Monday, July 31, 2006

Social computing?

I have moments when I feel very anti-social towards social computing. A couple of days away from my computer and the number of blog entries to read has multiplied at an alarming rate. It's summer, but everyone's brains have forgotten to take a vacation. After going to BLC I vowed to pare down my list of subscriptions. I have put in hours, making decisions, cutting out blogs that I haven't gotten around to reading, but still the number of unread entries is way too high. There's not a lot social about sitting glued to the computer. But oh, it is so adictive.

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Saturday, July 29, 2006

Sara Kajder

I have been involved in giving workshops on digital storytelling, but it is always interesting to see how others approach the subject. I am pulled by the purists who talk about personal narrative and have seen some compelling stories created by young children through to adults. Sara Kajder spoke about personal narrative as well as about some online tools for creating digital stories.

session notes:
Digital Storytelling

2 essential questions - What are the unique capacities and limits of this tool?
How does this tool allow us to do something better?

Content -- Communicate -- Create

Narrative Inquiry - A fusing of research and storytelling practice which results in a product that tells a story of how individuals understand their actions, experiences, environment and culture

using the pieces of our lives to see what really matters.

Sara Kajder has a recent book Bringing the Outside In There is a support web site

stories structure the meanings of culture

We as members of communities have social networks - digitial story -
pbs - The civil war - images of the civil war

Create a document of lives lived.
Redheads: A digital story - by a 3rd grade teacher You can see it on the storycenter.org site.

What are the elements of a digital story?

point of view
dramatic question
emotion
voice
soundtrack
economy
pacing

A reflective component - take a look at the past - who we were and who we want to become
Connect to - this is not a place to do a book report - you can make digital book reports, but that is not a digital story
Dramatic - the good ones are raw
Opening a door that is uncomfortable
Have to care about what they are writing
Voice
Soundtrack - this is just the icing - lyrics will run counter to student's voice
Economy - affects only to convey narrative meaning
Pacing - stories breathe if they are written well - the students need to learn how to unpack something

Scripts are written on the front of a 3x5 or 4x6 card because words are only 1 element

Steps of construction

- pre-writing "What do I have to say?
- artifact search (visual elements)
- draft of script , storyboard
- script-sharing circle (critical English teaching part, read aloud (used Skype to have other people present but it didn't work as well as face to face feedback) sometimes gets in other adult help) Students taught to preface feedback "If it were my story I would....)
- script revision
-construction (1 day in lab ) - first get down images. Bells and whistles , transitions are absolutely the last record narration 1 -2 sentences at a time.
- screening, viewing and discussion - invite everyone who can breathe - movie makers get a pat on the back, discussion is important too)

If people aren't taught the language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read and write.

Online programs
Bubble Share
Eyespot does not allow for as much audio control
jumpcut - any user can post video and films - not a safe place
opsound - metasite to upload their own musical content and get safe music

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Andy Hargreaves Sustainable Leadership

Last night I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" - Al Gore's movie on global warming. The message is clear and straightforward - we all have to contribute to the solution. But there is a solution. We have to move from a "me" society to a "we " society. Until we see that our actions and those of others have effects far beyond our immediate vicinity, we will not change. Andy Hargreaves also talked about social responsibility - how a sustainable school is one which is in harmony with its surroundings. Magnet schools, private schools, etc. afffect not only those who attend them but also those who don't . We have to start working together for change.

Notes from the session:
Professor at Boston College
His powerpoint is available at his site. http://www.andyhargreaves.com
es.com He did not show most of the Powerpoint but it is an excellent reference.

Andy Hargreaves is a passionate and eloquent speaker.

Links between professional learning communities
moving into the age of post-standardization
Spenser Foundation -- looking at 8 secondary schools in Canada and US - looking at change - followed over 30 years

work in UK - has left behind the age of standardization (as have most of Canada, Australia, Singapore and even Japan)
building on positive peer pressure rather than fear and compliance
America is conlonizing the model that most English-speaking nations are leaving behind
have to equip ourselves as educators
how do you lose your integrity? how do you lose your moral way?
Ian McKuen - The Innocent - character makes tiny shifts step--by-step, each of which make sense in relationship to the last one but the whole do not make sense and he finds himself way over his head. He lost his moral core - not by big dramatic moments, but by small adjestments and suddenly finds himself in a place he should not be. We have to be sure this does not happen to us, that we do not lose our integrity.

