NECC 2007

Ending Keynote - Dr. Tim Tyson

2007-06-27T16:30:00.000-05:00

http://mabryonline.org

Dr. Tyson is principal of Mabry Middle School which is located not far from the convention site.

He believes the important points in successful education is meaningfulness, significance, connectedness, and contribution.

He has given his students authentic feedback by sharing their work (when it is of an excellent level) with the whole world by posting it on the school web site and iTunes. He asks his students, "What do you have to say that everyone on the earth needs to hear?"

The students have created very high quality 2 minute videos on serious subjects (slavery and the chocolate trade, transplants, stem cell research). They have received response from people all over the world.

The videos are quite emotional, especially made so because of the choice of music. I think we need to keep remembering, "The medium is the message." (Marshall McLuhen). What type of message would have been conveyed with a paper or poster or play?

I think his message that students will do great things on work they consider meaningful is important to consider.

Exhibit Hall - Wednesday

2007-06-27T15:00:00.000-05:00

www.facts4me.com

"More than 400 pages of engaging content written for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade readers.

Fifty dollars a year for a school site license.

RedHalo

http://www.redhalo.com/

This is an "online service for the distribution and management of digital learning content for environments where the learner is mobile." It's client installed on the device and runs in the background. Anything saved in the RedHalo folder in My Documents in automatically synchronized in the background. It's a free service and offers 1 GB of storage. Students could save their work there and access it anywhere.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

www.history.org/teach

They offer a series of specials on Williamsburg that are braodcast through CSD in St. Louis. There will be seven this year starting in October. There is a $500 charge and it includes much supporting material.

Netsmartz

http://www.netsmartz.org/

They have a new sheet out on blogging safety.

NetSupport School

http://www.netsupport-inc.com/

They offer a classroom management software similar to DyKnow. Cindy and I will investigate it this summer. Their cost is approximately $1100 (one-time fee) for the 20 tablets in middle school science. Yearly maintenance would be about $250.

Zarbeco

http://www.zarbeco.com/

They have a small electronic microscope which is a digital movie camera with 40 - 140 magnification. It includes a light and is connected to a computer through USB. It costs $250.

Lumens Integration, Inc.

http://www.mylumens.com/

They have a portable document with SXGA resolution. It costs $700 - $800. One nice feature is the ability to take a screen shot and show a divided screen with half showing a live picture and half the screen shot.

TakingITGlobal

http://www.tiged.org/

They offer a free service of connecting classes around the world. They offer blogs, podcasts, maps, live chat, discussion boards and student writing. For $30 a year, a teacher gets access to these tools. Vangie could be interested in this.

Toshiba

http://www.sell.toshiba.com/

Toshiba offers a 2700 lumen projector with wireless for under $1400. Could be interesting.

Brett Hinton - Use Your Moodle - Learn Moodle!

2007-06-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

http://moodle.org/

What is Moodle? - free, open Play with Moodle at http://moodle.remote-learner.net/. There are companies that will host Moodle or guide us through downloading it ourselves.

Moolde activities: assignment (for giving out and collecting assignments), chat, choice (polling), forum, glossary (teacher and student can add words; any words added then show up as highlighted words in any posted assignment, lesson (a series of pages typed in that can include questions; if the answer is incorrect, the student is sent back to the question or to another question), quiz (allows for fully online quizzes; students get immediate feedback), resource, scorm, surveys, wikis, workshops, books, and blogs.

Powweb.com and siteground.com for paid hosting. Three hundred GB for $7 per month.

michelle@remotelearner.net Moodle trainer

Video and audio can be uploaded to Moodle.

Adam Frey & Victoria Davis - Using Wikis in the Classroom

2007-06-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

http://coolcatteacher.wikispaces.com

http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=38 This site has detailed information on setting up a wiki.

Adam is a founder of wikispaces.

Wiki is "a web page with an edit button," shows history of entries.

Good for sharing everything learned together. Good for groups of 2 or 3.

Meebo interfaces with all IM. Meebome and Meeboroom.

