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Well, I’m back home and rested up from an exciting week in Washington DC at NECC09. It was an interesting experience that in many ways I am still trying to process. The last time I attended NECC was in 2006 when the conference was held in San Diego. I have to say that I wasn’t impressed with that particular conference. No matter how hard I tried, I kept stumbling into sessions that sounded great, but were little more than PhD dissertation sessions. NECC09 was quite a bit better! During the past three days I attended sessions on:
Library of Congress
iPods & iPhones in the Classroom (multiple sessions)
Here Comes Learning with Will Richardson & Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
VoiceThread in the Classroom
Flat Classroom Project
Google Earth & Web 2.0 Tools
Students as Contributor: Digital Learning Farm with Alan November
While all of these sessions were great and I’ll be posting on each one in the next few days, the highlight of NECC09 was the networking and informal learning though conversations with colleagues from all over the country. These conversations occured in two places – the Blogger’s Cafe, where so many of my friends constantly hung out and often sought refuge from sessions that weren’t as great as advertised and through backchannel discussions on Twitter. As I reflect on NECC09, I wonder if the whole notion of a conference in dramatically changing. These events used to be focused on formal direct instruction sessions and maybe a handful of hands on labs. However, one thing I noticed at NECC is that many of us were skipping sessions in order to sit down for informal learning and discussion in the Blogger’s Cafe. More than once I heard someone say, “I should be going to a session, but the conversation I’m having here will likely be more worthwhile.” Granted many of these people are our EdTecherati, the active members of the edtech community who regularly blog, tweet, and hangout in Elluminate sessions. Sitting through a one hour session on how to use Smartphones to send Excel files (yes this did occur) or walking though poster sessions (why we still have posters at a technology conference is beyond me) might not meet the needs of these individuals and perhaps we’ve just created our own strand. Regardless, its something we should think of for future conferences. How do we meet the needs of these educators?
The backchannel disscussions on Twitter were also quite facinating. For those of you who aren’t familar with backchannel discussions, here’s a breif description. Basically while someone was presenting, many of us in the audience used Twitter to share our observations, thoughts, and refelctions with the hashtag #necc09. By using this code anyone, whether physically at NECC or not, could easily find our tweets and participate in session discussions through a piece of software like Tweetdeck. The backchannel conversations built upon the information that was being shared by the presenter and often provided a different view into the content being taught. One of the more interesting backchannel discussions occured during the Oxford style debate on Tuesday that started with the statement “Bricks and mortar schools are detrimental to the future of education.” The debators included Brad Jupp, Cheryl Lemke, Michael Horn, and Gary Stager, along with two high school students. If you haven’t watched the debate, sit down with some popcorn and check it out (you have to fast forward through the first 20 minutes or so of NECC/ISTE blah-blah, but then it gets good. The backchannel conversations pretty much exploded during Gary Stager’s remarks, which isn’t too suprising if you’ve ever seen him present and I thought for sure we’d crash the network, but amazingly we didn’t.
So where am I going with all of this? Well, to summize NECC09 was a great experience where I had multiple opportunites to learn and grow, but the majority of this did not occur during formal learning experiences. It occured through face-to-face conversations, and backchannel Twitter discussions. In many ways, I guess I’m not too different than my students. The very nature of education overall, not just K-12, is changing…and its changing because people are carving a new, customized path with technology and social media. During Will Richardson’s session he mentioned that a little while back he had the opportunity to ask Clay Shirkey what people will say when they look back on on this period of time and Shirkey’s response was that people we willbe amazed at how little they understood about what was happening.
Joe
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This morning Computers & Writing 2009 is starting off with an amazing session on Voicethread. I have the luxury of learning from Gail Desler from Elk Grove Unified who has been using Voicethread with Title 1 students throughout her school district. Gail has an excellent collection of amazing Voicethread projects on her wiki. One of my favorites is a Voicethread created by middle school students using a political cartoon to discuss the crisis in Darfur
Gail has also shown us how Voicethread can be used in math. I’ve made my own Voicethread related to 6th grade science standards. Its still a work in progress, but feel free to sign up for a Voicethread account and leave a comment. I always thought Voicethread require voice comments, but I’ve also found out you can leave text comments or “doodles” where users draw and annotate as they record. Gail just mentioned you can also phone in a recording if you don’t have a microphone.
