That’s not what this is about.  In the words of Podstock organizer, Kevin Honeycutt…

Podstock is a brand new conference designed to bring podcast creators and those who see the real value of podcasting as creators and consumers together.

We’ll have breakout sessions on podcasting for beginners, as well as sessions for and by seasoned pros. We’ll explore podcasting as well as many other web 2.0 tools that can enhance learning and communication in your world.

Here are the particulars:

Time: May 1, 2009 to May 2, 2009 Location: Hotel at Old Town Street: Wichita City/Town: Kansas Website or Map: http://podstockcon.com/ Event Type: mentorshipart-of-peace, edutainment, collaboratory Organized By: ESSDACK Education Futures Forum Latest Activity: Feb 24

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They wanted a device, but they didn’t want to phone and they didn’t want to camera.

I’m interested in this, because of a comment that Vicki Davis said yesterday in her keynote, that she would rather have iPod Touches for her students than laptops.  I may well have misunderstood.  But I definitely jerked my knee when I heard it.

Now one of the developers is talking, his company located in RTP.  He says that part of the appeal of the iPod T is that a $200 device makes more sense than a $1000 laptop.  “It’s cheap!  It’s out there.”  Another advantage is development practicality.  Writing applications is much simpler, and it takes much less time than developing for computers.

One of the instructional tech people is talking now,  describing the teachers’ first experiences with the Touches.  She says that they got very excited fairly immediately, talking about the possibilities, which were all aimed at student learning.  They saw very little pushback from the teachers (average age is 47).  Even the community got excited.  Now understand, that this is Chapel Hill — very sophisticated community.

We don’t have to teach the kids how to operate it.  They figure it all out.  They can take their notes on their Touches, but they can’t write a paper.  They are now talking about specific apps.  It reminds me of the handheld thing, where they are listing all of the apps, each very cool, but would all of them serve your classroom.  How many of them apply to your class, your students.

I just asked, “What do you wish it would do?”  Entirely unfair, because they came in prepared to talk about what they are doing.  Here the answer was that it was doing everything they wanted and then some, and then started talking about the near future when they’ll be utilizing podcasting.  This is very exciting.  But I can’t help but be a bit hesitant about anything that does everything.  I know, I’m old and turning into a curmudgeon before my own eyes — and it isn’t pretty.

She said that they still need laptops and desktop computers.  I need to visit their school.  It’s just up the road.  I’d love to have my skepticism satisfied.

I guess my main objection is this — and I may have jotted this down in another conference blog entry, which I haven’t posted yet.  My fear is that people see this and hear all of this enthusiasm, and come back saying, “This is the solution to our 1:1 problem.  Cheaper way to go 1:1.

There are no shortcuts, folks!

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I asked my supervisor if i could get the techno guy at my school to unblock a website so my kids can use blogs in my language arts class.  I was told I need to write a letter to the superintendent to explain my justification for using blogs in the classroom.

Surprisingly, this is the first time I’ve received this kind of e-mail, and from certain perspectives it actually makes a lot of sense.  Rather than just sending him my 2¢ Worth, I thought I would open it up to my readers.  [[image¹]]

• So why should students be blogging in the classroom?
• Are your students blogging?
• What’s the benefit?
• What’s the down-side?
• Are there other surprise impacts?

Please keep it short and sweet, as he’s only been asked for one letter.

Thanks from me!

1. Penn, Christopher. "Ted Demopoulos' book Finally Arrives." Financial Aid Podcast's Photostream. 18 Jan 2007. 4 Sep 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcast/361533467/>.

Developed by LEARN NC, a long-standing and consistent support agent for digital education in NC, Grand Visions, Rough Realities: The Development of Colonial North Carolina [flyer PDF, 95kb] is an web-based document that contains, among other things,

…67 pages of primary sources and background reading, plus guides for using the kinds of primary sources provided.