You can paste widgets unto Wikispaces pages.

You can chat through wiki pages. Gives a back door for chat in the classroom. Students can share concerns, comments and questions.

From Vicki, why she uses wikis - free, runs on older computers.

Use in classroom - lesson summaries, collaborative notes, cooperative learning, introduction and exploratory projects

She tries to not tell the students too much. She will start something with a question and allow the students to search the Internet for answers. Then she has the students find the answer and share it. This is better than just telling them the answer.

She saves and shares the best wikis.

Wikis give students an audience.

Teachers can see the history of all editing. So students can be held accountable to make meaningful edits.

Can set up on wikispaces student accounts without email. You send them the names and they assign an account and password. A wiki can be set up public or private.

Don't spend a long time setting up the structure of the wiki. Let it evolve over time.

Wiki allow for connection of students around the world.

Look at the "Flat Classroom Project" and the "Horizon Project."

Vicki spent over 200 hours collaborating with a teacher in Australia through a wiki.

Cool things to embed in wikis: Meebo, slides http://slideshare.net, Eluminate sessions, Youtube, Odeo, www.toondo, Google maps, Bubbl.us, anything you can add to a web page, voiceThread.com,

She requires all of her students to have an RSS reader.

Every teacher should have an RSS feed.

Gary Stager - Way Beyond WebQuests and Information

2007-06-27T08:30:00.000-05:00

http://stager.org/necc

http://stager.org/news.html

He believes that standards are being lowered. Thirty years ago students he worked with in seventh grade did programming. Today in that class, students are learning where the return key is.

Computer is not just an information appliance.

http://www.districtadministration.com/pulse

Buy Will Richardson's book on Web 2.0.

Wikipedia is controversial because we have never taught students to use multiple sources.

Problems with blogging: very narcissistic, same short, choppy writing, little narrative, absence of real debate, intimacy and informality which cause problems when there is disagreement, ahistorical, anti-intellectualism, reverse ageism

Worst idea on earth is to use the laptop as a textbook. He doesn't like textbooks. We need to use original sources.

Bad ideas are timeless.

Education in NOT just about information.

For an activity, he put up an image of an election poster in Arabic from Australia for a Christian Iraqi party. We were to find out who the poster wanted people to vote for. The point of the activity was that two days after the election it took him 2 hours to find the answer. Months later it takes only minutes to solve. The information on the web keeps growing.
www.stager.org/whoshouldIvotefor

Activity he used with a class: Were the Chicago seven martyrs?

Gave his graduate students in Australia this question, "Is Ned Kelly a hero." He is a well known teacher, but he has killed people.

When there is a meaningful context, a lot of computer tools can be used and learned.

Birds of a Feather - Free, Open Source, and Web 2.0 Software for the Classroom

2007-06-26T18:45:00.000-05:00

Steve Hargadon

http://newlearning.ning.com/

http://comingofage.ning.com/

http://classroom20.net/

http://adifference.blogspot.com/

http://splashcastmedia.com/

http://www.ahistoryteacher.com/ (history teacher resources)

A school in England developed its Technical Use Policy by creating a wiki and inviting students to participate.

In a high school math class, each day the teacher assigns a student as class scribe for the day and this is posted on a wiki.

If a teacher wants students to journal, use a blog. If you want students to discuss, use a forum.

When dealing with objections to certain blocking policies, show how unblocking would support the educational process.

Sharepoint from Micorsoft is free to those own Microsoft 2003 servers. You can host blogs and wikis on this that are within the garden wall. WAMP is an alternative. http://www.wampserver.com/en/index.php

Exhibit Hall - Tuesday

2007-06-26T18:00:00.000-05:00

Chester Creek

http://www.chestercreek.com/

They offer a col0r-coded keyboard. The colors are divided so all the right index finger keys are the same color, etc. Maybe for our lower computer lab?

Aries Institue of Technology, Inc.

http://www.ariesinstitute.com/

They offer courses on teaching computer literacy. They include one aimed at middle school students. Maybe to be included with keyboarding?