What is unsustainable - American policy
What is sustainablity? not only whether it can last but also without compromising the development of others in the surrounding environment, now and in the future. (also about social justice)

What is the oppositie? unsustainability?
imposed short-term targets
In the UK, targets in literacy and numberacy failed miserable (National Literacy Standards). What improvements there were were due to test items being made easier.

What does a sustainable company look like -
  • Put purpose before profit
  • Start slowly, advance persistently
  • Do not depend on a single, visionary leader

In US - what is happening?

focusing on reading and math at expense of the arts and other "frills"
focusing on the 20% just below passing to make test scores look better
rates of literacy go up but rates of reading for pleasure go down

Schools are becoming the Enron of education

What is sustainable leadership?
- 7 principles
1) Depth (it matters)

Learning leads to Achievement leads to testing
NOT data driven instruction Testing leads to achievement leads to learning
We need evidence informed practice. The first year things may get worse but in the 2nd year it starts to get better and continues to.

2) Endurance (it lasts)

Sustainable leadership - few things succeed less than leadership succession. - your best legacy is in principles, practices and people
All school improvement plans should have succession plans - where the school is, where it is going, what kind of leadership it needs
- professional learning communities
from slide - Professional learning communities

Transform knowledge
Shared enquiry
Evidence informed
Situated certainty

3) Breadth (it spreads)

distributed and shared leadership
veteran dominated leadership is exclusionary - does not give space to young
novice dominated leadership - driven by enthusiasm rather than expertise - leads to burnout
Best culture is a blend of older and younger
provides mentoring
reciprocal learning

4) Justice (it does not harm the surrounding environment)

5)Diversity (it promotes diversity and conhesion)

networks
respond to changes - in the environment
network schools together
peer support and positive peer pressure

You learn more from people who are different from you, than ones who are the same

6) Resourcefulness (it conserves expenditure)

7) Conservation (it honours the past in creating the future)

From the Powerpoint:
Leaders of sustaining learning:
  • Passionately advocate and defend deep learning for all students
  • Combine and commit to old and new basics
  • Put learning, before achievement, before testing
  • Make learning the paramount priority
  • Become more knowledgeable about learning
  • Make learning transparent
  • Be omnipresent witnesses to learning
  • Practise evidence-informed, inquiry-based leadership
  • Promote assessment for learning
  • Engage students in decisions about their learning
  • Involve parents in their children’s learning
  • Model effective adult learning
  • Create the emotional conditions for learning
Hargreaves & Fink, 2006

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Friday, July 28, 2006

Bob Pearlman

Bob Pearlman is a good speaker. He described his work with the New Technology High School. Much of the approach sounds very much like the Quebec Education Program. You can read an article by Bob Pearlman at Edutopia. He echos the writing of Thomas Friedman in talking of how the world has changed and we need to prepare our students for that new reality. My question is - how do we get teachers to change? Bob talks about revamping schools, but I find schools to be firmly entrenched in keeping the status quo.

Notes on the session:
Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

Presentation posted at http://www.bobpearlman.org/blc2006.htm

Results that Matter -
Standards that are being tested are low level - need not only content knowledge -

SCANS US Dept of necessary skills 1992
Partnership
www.21stcenturyskills.org

These are the CCCs in the QEP (Quebec Education Program)
Assessment is the key (not for accountability purposes) assessment for learning
just in time assessment - to be in charge of their own learnng

At the core is a student centered, project and problem based teachig strategy that is tied to both content standards and school wide learning outcomes
Teachers start each unit by throwing students into a realistic or real-world project that both engages interest and generates a list of things that student need to know. Projects are designed to tackle complex problems, requiring critical thinking.

Project and
to learn collaboration, work in teams
to learn critical thinking, take on complex problems
to learn oral communication ,present
to learn written communication, write (all kinds - memos, business plans, reports)
to learn technology, use technology
to develop citizenship, take on civic and global issues
to lern about careers, do internships
to learn content, research and do all of the

project - 2-8 weeks long
Students form a team, develop a work contract - build a work plan
online briefcase - assessment criteria

teacher facilitates a dialogue - what do you need to know, how are you going to find that out,
students experiment, apply learning, get to work and collaborate
build presentation - rehearse, present, to authentic audience (who judge - act like a jury and hammer kids with questions)
- can't cheat in this context

When project over - write a reflection - what they learned, assess peers on collaboration skills

PBL example

President's dilemma
get a letter - you are my council of economic advisors. Oil prices are going up, popularity going down. I need a report in 15 days
(need to learn about oil,....)

Moongames
Students are ocommisioned by TOYCO and NASA to create or modify games played on earth to work on Lunar colonies. Using Newton's laws design games that work on the moon

Together we stand
prepare a museum exhibit (images, stories, ....)