To collect content, LEARN NC worked with the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, the North Carolina Museum of History, UNC Libraries, Fort Dobbs State Historic Site, the North Carolina Literary Review, and other partners.
According to the e-mail, from Bill Ferris,

LEARN NC?s ?digital textbook? for 8th-grade North Carolina history provides a new model for teaching and learning. It makes primary sources central to the learning experience, using them to tell the stories of the past rather than merely illustrating it. Special web-based tools help students learn to read those sources and ask good questions of them. And because it?s on the web, this textbook relies on multimedia whenever possible to supplement or even replace text.

I found a chapter in the book about the German migration into North Carolina, a topic that I’ve not seen before in any NC History course I have taken.  It was an interesting read for me, as my ancestors on my father’s side were part of the early 1700s immigration.  I was intrigued by the circumstances in Europe, mostly religious wars, that forced so many German families to leave for the New World.

With this still in my head this morning, I coincidentally ran across this video (Sharing the Sights and Sounds of Europe!) from the EU, through an unrelated recommendation that popped into my Twitter client.  The YouTube video describe the Audiovisual Service of the European Commission, which appears to archive digital media related to a broad spectrum topics.  The media is “free of charge / free of rights.”

Content can be found by search engine, thematic classification, or via the Europe by Satellite (EbS) service.  Information is also streamed via vodcasting, podcasting, RSS feeds, and live and VOD streaming.

What got me thinking was a marriage of what LEARN NC is doing and a product like the Audiovisual Service, where the “textbook” arrives as an broad topic, multimedia encyclopedia that is not only searchable but also pluckable.  Teachers and students might have a chapter described to them via discussion or presentation of a problem, and then work toward identifying content from the encyclopedia, assembling it into a personalized study resource gear not only toward the subject or problem, but also toward the individuals learning styles.

In a sense this would cause the traditional consumption approach to education and the emerging emphasis on production to overlap far more effectively than simply asking students to produce a multimedia presentation at the end of the chapter.

Here is the very funny video (Chemical Party) that actually connected me with the Audiovisual Service, suggested by Seesmic’s Loic Le Meur. It is designed to promote interest in science and chemistry, also from the European Commission.

1. Ferris, Bill. “[MEGA] North Carolina History Digital textbook, Part 2 from LEARN NC.” E-mail to Author.20 Aug 2008.

Anyway, while paying half of my attention on the news, and a quarter of it on the clock, I’ve been doing some searches of the NECC program for a few key words that occurred to me.  Here is a listing of those words and the number of conference sessions or other events that included them.  They are not listed in any particular order, just as I thought of them.

Blog	27
Wiki	35
wikipedia	1
Podcast	39
game	38
web 2.0	46
Second Life	10
open source	19
visualization	6
computational	3
21st century skills	4
literacy	42
social network	13
social	40
moodle	17
flat	5
creativ	31
ebook	2
muve	3
nets?s	11

I also found the PDF of the final entire program and ran the session through TagCrowd.  Here are the 75 most used words in the sessions, in a tag cloud.

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It’s customary for us to post the NECC session(s) we will be presenting.  For me, I’ll be doing some work with David Thornburg for SETDA (State Education Technology Directors’ Association) on Sunday.  I’m not sure what I’ll be presenting.  I know I will not have much time.  If Thornburg presents on science, then I may counter with something on the creative arts.  Not sure yet.  But it will be fun.

Then, on Monday, at 12:30, in the HGCC Lila Cockrell Theatre, I’ll talk about our students and our worlds, describing three disruptive conditions that are converging on every school, classroom, teacher, and learner.   It’s a fairly big-picture session that I have not done at NECC before, though it is being increasingly requested by conference planners as a large group general addresses.

I spent some time last night going through the conference program, selecting the sessions I was interested in.  After finishing, I had my calendar subscribe to my selected sessions as an iCal file, and my calendar gave an audible groan under the strain.

A couple of things did strike me as I was reading through the sessions.  Their attraction may have had more to do with things I’ve been thinking about lately, rather than a count of sessions. 