DeMarque

http://school.typingpal.com/

They offer a web-based keyboarding program. Students could learn keyboarding at home.

EduPlatform

http://www.eduplatform.net/

This is classroom management software that Cindy and I will be checking out.

Mitsubishi Electric

I looked at their projectors. They offer a complete line that we could buy from GovConnection. They didn't offer anything unusual, but they are a step up from the InFocus IN26+EP that we bought last. The Mitsubishi projectors offer better connectivity.

WorkshopLive

(413) 358-9605 Michael Thomas mthomas@workshoplive.com

They offer an on-line music instruction program for guitar and piano. Maybe Becky would be interested.

Karl Fisch - Constructivist Teaching with Technology: Learning with Laptops

2007-06-26T17:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/21c/necc2007.html

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com

http://learningandlaptops.blogspot.com

Arapahoe is a public high school that is piloting a one-to-one laptops. Some classes have laptop carts. Four teachers presented with Karl.

For their pilot group of teachers, staff development meetings are three hours long and are held every three weeks. One hour is spent on theory, one hour is spent on pedagogy, and one hour is spent on technology. Karl quickly shares something technical, and then they look at how it could be used in the classroom. There is good faculty buy-in because this is teachers teaching teachers.

They changed the classroom environment. The goal was to create a professional learning environment . Desks were replaced with tables and rolling chairs. Posters were put up that were interesting to the students. Also, a list of classroom expectations was created by the class, each student signed it and it was put up on the wall.

They are blogging for “reflection, collaboration, critical thinking, and professional purposes to create a school-wide learning community.”

They have students blogging the class while it’s going on. Sometimes the blogging can interfere with student attention.

Skype is better than Blogger.

They are collaborating with classes around the world. Collaboration is not cooperating learning.

The teachers are role models as learners.

Students are producers and consumers of information.

When blogging, students get excited when they get comments from people around the world.

The astronomy teacher’s textbook was outdated when the class received it. The class created it’s own textbook. A wiki was used.

They are using Google docs for 24/7 collaboration by students and teachers.

The review toolbar in Word is a powerful tool for peer editing.

Bernie Dodge - Can Technology Make Us Wise?

2007-06-26T14:30:00.000-05:00

We have been studying wisdom only for the past 20 years.

Wisdom is rare. Can we make it happen more? Can wisdom be taught?

According to a respected test, people grow wiser through their teen years and then the growth in wisdom levels off. This means we need to work on teaching wisdom to children and teens.

Some feel that wisdom is teachable because on a test on wisdom, clinical pyschologists score higher than the general public. The training that pyschologists have experienced has caused them to become wiser.

In school, standards are about learning knowledge. This isn't wisdom.

Bernie's advice -Fix ourselves first because role modeling is very powerful in teaching wisdom. Technology has a role to play - it can give us a much greater breadth of information and experiences. Technology allows us to interact with more people. Technology supports transformation through the ease of editing. Technology supports creating artifacts that can be referenced so we can remember what went right/wrong in the past.

Personal Habits to enhance wisdom: keep a wisodm blog (this is a private blog for reflection); develop a diverse feed list (hear what lots of different people are saying); keep a to-know list (a wiki of what you would like to explore in the future); develop a proverbs wiki (summarize and synthesis daily experiences into memorable sayings with a short story).

Classroom Habits to enhance wisdom: develop a collective proverbs wiki; keep a class to-know list; role-play important issues so students understand other perspectives.

Teachers need to think about teaching wisdom when creating assignments.

Modal Occupations

prehistory - 1850 farmer

1850 - 1950 factory worker

1950 - present office worker

Future? Toffler thinks it will be either priest or soldier.

Mark Wagner - Wiki While You Work: An Introduction to Wikis in Education

2007-06-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

Use this site to sign up for no charge, ad free wikis http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers/

http://edtechlife.com/ Mark's website

http://wikiwhileyouwork.wikispaces.com/

http://nextvista.org/ a collection of videos for use in education

http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/ has many examples of wikis used in education

Wiki uses: record all the activities of a class over the year; share resources; online class encyclopedia

Only one person can edit at a time.