The Buck Institute for Education www.bie.org
The project-based learning handbook

Embedded in projects
management, temawork, oral communication, assessment and feedback for students

Have to design project to have multiple deadlines (sub-assignments - interrum benchmarks, process documents - scaffolding )
provide checkpoints
proposals, outlines, plans, blueprints, drafts, edit drafts, models, revised drafts, product critiques,.....)

Process - group work contracts, roles and duties of group members, student generated task or "to do" lists, project calendar, group progress reports, student time cards)
pressure coming from peers not teacher - develop project calendar,

Develop Assessment
Design rubrics for content AND broader learning outcomes
Rubrics should articulate the various performance levels.
Rubrics MUST be handed out in the early stages of the project when they can be used to set expectations.

Rubrics are for students not for teacher - what are key criteria? what constitutes basic work and more advanced?

New Technology High
http://www.newtechhigh.org

1;1 computer ratio

integrating technology into every class
interdisciplinary and project-based
internship class consisting of classroom curriculum and unpaid work in technology , buisiness or education
Digital Portfolio

http://www.newtechfoundation.org/html/NTHLearningSystem.html
You can learn more about their computerized learning system (digital portfolio, etc.) here.

New Technology HS Learning Outcomes

Technology Literacy
Collaboration
Critical Thinking
Oral Communication
Written Communication
Career Preparation
Citizenship and Ethics
Curricular Literacy (Content Standards)

the Big Picture

How can we help students stay on task?
Course calendar (click on any day and gives detail)
- accessible from home or school and to parents with a secure password
How can we beter hold students accountable for their collaboration skills while working in a group?
- teamwork evaluation database - created a rubric - online tool - fill out on each of peers. Over time you can start to map your own scores. Data is available to put in your portfolio
How can we capture evidence of oral presentation - rubric - presentation evaluation database - accessible by students as evidence of performance

How can we give students and parents clear feedback on student performance that better reflects our authentic assessment practices?
Grades broken down - work ethic, social studeis content, collaboration , presentaiton skills, english literature content, writing mechanics, critical thinking, senior project (whatever is relevant to the project)

Grade Portal - the grade book they have created - it is a living report card - available any day of the week. Only finalized at end of term. Students can check at any point and see where work is needed.

Students make professional portfolios
use it to get a summer job, and for applying to college

Curriculum library
digital portfolio
NTHS Gradebook
Collaborative Evaluator

June Edutopia - New Skills for a New Century

http://www.bobpearlman.org

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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Whiplash

Darren Kuropatwa took us on a whirlwind tour of web 2.0 tools. Ten minutes per tool
http://whiplash.pbwiki.com/

Fortunately there is a wiki to support the workshop so I did not take as many notes. I have admired the work that Darren has done with his students in Winnipeg. His student blogs on mathematics are a model to follow as is his exploration of wikis with his students.

Here are a few notes:

Furl - 5GB storage space

copies the web (text and links) and saves a personal copy of the page for you.
Recommendations
Furl mates - what are other people saving

Feed windows - getting information automatically from other places.
It would be nice to have a Hitchhikr for specific content areas or specific topics. That way you could automatically bring in tagged articles with a specific subject (e.g. JaneAusten NCLB) This can bring in different points of view for your students to explore. You can create feed windows with feeds from different newspapers to read the current stories from different points of view.

Darren shared 3 feed windows.
Feed windows - http://grazr.com/
http://feedostyle.com/
http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/feed/
You can see samples of how they look on the wiki.

If you want to know how teachers are using wikis - look at Darren's list here: http://whiplash.pbwiki.com/Wikis

The last section of the talk dealt with the cool and ubercool tools that are available. Have a look A number of people have been promoting Flock as the best browser available. It is Mozilla based and has many built in features. (Windows, Mac Linux). Explore the tools - the future is exciting. But be careful you may get whiplash.....

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Alan November

Alan November tried to address what are the problems of today - how can we shift from planning for technology to the quality and application of information and communication. He touched on how the teacher's role has to change. An interesting issue was the notion that schools are going to have to service families more. In particular, with the changing of jobs, adults will need frequent retraining. People who have had bad school experiences are going to have to be lured into schools for positive experiences.

In the US there needs to be more attention to all aspects of the child. Education without decent health care and living space can change little. I am fortunate to live in Canada where health care, at least, is addressed.


Session notes:
What is the compelling problem?

Why are companies no longer funding education? "Why would we fund public education when we can hire engineers overseas? " Up until now you had to fund your own country.