First of all, I saw a lot of sessions about using technology in science instruction.  There is certainly a lot of interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics right now, so this shouldn’t be a surprise.  I also saw a lot of sessions with Web 2.0 in the title or description.  What was interesting was the many of them seemed to assume a basic knowledge of the tools.  The sessions were geared toward bringing together some meaning to these new tools within the context of teaching, learning, and improving student performance (not one of my favorite phrases).

I also found it interesting that podcasting seems to have fallen in popularity from the past couple of years, but what has risen is ePortfolios.  I’ve been sensing a renewed interest in alternative assessment methods, and there may be some logical and valuable connections between collecting artifacts of learning and the increasing interest in blogs, wikis, mashups, and other Web 2.0 applications.

As I was finishing up a blog entry at gate C15, across from me sits Bethany Smith.  I’m not sure what her job is, but Bethany works at the Friday Institute, which I’ve blogged about on several occassions.  She’s become a go-to person for several specific technology applications including podcasting and Moodle.  She’s on her way to San Francisco for a Moodle conference.  Bethany is also involved in an initiative at North Carolina State University to re-invent their educator pre-service program, which I hope to be a part of — schedule permitting.

We talked a bit about Moodle and how NCSU is looking to adopt the software for their online learning programs.  She’s obviously an enthusiast, but equally versed in BlackBoard, Web CT, and their combined product(s).  At any rate is was nice to have someone so pleasant to talk to at the airport.

For most of the rest of these flights, I’ll be finishing up an article about Personal Learning Networks (PLN) and simultaneously finishing up a re-build of my PLN conference presentation, which I’ll be doing three or four times at EdTech, in Honolulu.  One thing that I want to do is to reconcile the fact that there is nothing new about personal learning networks (just like there’s nothing new about do it yourself (DIY) education practices — aka, Edupunk).

I’m struggling with the fear that I may be de-constructing PLN techniques a little too much, for the sake of acknowledging what many will say, “Hey!  We’ve been doing that for years!”  It’s true.  But in the case of PLNs, new information and communication technologies have availed dramatically new avenues for learning from each other and for learning by mining larger conversations for value.  Also critical to this conversation is how important lifelong learning (learning lifestyle) is to education and how necessary it is for teachers to not only practice it, but model the skills of using the networks for learning.

More about DIY/Edupunk later — perhaps the next flight.

The headings include:

• Audio & Podcasting
• Blogs
• Calendars, Task Management, & ToDo Lists
• Drawing
• Photo & Photo Sharing
• Portal & WebPage starting tools
• Presentaiton Tools
• Quiz & Polling tools
• RSS & Aggregators
• Social Bookmarking
• Social Networks, and others.

This amazing resource site was created for the Florida Library Media Supervisors’ Conference (couldn’t find URL) in May 2008.  I hope that it continues to be available to us.

Thanks Donna!

1. Baumbach, Donna. “Web 2.0 Tools – Need Your Input.” E-mail to LM_NET Mailing List.25 Apr 2008.

Since we did not have access to microphones for the audience, I recorded a podcast with the group, by asking them some questions about what they’d learned so far and the impact that they saw with student performance and their own performance as teachers.  One of the members of the group of 30 mentioned something that I’d heard before.  But the way that he said it sent me in a new direction.  He said something about how blogs, wikis, and podcasting allow our students’ learning experiences to be more personalized.

At this, it occurred to me that as our youngsters are engaged in their social networks at home, it appears that they do not endeavor to create MySpace pages that are just like those of their friends.  Instead, it seems that one of the goals is to establish and illustrate their uniqueness.  They use their online information experience to project their individuality — their person.  Of course, their expressions isn’t always authentic, that they will often project a person they are not, as experiment or as fun.  But it is uniqueness none the less.

So what is it in the learning experiences that we maintain for our students in our classrooms that calls on their uniqueness, that asks them to personalize?  If, rather than expecting them to turn in work that is the same as everyone else, we expected them to express what they are learning in a way that is unlike anyone else, might this be one way of starting to integrate, among other things, the Creativity and Innovation that the new ISTE NETS are calling for?

I don’t know.  What do you think?  What might this look like?