Joe
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This morning I’m attending the Computers & Writing 2009 conference at UC Davis. Its an interesting mix of participants representing grades K-16 and from school districts or colleges all over the United States and looks like a phenomenal learning opportunity. I can’t wait for the fun to begin! While I’m waiting for my first session about using Voicethread for writing I’ve noticed a few things about conference set up anyone should think about before planning out a conference.
1. Sharing – Teachers love to share ideas. When you set up a conference how do you allow teachers to share what they have learned real time with their colleagues? Are Twitter and Facebook open? Can your participants blog? Have you built in blogging time?
2. Computers – Right now I’m in a computer lab and can access a computer. However, I have my own computer in my backpack. It sure would be nice to use it rather than the lab computer. First of all, in order to use the lab computer I have to turn my side to the presenter and some of my sharing sites are blocked. Fortunately, I can turn my screen and keyboard. Secondly, there are no plugs near by to plug my computer into should I need power. Finally, this is a Mac lab and all of the computers have single-button Apple mice. This seems to be really .
3. Connectivity – Participants don’t have wireless access for their own computers, but we do have access to most of the Internet through the lab computers. Yesterday I figured out how to tether my iPhone, but unfortunately we’re in the basement and have a very weak signal. I wish I could use my own computer. All my bookmarks would be handy to have, especially my Delicious plug in tools to save ideas I hear during the day.
These are just a few of my thoughts. As I plan my own conferences in the future, these are ares I have to remember to think about. Okay, time to log off and pay attention to the teacher!
Joe
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Today is the final day of the EETT Summer Institute and we have the luxury of learning about Comic Life from our very own Comic Life Master – Linda Giguere. If you have never used Comic Life think about checking out the manufacturer’s website. You can download a free 30 day trial and the pricing isn’t too step if you would like to purchase this software for your school site. Here in San Juan I’ve seen students using Comic Life to create digital posters on topics ranging from how to solve algebraic word problems, to the parts of an atom and biographies of famous authors. Hands down Comic Life was one of my students’ most favorite applications when I taught at Jonas Salk.
During Linda’s presentation this morning I learned about Comic Life for the iPhone or iPod Touch. This version is called Comic Touch. Five minutes and $2.99 later I was creating my first Comic Life iPhone project. I am amazed at what I can do with this program on my phone. Granted its not as heavily optioned as the computer version of Comic Life, but you can still create some pretty neat projects to upload to sites like Flickr and Facebook to share with your friends. The picture I posted is one I took at Whitey’s Jolly Cone in West Sacramento the other night. Whitey’s Zagat rating drove me there and I think I might have discovered the best shakes in Sacramento hands down!
Joe
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Look what arrived in my office this afternoon! One of the middle schools in our district is providing a summer school class that combines hands-on science, language arts, and technology. Working with the organic farm adjacent to the campus the group of students at this school will be working on a very nifty project called Project Growth. Once their external site is up, I’ll post a link.
As part of the summer school project, the teachers were able to order a class set of science probeware. After doing a little investigating via Twitter and emailing my neighborhood schools I helped them order 7 sets the PASCO SPARK Science system. Being a science teacher who loves technology and someone who always wanted these for my students, I could hardly wait for their arrival. To be completely honest I was sold when I visited one of the junior highs in my neighborhood and saw 8th graders riding skateboards down the hallway with probeware motion sensors in their hands. The students were trying to figure out what you actually had to do to create a linear relationship between velocity and time. By looking at the graph on the display they quickly figured out you had to increase your velocity at a constant rate and discovered the concept of constant acceleration. Every single student in that class was engaged, connecting the content to real life, and most importantly hooked on science. One kid said, “I feel like Adam and Jamie (from the Mythbusters).”