Peter Swartz - The Art of the Long View
using scenarios He worked for Royal Dutch Shell - when oil embargo hit the company
The world is undergoing unheaval and we are trying to fix the current reality.
Stanford University is offering Virtual High School - $12000 / year. - how can you compete with that?

Every library should become an online learning centre -
We have not made tan overwhelming case for technology

If you build scenarios, than compare it to what you have at the moment. The pressure to change is close - no change and then a cataclysmic event (9/11). Process engineering - looking at why things are done and is there a better way to do it? Incentives to change don't exist in education (no competition). should go out into the real world - what are the conversations (internal, customers/suppliers,) apply to education system - what are your relationships with the families. Communications technologies. If we compared education to companies - big gap. Best practices not necessarily in the field you work in. We are used to comparing education against other education settings. Need to look at vision and mission.

Airforce academy hires every student they teach. Measure quality years after graduation. Education measures quality at the moment of the last test. Should be looking at long term - how did we prepare students? Training - asked CEO of HSBC - what are the most important skills - empathy because we operate world wide we need people who understand a different cultural point of view. Passion (Marco taps into empathy and passion).

Have to end technology planning - we need learning results planning. Need to take technology out of title. You are viewed differently if you come as a technology person or as a "empathy and passion" coordinator.

Job description of a learner - who owns the learning. Shift ownership to the students. It is happening despite schools. What are the ways we can get students to own learning - give them real jobs (e.g. I need a podcasting team for the school). Teachers have to know what a podcast is - needs students who know how to do it. No more staff development unless every teacher brings 2 kids with her. What do kids think is important?
Must put a team of children together to put together a code of ethics. The kids must own the code of ethics. It is now greater than AUP. Code of ethics is to protect kids when they are not in school. Role of the child is to help parents. Have to ramp up on family engagement. (In Kansas - producing math videos to help parents) - take advantage of all those colour TVs and DVD machines. Kid videos on how to help parents help learning at home. Reexamine relationship betwwen school at home. Research says family involvement is a huge predictor of student success.

Students can research teacher websites and bring them to the teachers. You have to know what your competition is doing. Do your teachers know who the best teachers are in their field? When the teacher in the room gives assessment - it is harder. Students in IB program more willing to accept criticism when it comes back from unknown marker. Need every teacher to join a learning community - an international community - then creating authentic audience. Students need authentic audience.

New job description of teachers (need to rewrite job description of the family, the learner)
-extend the boundary of social discourse beyond the classroom
- comprehensively manage services across ... (in England - education, social services, medical services)
You have to find real problems in the world and base your curriculum on real problems.

We need to extend our top performing students much higher. Bringing the bottom up leads to mediocrity. We need more gaps across the board. The people who can afford it have bought out of NCLB.

Work on job descriptions
students, teachers, families, leaders - need a mix of all people in each group to do this.
Create a protocol for observations to benchmark other professions (is there a gap between the world we are sending students to and what we are preparing them for?)
Re-engineering of quality control with families. Can take advantage of technology to engage families. Invest in every home, especially in low socio-economic areas. In UK - have picked the most poverty stricken areas and are putting computers into homes. Will be more in family-education business. If we change the family it impacts the child.

By blocking cell phones, iPods.... we are preventing students from thinking about these devices in creative ways. Every school needs a student team to meet monthly (not in leader's office) what are you doing outside of school? what do you hate the most? make link between the outside and what you hate.
Every leader should have a blog.

Every family have a blog. Every teacher will blog. RSS will bring all relevant content to blog. Empower every family with RSS feeds with connection to all teachers. It's not about technology planning. it's about redescribing jobs......

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Building Learning Communities

Started July 18 - completed July 25.

I have only been at this conference for a day and I am very impressed. There are only about 300 people here, which means that you actually get to see the same people over again and continue conversations started earlier. A reception held yesterday allowed people to meet each other and talk. Alan makes sure he talks to everyone and truly wants to encourage community building. I remember Frank Greene, who taught at McGill, saying that when you go to a conference - walk the floors. Meet people. Alan November just said that it's not the sessions that are important, it's the conversations.

July 25 - the conversations were great - and so were the sessions. But it's that lasting impression of being part of a buzz, part of a larger community that is buzzing. Will Richardson talks about the education he has had through his years of blogging and I have to agree. But what is so special is that the education is not just one way. You read, reflect and really think deeply about the ideas. It's much better than any university course I ever sat through. And how do we get students involved and excited about this kind of conversation? Learning is heady, exciting, especially when the learner is constructing his/her own understanding of ideas and issues. What is astounding is how supportive this community is. We scaffold on each others' learning to build something better. It is not about competition.