Tags: warlick, education, technology, elearning, NETS, ISTE

I was a little taken a’back, since I’d not presented any of them in at least a year, more than two or three years for two of them.  My initial inclination was to say, “Oh!  I’ve been meaning to take those (all three) off my list.  Would you mind selecting three others.”

However, they selected those particular sessions for a reason, so I went with it, and spent a good bit of time preparing.  The real surprise was that as I continued to refresh the presentations the more relevant they became, especially in light of the keynote I was delivering.  For instance, the first element of contemporary literacy that I address in the speech corresponds with the first R, Reading.  In today’s information environment, I believe that the ability to find information that is appropriate to what we are trying to achieve is as important and as basic as being able to read it.  Evaluation, decoding, translating, etc. are also in there.

So one of the oldies requested was “Finding It on the Net: Being a Digital Detective.”  The last time I’d taught that one, I was still introducing folks to Google and boolean searching.  But today, it involves so much more.  Not just finding the evidence, as a digital detective, but also witnesses.  So I included a discussion about blogs and wikis, and using Technorati and Google Blog search to locate and select experts in a given field, and to use BlogPulse to map the frequency of specific conversations.  We also looked at some examples of using wikis to tap into the collective knowledge of communities.

When it came to the digital detective seeking evidence, I did an old demo, illustrating a process-approach to conducting searches.  I call it SEARCH, which is an acronym for the process.  We also discussed the Wikipedia and other social content sites and their effectiveness as a reliable source.  This discussion, alas, continues.

Finally, I demo’ed RSS, as a tool for not just finding information, but for training information to find you.  So much more to finding information today.

The second breakout that I did was “Harnessing the Digital Landscape,” which matches almost perfectly the second R (arithmetic) — which I expand into a range of skills involved in employing or working the information.  The last time I’d don this session, it was entirely about digital cameras and what we can do to add value to digital images.  But, as a result of refreshing the session, It grew into a much more comprehensive exploration, including digital photos, but also looking at processing audio with Audacity, an intro to podcasting, some machinima (for fun), and then visualizations of data and text using TagClouds, IBM’s Many Eyes, and some network visualizers.  I closed that one with a few examples of web mashups, how data from various web sites is being combined and create new tools, such as Buzztracker and Twittervision.

Finally, and this was the tough one.  They wanted my presentation on Plagiarism, which plugs in to my forth E, ethical use of information.  It’s always been a difficult presentation, because it is not, for me, a daily working concern, as it is for teachers.  So I researched, looking for tips, put them on slides, and be absolute sure to cite the source ;-)  The problem — There is not a better way to do this than with slides and lots of bulleted lists — and I hate to use bulleted slides.  I apologized repeatedly to the audience, and they forgave me — and I did promise myself that I would remove this one from the list.  However, I had also been asked to do this presentation at the NC Community Colleges Association for Distance Learning conference after my trip to California, and decided to make it a test.  Is this plagiarism?  Why?  Why not?  That went much much better.  Plagiarism may be a keeper after all.

Anyway, it was an interesting exercise to dredge up some old presentations, do a refresh, and find life pulsing through those crusty joints.

Again, this is live blogged, so please excuse typos and awkward wording.

Andrew Keen says, “So instead of a dictatorship of experts, we’ll have a dictatorship of idiots.” He’s from England with fond memories of taking his motorcycle from library to library, where he, at one time, had 90 books checked out at one time. The speaker is Andrew Keen.

He want’s to talk about the book, his thinking during the writing of the book, and his thinking afterward. He approached the book wondering if the future will be Orwellian (1984) or Huxleyan (Brave New World). He use to be a journalist for a Music magazine that published about high quality music and music equipment. “The media business is about finding the talent, refining it, and selling it.”

He’s not a luddite, though he has a business card that says, “Andrew Keen, the Antichrist of Silicon Valley.” Years ago, he sipped from the coolaid, and he founded a company called Audio Cafe. Ultimately digital will triumph over paper.