With in moments of the boxes arriving in my office, I had a SPARK open and was using the first probe I could find buried in the packing peanuts – a heart rate sensor. The SPARK was amazingly easy to use! Without even taking a look at the manual, I was measuring and graphing my heart rate in a matter of seconds. The touch screen is very intuitive and the built-in labs are very easy to follow. I also like how the labs have built in review questions. You can tell some phenomenal teachers were on the design committee for the SPARK. To get a sense of what the SPARK is like check out these videos
Tomorrow is the last day of school and I’m delivering the units to the teacher who will be using them. I have a feeling she’ll be leaving school later than she thinks and probably with a SPARK to play with during her one week off.  I can’t wait to visit the summer school program in a couple of weeks to see what the students think. Every math and science classroom should come standard with one of these!
Joe
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Writing in the 21st Century has been a hot topic at work the past few weeks. Trying to explain how writing has changed to colleagues who haven’t quite figured out the difference between a blog and a wiki or how either of these is different than Microsoft Word is a bit challenging. That’s why I appreciated Karl Fisch’s blog post tonight. His post features three videos produced by Dr. Richard E. Miller from the Department of English at Rutgers University on the topic of Writing in the 21st Century.  One of my favorite quotes is actually in the first video and I think it articulates the first fundamental change teachers who believe writing should involve little more technology than a word processor need to understand.
“To compose, and compose successfully in the 21st century, you have to not only excel at verbal expression, at written expression, you have to also excel in the use and manipulation of images. That’s what it means to compose.”
Earlier last week I posted some information regarding Google Wave. This past Thursday Google uploaded the video describing the product. It looks pretty interesting. Take a moment to check it out.
Joe
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What would email or instant messaging look like if they were invented today? This is a question Google is attempting to answer with their new product, Google Wave.
Wave or I guess GWave was announced yesterday at the Google I/O Conference, the giant Google developer event. I have to admit that describing Google Wave is a bit tough. This would be a perfect example of when a picture (or video) is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, as you can see that portion of the Google Wave site is not currently up. David Wong, one of the Google engineers did produce this video, but as my friend Matt would say he starts talking a little too much “flux capacitor” for me to completely understand. On a side note, it just me or is it a little strange a white board was used to discuss a phenomenal technology project?
I did spend some time reading TechCrunch’s description and it sounds like Google Wave is something akin to a web browser with Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Wikispaces, Gmail, and Google Chat all combined. In some ways it also sounds a lot like Flock, but with the potential for many more mash ups. In the end it looks like Google Wave could become the ultimate collaboration and communication tool. Just looking at the screenshots I’m excited about possibly using this tool with students and my team members in the near future. While Google Wave isn’t currently available, you can sign up to be notified when its released. If Google Wave ends up being anything like Google Voice (formerly Grand Central) I know it will have been worth the wait!
Joe
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What I love about my PLN (personal learning network) is that I am connected to educators from all over the world and have the opportunity to learn about fantastic resources, instructional strategies, and research on a daily basis anytime I am on my computer. My PLN is largely constructed of Google Reader, where I subscribe to 60 different blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and my school district Ning. This morning one of my colleagues on Twitter, an educator from “South of Perth, West Australia” posted this link about a waterwise campaign for the Great Lakes region of Canada. How amazing is that? An educator in California (me) learns about a resource for the Great Lakes area of Canada from someone in Australia?
Take a moment and check out WaterLife. Here’s the description from the video’s producer to wet your appetite.
“WaterLife tells the epic story of the Great Lakes by following the cascade of its water from northern Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, through the lives of some of the 35 million people who rely on the lakes for survival.”
The video and the website are very well done and even though the topic is primarily focused on the Great Lakes, the issues discussed in the video and on the website are a great jumping off point for a conversation about fresh water supplies no matter where you and your students live.
This morning’s experience with WaterLife is just one example of a personal learning network in action. If you are interested in learning more about PLNs I would suggest getting started by signing up for Twitter, finding a few colleagues on Facebook, subscribing to a couple of blogs, and joining a Ning, like the CUE Community Ning or Classroom 2.0. Â By reading this blog you are already on your way…and may not have even realized it!
Joe
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What would email or instant messaging look like if they were invented today? This is a question Google is attempting to answer with their new product, 