Oh that the world could learn to work that way......

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Marco Torres

Marco Torres is a powerful presenter. He speaks with passion and spreads his compassion. It would be impossible not to be touched by his stories. You can read more about him here.


Session notes:
Marco Torres from Los Angeles. He showed "When I become a teacher..." - San Fernando. Students mainly Mexican (Aztec). Two cultures - gangs and folklore. He wanted students to understand their culture and population. They took census data and plotted Latino population on a map. Also looked at where poverty was and then people without a college diploma. It was quite telling. It gave the students a good idea of how poverty and lack of education go together.

There are about 5000 students in the school. 56% turnover rate with students and about 36% of teacher turnover. Use limitations to the advantage. 26 letters, 10 numbers, 12 keys on the piano, 116 elements, 3 colours - look what we can build.
He sent kids out to collect data during the walkouts. Their footage and

Traditional communication

Traditional Now
text see hear


Images are extremely important. Peru Negro (there is an area in Peru where a lot of slaves from Columbia moved in. This group is from that group) - hit the college circuit (music) when he saw them he realized the CD is not the right channel for them. Video would be better. He called he band and offered the students to video and would give footage to the band. We listened with our eyes closed and then watched the movie the students made.When the students gave the video to the group - they had a video they could use - were then able to get money to make a documentary and they hired 3 students to travel with them to make the documentary.

School holds a film festival every year. They made a TV commercial to advertise the film festival. iCan film festival. After the commercial audience went from 200 people to over 1000 people. You can see a lot of the films at SFETT You have to see them; talking about them doesn't do them justice.

Language Creativity, Self Esteem & Multimedia.
Marco Torres is a social studies teacher not a media or film-making teacher. He tries to teach them the language of media. School made everyone assign a 15 page paper. He assigned a movie - deliver the importance of voting. Power of 1 The makers got hired by MTV. A very powerful piece about how many world events were decided by one vote.

The Story of Little Suck a Thumb (HS kids went into elementary school to make fiml of stories written by ES students. He sent the students to the library to find the worst children's story first and made a quick movie) Then they made the movies for the grade 4 children.

Be distinct or be extinct! Edna Mole (the Incredibles)
A year round school so no opportunities for summer camp or sumer jobs.
Being Creative: Learning to solve problems

Perspective - changes how you react to a situation. If he saw himself only as a social studies teacher it would be limiting.

Barrier - Obstacle - it can be a barrier
Make it relevant, meaningfull applicable, enthralling
With technology you can connect more with people. His students haven't left community but can communicate with the world. - his kids are publishers

First barrier - self-esteem. He wants to make sure they are patted on the back as much as possible. Connected his kids to little kids. 4th grader wrote story - instead of using fancy tricks - went for simple.
Fortunately..... did about 45 films which were shown at the local library for the parents of the students of both the 4th graders and the HS students. DVD made for all families. Grade 4 students certainly looked up to HS kids. Publishing for a larger audience.

Communicate with family - a lot of projects where they interview family members. Capturing stories. OUr stories are just as important as formal history. When showing at the film festival - standing ovations. A lot of affirmation for the students. The student's grandfather passed away but still have the film footage and preserve an important part of the culture and the history of the kids.

Connecting student to the immediate community. In the community there are many people without children - wanted to include them. Made a movie of who makes the best tacos. Put fliers in all the taco shops.
Best Taco in San Fernando - interviewed owners of taco shops - gave copy of video to taco videos. The video was shown on community television.

Connecting student to community - a lot of kids came to US as kids without parents. They are raised by friends of the family, siblings, grandparents.
Separados
He wanted to make sure the kids were not just statistics at the school. This year music has been important. He has some background in recording. Relationship of his students and some rappers in Belgium
&Drew and LeFic -
Kids are producing a lot of CDs. They give his CDs

Seat belt winner - he wants to make sure that his kids are producing things so different that they are noticed - creativity plan
17000 entries - 6 of top 15 from his class.

Embrace Obstacles
Relevant Meaningful Applicatble
Create a business plan

Record a band and make a business plan for them
Built a web site for the band, started a MySpace account
snuck into battle of the bands with small cameras - made a gritty video
Real economics business plan - not artificial
One of the DVDs got in the hands of Christopher Nolan. The music was used in a triler for Batman movie
The band got a contract because of this - bought a car

Frankie and Rachel
Adrian is a good hip hop rapper (keeps all local musicians in a database so they can use them for movies
Dreams - got in the hands of other rapper and they invited him to rap with them.

