principles for 21st Century Schools. I think I lot of what I came up with encompasses what I believe, but here is my latest articulation of those ideas. Thanks Beth for tagging me!

• I believe that risk taking is essential to learning.
• I believe in a growth mindset - failure is not a reflection on the learner, rather a reflection on the strategy.
• I believe in the power of collective intelligence, together we can accomplish so much more than we can alone. We are what we share.
  
• I believe that learning to effectively and efficiently discover, evaluate and synthesize information is more important than the information itself.
• I believe that teachers must be given the opportunity, the time and the resources to experience and assimilate new technologies for themselves before we can ask them to share their understanding with students.
• I believe that we need to constantly and consistently ask ourselves why we teach what we teach.
• I believe in the power of educational technology to improve learning, create communities and inspire new thinking (had to include this one since it is the subtitle of my blog :)

So there you have it. I believe in lots more, but that is all I can pull together tonight. Now I have to tag some more people.

• Lisa Thuman
• Alice Barr
• McTeach
• Dennis Richards

What do you believe?

Technology Tutorials for Teachers.

I have created tutorial documents for several Web 2.0 tools and have posted them all on this Wiki: http://21ctools.wikispaces.com/



Please feel free to link, share, or download any of the materials on the Website. I will continue to add to the site and welcome feedback on the tutorials (let me know if anything needs to be edited or changed).

I hope that you will find this resource helpful!