The Discussion tab can be used for a threaded discussion.

Keynote Panel - What do the arts, brain research, and creativity have to do with the emerging face of education? EVERYTHING!

2007-06-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

Panel members - Elizabeth Streb, choreographer http://www.strebusa.org/; Michael McCauley - creative director; Mary Cullinane - technology architect http://marycullinane.com/default.aspx; Dr. Francesc Pedro - educational analyst; Andrew Zolli - futurist

The panel discussion was preceded by beautiful cello music.

First, the CEO of ISTE, Dr. Don Knezek, spoke to the audience on the globalization of education. Countries like the Philippines are preparing their new teachers to meet world class teaching standards. The globalization of commerce requires the globalization of education.

C Learning first, technology later, be comfortable not knowing, paying attention to language and what we are trying to communicate (the principal is known as the chief learner)

P US ranks high in use of computers by 15 year olds at home, but many countries have higher use at school. Higher computer use at home leads to higher math scores. They don't know why.

M His role is to inspire by setting an positive example.

S Ask seemingly unanswerable questions. Set impossible goals.

C School needs to be a place where failure is an option for students and teachers. Need ad hoc gathering places.

S Need places where people can mess things up. School as a garage.

P Include users and doers in the process of innovation. Technology is a pump for innovation. Allow innovations to bubble up.

C Innovation is slow because we are swimming up stream.

M Corporations are thirsting for innovation. Every day educators have the opportunities to celebrate innovation and creativity in their classrooms.

P Foreign language should be taught at as young an age is possible. There is no evidence that boys and girls brains work differently.

Z At early ages, children can differentiate many more sounds than when older. Language instruction needs to start early.

M Read A Whole New Mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Whole_New_Mind

C Remember what motivates students, their values, their environment.

Birds of a Feather – Tablet PC, Gathering of Users and Potential Users

2007-06-25T19:15:00.000-05:00

Use slates in lower grades. They can’t keyboard anyway.

An Australian school uses Epson wireless projectors. They are also wired to the network for showing video.

Get projectors that can freeze the screen. This way the class continues to see the image on the screen while the teacher can bring up a different screen on his/her tablet.

Birds of a Feather Session – How to Help Teachers Successfully Integrate Technology

2007-06-25T18:45:00.000-05:00

Teachers have to be expected to be learners first.

They need ongoing support.

Their tech projects need to match their comfort level.

On-line professional development has the advantage of being very convenient – anywhere/anytime.

Teachers are looking for a reward. I think this was one aspect of TUTE that needs to be not skipped. I still see Camp Swivel diplomas and trophies in teachers’ rooms.
Don’t be discouraged in technology buy-in takes a while. Plant seeds.

Meet with teachers individually and regularly.

Use students to help teachers. Look at the Mouse.org program.

Keep training sessions short – 15 minutes.

Doug Johnson - Classrooms and Libraries for the Net Generation

2007-06-25T17:30:00.000-05:00

http://doug-johnson.com/

Doug wanted the audience to take away two points from his talk: 1.It’s easier to change the way we teach than trying to change the Net generation. 2. Today’s students like to learn. It’s just that they don’t want to learn what we are teaching and how we teach it.

To better understand the Net generation we should all read the first two chapters of Educating the Net Generation by Educause. It’s a free download.

We need to examine the implications of the Net generations attributes on school – buildings, mission, services, and resources.

Net generation students are, as a group, a valued group (look at all the money that parents spend on them), and a sheltered group. They don’t like anything slow. They don’t like negativity. They share attributes with the Greatest generation.

How to get students involved in school – use technology as a hook, make education available anywhere and 24/7, put students on school technology teams, build a place where students want to be.

Students are bombarded with information and need and seek guidance.

In the age of digital information, the Dewey decimal system doesn’t make much sense (still a good idea for physical books). Resources can be TAGGED many different ways and found using these TAGS. Can our students add TAGS to Principia resources?