David Pena - mariachi - recompose the star wars songs in mariachi style The theme of the film festival Reurn of iCan - When John Williams heard it he wrote to David and sent him a signed score of the original Star Wars

When you put the family in the movie the parents and extended famiy show up to the festival. Have outgrown several venues.

embrace your obstacles (Be a snowboarder)
Make it relevant
Make it meanignful
Make it applicable

Innovate
Infect Others with Curiosity

Do important work, valuable work, liberating work

http://homepage.mac.com/torres21/

Take 2: I went to the "after the keynote session"
A group of his students went to college and thought they would get even better than what was in the ghetto.
Being digital in an analog world (hard to pay attention - lectures for visual people - teaching today using yesterday's tools This is an amazing piece of work. This was done by his former students in different universities who planned the whole movie using iChat, planned the kinds of shots they needed, edited, etc. without meeting face-to-face.

One way and that's the way you have to do it. - real time learners
"The jobs that colleges are preparing us for are being outsourced now, We have to teach kids to advocate

In a school where he doesn't recognize staff because of the constant turnover
He created a team - only 6 left.

Students - because of planning structure, the sudents write a lot more. - they just don't realize this.

Every project he showed was done in a day - quick victory builds will.
What would make it boring - try not to do that. Build story boards
Marco has created a series of podcasts (and vodcasts) with his students: Flickschool.com You can find some how-tos, tips etc.
find experts - create a network so you can get on iChat to help each other.

When a student was asked why he makes videos he said, because my mouth doesn't do my mind justice.
We have to provide the right channels for our students to get their voices heard.

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RSS, podcasting- Will Richardson

A full day workshop needs more than one blog item. In the afternoon we whizzed through RSS, podcasting.... The important message is that this will engage students, give authentic audiences, bring in authentic up-to-date materials for critical thinking. How do we engage the teachers?

Real Simple Syndication - feeds of information can go to an aggregator. If you want to search on Google for a feed, you can add RSS to your search. e.g. New York Times RSS. You can also see the sign on the site that there is a feed.

Aggregator - Bloglines.com It is easy to set up. (The bigger problem is that you soon have way too much to read!).

Flickr - photo feed
can subscribe to photos on a particular topic
In Del.icio.us can find articles on a particular topic - can subscribe
Can find others who are reading on a topic. Can go to an individual. You can then subscribe to that individual's list on that topic. You can have researchers 24/7 just by subscribing to what they are reading. Tagging on a social site because we want to share it.

You can really mine the intellectual prowess of other people to inform your own practice.

You can take RSS feeds and put them together (mashups) in a web page to share with others.
suprglu.com

Feed2JS - if you have a static web page into which you want to bring RSS content. Put in the feed address. Generate the javascript. You can aggregate content on a page on a particular topic. You can follow your eBay auctions, track packages.....

You should check your bloglines account daily. You can create your own newspaper e.g. education feed from NY Times, science feed from CBC, music from

When working with kids - use Furl - Furl saves a picture of the page. If the page goes, the document is still there. You can also create citations with Furl in MLA, Chicago, and APA.

Podcasting - much more than recording audio
Room 208 Bob Sprankle in Maine
Radio Willow Web - Tony Vincent
Mabryonline Tyson

1. Have to be able to record audio - Audacity (if you don't have a Mac with Garageband) You also need the lame encoder. That's what will allow you to export as mp3

2. Need a way to edit audio (same software)

can bring in another track

3. Publish as an mp3 file
4. Get mp3 file onto a server that creates a link to it.

You can upload to ourmedia.org (free) - they will give you the link. You can then link it to your blog.

5. A podcast is a series - that can be subscribed to

At podcasts - submit a podcast

Odeo - login and odeo will allow you to record through the web interface. This is a quick a dirty way - it gives you a link. It gives you a piece of code that you can paste into your blog.

Camtasia - easy video editing software will create video iPod format. (not free)
Screencasting - capture screen while you are talking - windows media encoder (PC only)

How do we get teachers enthusiastic about these technologies?
...small steps


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Monday, July 17, 2006

Will Richardson on wikis and blogs

Wikis are for content - blogs are for conversation.

pbwiki - peanut butter wiki

You need to know how to use the discussions the editing and history. You can find Will Richardson's wiki at
http://webloggedlinks.pbwiki.com/ To learn more about wikis click on the wiki section.

High School collaborative writing
http://schools.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
All can contribute to specific articles. Teacher put in a template e.g. State your first reason, state your second reason, I...