Keen says that the biggest weakness of the book, is that he treats the Internet as a person. The Internet isn’t killing anything. It’s tools, and it’s controlled by people. We are killing our culture through our miss-use of the Internet. The Cult of the Amateur is about us.

Something very profound is going on. There is a cultural challenge to authority. We’re seeing a more and more personalized culture. [This is true. Kids are creating their own culture. He's going along with what Zukkerman was talking about Internet Me.]

The individual is becoming increasingly empowered. Traditional notions of authority are fading away. People know more than their leaders. Citizenship is being replaced by consumerism.

The Internet came out of the 1960s hippies, power to the people mentality. [In reality, the Internet came from the U.S. military, but his point is valid.]

There’s no wisdom in Google. There is more search engine wisdom in this room than in all of Google, and the librarians are paid for it. Google’s service comes from it’s users use of the tool. It gets better the more we use it, but not smarter, not wiser.

He says, “Now we don’t need to rely on Thomas Freedman to know what’s happening in the Middle East.” We have the power to know through each other. No expertise needed.

Keen got an invitation to O’Reily’s FOOCamp in 2004, an unconference. Unconference is anarchy in practice. He says that everyone was blogging and podcasting, but no one was listening.

The biggest problem is that the traditional media is being undermined. The authority of experts is being undermined. People are loosing their jobs. There is value in YouTube and in the blogosphere, but it’s hard to find it. Traditional media finds and refines the talent and makes it available.

I says at the ending that, “The reality is that things are not that bad.” He’s actually optimistic now.

The main thing on my mind right now is the forecast for snow that we’re facing here in Raleigh. I’m flying to Minneapolis tomorrow, so Brenda has reserved me a room at the airport so I’ll be close in the morning. I’d hate to not get to Minnesota because it snowed in Raleigh ;-)

I’ll be italicizing my 2¢ worth.

Ethics is a matter of responsibilities? to whom am I responsible? and what options let me best balance those responsibilities? So what are the responsibilities of blogging? Is there any one definition, vision, expectations about blogging? I think that some readers do have expectations based on a number of criteria/factors, and sometimes those expectations do not, sometimes, coinside with why the blogger blogs.

What can I say on my blog? Some information is public and some is proprietary. It’s worth noting that much of the theme of this conference is open science. Ah! Should there be a blogging code of ethics?

Ah, a great question has risen from the audience. When is information public (you can post that quote or that pictures) and when is it private? Is there a resource with the answers to these questions? The answer from the moderator is, “No!”

The talk is going on about assuring that what’s written and published on a blog, newspaper, etc. is reliable, and I agree. This is a valuable direction to be going in. But I don’t think that there is a single managable answer. I think that part of the responsibility should rest with the reader. Part of being a reader, today, is asking questions about the answers that you find.

A great conversation going on. Too much to keep up wither here. No answers. One man said that people need to be learning critical thinking skills. Then he said, “A man just said that kids are reinventing education. ” Bingo!

Hmmm! Suggestion now is that rather than trying to establish a code of ethics for blogger, instead, more of a best practices agreement. There is talk of setting up a blogging ethics wiki.

Next is a conversation about teaching science and blogging. I’m moderating that one, so there’ll not be any notes here. But I’m hoping to podcast it, so hopfully, more to come.

The session on teaching science with bloging (wikis, podcasting, etc.) went well. Majority of the folks are university level. I was surprised not to have seen more K-12 folks. The most interesting thing that came out of it for me, was a science and religion professor who used blogs to generate outside-the-classroom conversations. His story was very compelling. But it was especially interesting that he used the blog conversations to reflect on the course, giving him ideas about adapting the class in real time, and also redesigns for the next semester.

The next breakout that I am attending is How to Build Interactivity into Your Blog, with Dave Munger. So what is interactivity really? He didn’t really answer that question, but he said that interactivity will bring visitors.
He’s using Bad Astronomy as an example of an interactive blog. The blog

• has a long history
• populare topcis
• stays on topic, and
• has a friendly tone (short sentences),
• six posts per day,
• links to other blogs,
• but not too many links,
• image /video rich,
• it’s personal,
• but not too personal.