Today, Information=conversation=authority? Discrimination and evaluation skills are very important for our students. Students need guides (teachers and librarians) more than ever. Our focus need to be on organizing, creating and using information. We need to teach copyright from the standpoint of the creator.

To promote student success at school we need to give them a voice in policy. Also, we need to lead by demonstrating our commitment to life-long learning by being life-long learners.

Vivian Johnson - Creating a Community of Learners Using Technology

2007-06-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

Community Building Wiki http://communitybuilding.wikispaces.com/

Community Building resources http://del.icio.us/communitybuilding

Community Building on Ning http://www.classroom20.com/group/communitybuilding20

Look at http://www.doodle.ch/ for a polling tool.

They engaged the audience in their presentation and recorded the results in their wiki so the information will be available for everyone.

Three conditions for building community -
1. Learners know each other.
2. Learners respect, affirm, and care about each other.
3. Learners feel membership in, and respect for the group.

This requires time to happen.

We must realize that communications over the Internet are not the same as face-to-face communications. You lose the body language. We need to teach this to our students.

In a conversation with the lady sitting next to me, the idea came up of having the group (class) decide on its values. Then create a blog for these values. The values would be listed in the introduction. Events in the classroom would get on the blog by student posting (teacher could moderate). The class would compare these postings to the stated class values.

Online class activities can give some learners the wait time they need to successfully participant in the conversation.

To help students learn collaboration have them create a video which shows good and bad examples of collaboration.

Google groups can be used for discussion. It will protect their identity.

Look at http://leadertalk.org/

Exhibitor Hall - Monday 1:00

2007-06-25T15:00:00.000-05:00

6 Trait Power Write

http://perfectionlearning.com/pw

This is a web based software for guiding students through the writing process. It’s for grades 4 – 12.

Edline

I spoke to Marge Abrams who I have spoken to on the phone before. I asked her about Edline hosting blogs. She’s not sure if this will happen. There are no concrete plans at this time. Edline is proceeding with a students submission feature, and this should be ready in the fall. Grade Quick 12 is coming this summer.

Lulu.com

Lulu.com is a site for Internet book publishing. They store your electronic manuscript and will print a copy (one at a time or many) for quite a reasonable fee. Student books could actually be published.

NetOp School

http://www.netoptech.com/

This is classroom software similar to DyKnow. Cindy and I will look at it this summer. It is considerable less expensive than DyKnow.

Herman Wood - Voices from the Past: Fictional Blogs of Historical Figures

2007-06-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

I'm continuing my blogging theme this morning.

Herman Wood is a technology integration specialist from the Cobb County, Georgia, school district.

Why blog instead of a website? - Journal form. Easy to create. Not as limited by network policies.

He introduced a 3rd grade teacher whose students created a blog on Harriet Tubman written from her perspective. It's located at http://dowel.typepad.com/harriet_tubman. It includes a time line created in Kidspiration, drawings, a video, music, art, and a listing of other resources.

Each entry represents a chapter in the book she read to the class and was done by different students. She gave the students a topic list so the entries would cover the same material.

They used http://www.typepad.com/ for hosting the blog. It is inexpensive - $150/year for as many blogs as you need. They don't like blogger.com because of the button at the top, Next Blog. They are concerned what might come up.

Their district is pretty locked down on technology; and at the time, students were not allowed to comment on the posts. This has now changed.

She found good student response to the project. Reluctant readers and writers got actively involved.

They also shared a blog from an 8th grade class, http://tappmiddleschool.typepad.com/ww2, on World War II. This came later than the first blog and students were able to comment. In one class period, over 100 comments were made.

Another blog they shared was from a 4th grade class. It is on the civil war, http://dowell.typepad.com/civil_war.

Herman suggested looking into Gaggle.net for hosting blogs and email.

I think there is a lot of potential for social studies, science and English classes for blogging from the standpoint of an historical character.

Exhibitor Hall - Monday 10:00

2007-06-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

News from the exhibitor floor

InFocus

I spoke to the InFocus rep about the color problem (reds look black and yellows look green) with the new IN26+EP projectors we bought. She didn't really have an answer.