You can use a wiki for projects that are much bigger than your classroom wikiville - http://www.wikiville.org.uk/index.php/Main_Page
You can explore the other links from Will's site.

Can have a wiki only visible to members, only editable by members - there are various levels of security. Collaboration needs to be done assyncronously.

pbwiki.com
With pbwiki you have 1GB of space. We learned to create a wiki. pbwiki automatically has Google ads.
A wiki could be used as a portfolio.
Blogs are for conversations.

Edublogs.org - give you a media wiki with your blog. Media wiki is a little more powerful than pbwiki. pbwiki is looking for feedback from educators - so you can send in suggestions.

Blogs can be used for many purposes. The "blog snob" answer - to do something I can not do on paper. A different genre of writing - the ability to link and the ability to connect - Connected Writing. Blogging is intellectual sweat - about thinking. The real benefit of using a blog is to connect to others. If you really want to engage your ideas and the ideas of others and to start writing in depth - blogging is the way to go. Blogging does not start with writing. it starts with reading. Journalling starts with writing.
It is a process - read - thinking about what you are reading in one's own context. If it's important, create a post - here's what I read, here's what I think. and implicit in that is - give me feedback. Writing for an audience, making thinking transparent. A post may be a synthesis of a number of ideas. Will talked about having a real sense of ownership of his blog. If he is going to write a comment, he leaves a comment with the link to the full reflection on his blog.

Kuropatwa - scribe posts. His students are teaching others - they get more hits from outside the class than from within.

blogger.com - simple solution
edublogs.org - wordpress blogs

The workshop went on creating a blog with nlcommunities. This is a nice software. If you want other teachers to post to your blog, they have to be members of nlcommunities. Once they are members, you can create a group block with multiple authors. There are some nice features.

To become a more public blogger - go to other blogs and leave a message - I posted a comment on my blog. Write the responses. You have to become a blog reader. If you know some bloggers with a high profile, send them links. There are people out there who will read your stuff. But don't get discouraged. A small community of practice / of learning can lead to some excellent discussion.

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Will Richardson - On-line communities: Blogs, wikis and other cool tools

Here I am in the Alan November conference - 5 hours with Will Richardson. Lucky me. I'm jealous - he has an iTrip on his iPod so this session or parts of it may be available later. When is the one for the video iPod going to be ready? - -

I am now writing on July 25 - going over my notes and polishing what's here. AND I now have my new mic for my video iPod! Will took us on a whirlwind tour of a variety of apps. Schools have to change to meet the needs and learning styles of today's students.

Educators need a context for the use of the tools -
Will do Blogs, wikis, RSS, other cool tools
You can find a lot of information at Will's wiki http://webloggedlinks.pbwiki.com/

This is a changing world.
- imagination - how can we think about how to use the technology?
Kyle of One Red Paper Clip - used his imagination to connect with the world and traded up to his house.
Animé video and other audio - and create mashups - and publish

Can share in ways we haven't before.
Over 1 billion people connected to the web - in 9 more years there will be 2 billion. There are 1 trillion links
Used to just consume information and now can create and contribute our own ideas and thoughts.

"We are at a turning point in the technology industry and perhaps even in the history of the world " Tim O'Reilly
Technorati - good search tool for blogs and does research on the blogosphere.
Now we are linking ideas, conversations, and people. Blogging can be a powerful learning experience for kids.

"society of Authorship"
an active and participatory web

Read Free Culture - Lawrence Lessig - available free online
Mentioned Creative Commons

25 million kids creating content online
Kids are tapping into the technology easily
Matthew Bischoff - podcasting in November 2004 (only 2 months after podcasting started) - at 13 he was a teacher - who was teaching to an audience.
Will's daughter made a weather book. Will scanned it and put it up on Flickr - she can see the number of readers (over 1000 already).
Sandaig School website all done by kids
The way to learn something is to teach it - these students are teaching others.

We can connect to things much more powerful outside our classrooms. Need to change classrooms
MIT Opencourseware - you can take over 600 courses free
The entire South African Curriculum is on a wiki which is part of a larger project - wikibooks
It's an organic text which is evloving (and hopefully geting better) Over 1000 books are in development

Rip, Mix and Learn environment
The Web changes teaching - teacher as connector
"Teacher as DJ"
H20 - playlists - can pull in the most relevant resources as needed.
Skype - a classroom gave classroom presentations while their parents were Skyped in.