Mimio

Mimio (interactive white board) has a new pen. It has two buttons on it to control the program from the pen. It now uses a AA battery instead of a special battery, and has a Teflon tip that won't scratch the white board. I'm excited.

Join the (copyright) Team! http://www.jointheteam.com/

According to them, they offer "a free educational program that introduces K-5 students to the basic principles of copyright and respect for intellectual property through communication skills." This sounds worth looking into. Contact Jennifer O'Reilly at 202-223-2400 or email Jennifer@theESA.com.

Moodle

I picked up some information on this open source program for course management. Many schools are using it as an alternative for Blackboard.

GenevaLogic http://genevalogic.com/

This is a classroom management software that they claim is similar to DyKnow which is being considered for the middle school science classroom. Cindy and I will have to look into it.

Will Richardson - Learning with Blogs: Bringing the Read/Write Web into the Classroom

2007-06-25T11:30:00.000-05:00

http://weblogged.wikispaces.com/Weblogs+in+schools

Richardson has over twenty years experience as a teacher. He has left teaching to share the message of the power of blogging. He has blogged for over 6 years. He believes that blogging is about building our own learning communities that are available 24/7. Blogging is the most powerful way to do this.

His blog is a place for him to reflect, archive his thinking and to create conversations. This is his curriculum as an adult learner. He has conversations with people around the world.

His blog is http://www.weblogg-ed.com.

How do these technologies change teaching and learning? Our students will need to be successful in participating in networks. Our students will need to be able to read and write in hypertext environments.

What can blogs do for the classroom? Blogs give students a real audience. Writing skills improve. Reading skills improve. There are many possibilities for collaboration.

http://supportblogging.com/Links+to+School+Bloggers

To get into blogging, start reading blogs. The start commenting on other's blogs.

Blogging is most powerful when we "expend a little bit of intellectual sweat." It is powerful when we share a viewpoint and put it out on the Internet for comment.

Possible classroom use: Have students read blogs from very different viewpoints and synthesize the information in their own blog.

Question - how early to start blogging in school? Second graders can blog.

Teachers must understand blogging and model it for the students before asking the students to blog.

Safety Issues: First, the teacher must have a clear reason for blogging (the latest whizzbang is not a good reason). Be transparent. Let administrators and parents know what is proposed. Show everyone involved what the potential problems are and what the response will be. Get parent permission. Have a clear acceptable use policy.

Teachers should read the blog http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/. The Clarence Fisher writes a lot about how his classroom is changing.

Carl Fisch has a blog http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/ which is a resource for teacher professional development.

The connections that can be made outside the classroom is really powerful.

Richardson used RSS to have student blog input come to him. He had a class blog with links to all the student blogs.

Teachers can either moderate or monitor the blogs. The audience can be limited to just the class or school or opened up to the world. Richardson prefers monitoring. He had long conversations with his high school students about safety and security. Clarence Fisher's sixth grade students blog for the world. Richardson has experienced only two incidents cyberbullying.

Blogs provide a great archive of work.

Blogging is most powerful when students see the teacher actively blogging. Then they can see the value of blogging and how it's done.

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/blog has good information on setting up blogging in the classroom.

Teachers of younger students some times have the students summit the posting to them first so that they make sure the students are not embarrassed by poor grammar and syntax

Sunday's Keynote Address by Andrew Zolli

2007-06-25T06:38:00.000-05:00

The president's address was followed by a very informative and entertaining address by Andrew Zolli http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/program/keynotes.php. He is a well-known futurist, and he shared his thoughts about the next 10 - 20 years.

Because of constantly decreasing costs of digital connectivity, everyone is going to have access to digital resources. This will cause a fundamental shift in our culture.

Anything that can be done by a computer, will be done by a computer. What will be left for us? We will need to develop our creative spirit. He feels that brain research proves that we all have latent creativity. We must find our creative center.

He shared four approaches to finding new ideas and solving problems: 1. thinking; 2. looking at the issue from a perspective outside the organization; 3. play; 4. imagination. None of these approaches is successful all the time. Zolli feels that a networked approach that incorporates all of these approaches is most successful. We must build networks.