How can we re-envision teaching?
Learn Anything Anywhere Anytime
"ubiquitiously connected and pervasively proximate" (Mark Federman)

From just in case learning to just in time learning (in case you need to know this)
Nomadic learning - self-motivated
"Learning networks based on meaning not proximity" - Stephen Downes

So many ways of sharing
Digg ( from the site: Digg is all about user powered content. Every article on digg is submitted and voted on by the digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote the news that's important to you!)
del.icio.us social bookmarking
Flickr photo sharing

From Hand it in to publish it - changes fundamentally what we ask kids to do.
What needs to change for students to publish to larger audiences.

We need to teach kids to read in hypertext environments
Small Pieces Loosely Joined - David Weinberger

Literacy is Editing

JumpCut - can edit movies through a web browser can then send it out

Thinkfree online office
Google spreadsheets
More and more the web is becoming an application

MySpace would be the 12th most populated country in the world
We are up in arms about how youth are using MySpace, but they are only following

Rupert Murdock owns MySpace and plans to make it the biggest advertising - need to use it to teach about media literacy Students need to learn how to be functional about social environments. We have to teach our kids. We need to know MySpace. We need to get in there to understand it.

Change is inconvenient - Al Gore
But change is coming.....

US - School 2.0

but - we take the tools they use out of their hands - schools are looking less and less about the real world
Chris Lehman

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Will Richardson - On-line communities: Blogs, wikis and other cool tools

Here I am in the Alan November conference - 5 hours with Will Richardson. Lucky me. I'm jealous - he has an iTrip on his iPod so this session or parts of it may be available later. When is the one for the video iPod going to be ready?

Educators need a context for the use of the tools -
Will do Blogs, wikis, RSS, other cool tools

This is a changing world.
- imagination - how can we think about how to use the technology?
Kyle of One Red Paper Clip - used his imagination to connect with the world and traded up to his house.
Animé video and other audio - and create mashups - and publish

Can share in ways we haven't before.
Over 1 billion people connected to the web - in 9 more years there will be 2 billion. There are 1 trillion links
Used to just consume information and now can create and contribute our own ideas and thoughts.

"We are at a turning point in the technology industry and perhaps even in the history of the world " Tim O'Reilly
Technorati - good search tool for blogs and does research on the blogosphere.
Now we are linking ideas, conversations, and people. Blogging can be a powerful learning experience for kids.

"society of Authorship"
an active and participatory web

Read Free Culture - Lawrence Lessig - available free online
Mentioned Creative Commons

25 million kids creating content online
Kids are tapping into the technology easily
Matthew Bischoff - podcasting in November 2004 (only 2 months after podcasting started) - at 13 he was a teacher - who was teaching to an audience.
Will's daughter made a weather book. Will scanned it and put it up on Flickr - she can see the number of readers (over 1000 already).
Sandaig School website all done by kids
The way to learn something is to teach it - these students are teaching others.

We can connect to things much more powerful outside our classrooms. Need to change classrooms
MIT Opencourseware - you can take over 600 courses free
The entire South African Curriculum is on a wiki which is part of a larger project - wikibooks
It's an organic text which is evloving (and hopefully geting better) Over 1000 books are in development

Rip, Mix and Learn environment
The Web changes teaching - teacher as connector
"Teacher as DJ"
H20 - playlists - can pull in the most relevant resources as needed.
Skype - a classroom gave classroom presentations while their parents were Skyped in.

How can we re-envision teaching?
Learn Anything Anywhere Anytime
"ubiquitiously connected and pervasively proximate" (Mark Federman)

From just in case learning to just in time learning (in case you need to know this)
Nomadic learning - self-motivated
"Learning networks based on meaning not proximity" - Stephen Downes

Digg
del.icio.us
Flickr

From Hand it in to publish it - changes fundamentally what we ask kids to do.
What needs to change for students to publish to larger audiences.

We need to teach kids to read in hypertext environments
Small Pieces Loosely Joined - David Weinberger

Literacy is Editing

JumpCut - can edit movies through a web browser can then send it out

Thinkfree
Google spreadsheets
More and more the web is becoming an application

MySpace would be the 12th most populated country in the world
We are up in arms about how youth are using MySpace, but they are only following

Rupert Murdock owns MySpace and plans to make it the biggest advertising - need to use it to teach about media literacy Students need to learn how to be functional about social environments. We have to teach our kids. We need to know MySpace. We need to get in there to understand it.

Change is inconvenient - Al Gore
But change is coming.....

US - School 2.0

but - we take the tools they use out of their hands - schools are looking less and less about the real world
Chris Lehman

That's the content - just notes from the first part of the session. There will be some elaboration on some of the tools when I get the time.

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