He then talked about five areas of change.

1. Demographics. In the United States, our population will be growing in the number of young people and the number of older people. There will be fewer in the middle. Women have and will continue to make strides in higher education. More women are in college today than men.

2. Attitude toward nature. There are pressures toward increased environmentalism from mature societies that appreciate nature and from societies experiencing environmental degradation.

3. Learning places. There will be continued effort for people to reconnect with nature and get out of sterile (concrete and plastic) environments.

4. Coping with choice and complexity. We have so many choices in so many areas (his example was white bread) that consumers are not finding much actual difference and find wading through all the choices frustrating. More and more of the same has brought mediocrity.

5. Redefining literacy. This is the one that most directly impacts education. We have been measuring literacy by how much you know and how much unique knowledge you have. With the advent of the omnipresent Internet, housing most of mankind's knowledge, our current definition won't work any more. Zolli proposed that we define literacy by the ability to find, build and use complex information. The problem is that we don't know how to certify such literacy.

He then talked about the pull of four pairs of different attractions that govern how we approach life. He believe that the personal trumps the impersonal, that the tangible trumps the intangible, that the present trumps the past or future, and that the desirable trumps the responsible.

He is involved with Pop!Tech http://poptech.org/. A yearly conference "an ongoing conversation about science, technology and the future of ideas."

ISTE's President's Address

2007-06-24T22:51:00.000-05:00

Incoming president, Dr. Trina Davis, http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/About_ISTE/Governance/ISTE_Governance.htm welcomed the attendees to this year's NECC. She set forth three challenges for educators:
1. Be willing to make a paradigm shift and bring education into the 21st century.
2. Help our students become global citizens.
3. Be an informed, passionate voice for better education.

David Warlick - Advanced Blogging

2007-06-24T08:54:00.000-05:00

This is an all-day seminar with David Warlick http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/. He is a leader in applying Web 2.0 tools in educational settings. The goal of this seminar is to help the participants become more productive bloggers in order to assume a leadership position on the possibilities of blogging in schools.

David will not be here for an hour. He is addressing the ISTE Leadership Symposium. Chris Lehmann, the principal of the Science Leadership Academy http://www.scienceleadership.org/ in Philadelphia addressed the group for about an hour. His school just finished its first year. Though it is a one-to-one laptop school, he stressed that technology must follow pedagogy.

He and his teachers blog. They do it to enhance transparency, to create community, to engage in their own professional development and to reflect. For months before the school opened the staff blogged to share ideas and get a better sense of what the school would be like. The values they came up with for the school are inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. All the teachers use Understanding by Design for planning.

The room setup is not very friendly. There are Gateway computers on the tables for each participant. It's good for the people who didn't bring portable computers, but these are large units. I can hardly see the speaker over the top of the screens. I don't believe this is a good learning environment.

Second, as soon as the speaker says something, the typing begins and these people are great typers who are taking down every word. The click, click, click is very distracting. I think the tablet deals with both of these problems.

David Warlick has showed up. He has created a wiki, http://sidebarenvy.wikispaces.com/, for the seminar. You should look at the Nuggets section for some great Web 2.0 tools. Each participant's notes will be saved to the wiki and made available for all to read. I couldn't log in (couldn't remember my password) so I got behind. I can understand the frustration of teachers trying to follow our directions and get something going on their computer while the presentation marches on.

With http://hitchhikr.com/ a conference can be registered so you can find the blogs that have been created at a conference. If you can't attend a conference, you still can. Here's the link for the NECC http://hitchhikr.com/index.php?conf_id=215.

He shared several tools for inserting pictures, podcasts, RSS feeds, etc. into your blog. He covered a lot of material.

An important point he made was that when we teach literacy, we need to consider the importance of getting the attention of the reader. With all the information coming to people through the Internet, how do we get people's attention? This is why we need to teach students how to handle pictures, images, graphs, video, etc.

Technorati Tags: rogerbower necc2007