Dave’s Tips

1. Be regular,
2. Be yourself,
3. Self-promote effectively (most bloggers under-promote themselves)
4. Anti Self-promotion (be careful of DIGG and DIGG like services)
5. Don’t be for comments,
6. Images,
7. Movies,
8. Polls
9. How to make polls (blogflux.com & quimble.com),
10. Make good polls,

This session was not exactly what I expected, but the conversations that ensued was very interesting. Of course, all of the items above have their exceptions, and many of them came out in the dicsussion.

At the end of this session, a woman got up to demo crossref.org.  It’s a plugin for Wordpress that, using a DOI number, can callup a citation and plug it into the blog.  A DOI is a Digital Object Identifier.  If any of you know more about DOI’s please share.

I got pulled back into the conversation yesterday afternoon, when I took a few minutes away from my computer to scan my aggregator through my phone — and discovered Will Richardson’s reflections on Danah Boyd’s post about the debate. So many thoughts, ideas, reactions, and confusions filled my head that I could hardly contain myself (not a pretty sight). But, I got distracted by tasks and a virtual consulting appointment and had to cool down.

In the long run, it’s a good thing that I didn’t just spill out immediately, because after having slept on it (well, not really that much sleep), my reaction has congealed into two main items, and they both come from the notion that we are holding this debate in some pretty foggy space. This entire topic is so new that I suspect it has not yet fully formed.

So I’d like to suggest two assumptions that my thinking is based on. They seem obvious to me, but I may be missing something. It’s why I’m putting this out there for you to read — so that I can learn…

1. There is a difference (right now) between social networks (or social network sites), and social networking. In my mind, a social network is a single site with features that facilitate social experiences. Social networking, on the other hand, is what is done in social networks, but can also be done with smaller and personally combined tools, such as blogs, wikis, podcasting, aggregators, twitter, etc. Neither (at this time) fully encompasses the other.
2. Facebook is an example of a social network site. They are not synonymous. What frustrates me about Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, is that their feature sets are way to limiting. I think that a social network has enormous potential, especially to education. But not in its current form. I’m afraid that if we are limiting our notions of social networks to what’s already been developed in FB, MS, and even Ning, and dismiss them as a result, then we may just miss a wonderful opportunity.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an unrelated blog post (Is Pedagogy Getting in the Way of Learning?), which included some ideas about social networks. In it I suggested that there may be some sort of merger between the functionality of social networks, course management systems (virtual learning environments), and eportfolio products. I could envision a social network site (SNS) where a portfolio can be casually built by users and mined for artifacts of learning, and where a teacher (learning leader) can maintain the site, to some degree, so that curriculum can be applied, where standards (what ever they evolve into) can be learned through appropriate pedagogy (what ever that evolves into).

In review:
1. Social networks and social networking are two topics.
2. Social networks are still evolving.

2¢ Worth

I searched for several terms that occurred to me on the spur of the moment and found that of all of the new Web 2 technologies that have emerged over the past couple of years, the one that continues to rock is podcasting.  Here is the run down on the number of times each term was mentioned in the conference program:

Of course, this doesn’t mean very much. The rubber doesn’t meet the road until the conference comes, and the conversation begins. Remember how, after NECC this year, people were saying that at least part of the value of this great conference was the conversations that happened outside of the sessions.
Hope to see some of you at NCETC…

• As you watch the video, during the first 24 to 48 hours, go to the session chat, register, and post questions, comments, and additions, as they occur to you.
• If you use Twitter, then post comments, while watching, that would be of value to your followers.
• If you blog or podcast about the session, tag your posts with k12online07 and k12online07pc.
• I am writing an article about the three converging conditions on a wiki page. The outline is currently on a wiki page. It would be useful to me if you could go and insert any elements of the address or concept that resonated especially well with you.

For some reason, unbeknown’gst to me, I was asked to deliver (produce) the opening keynote — and for some reason, unbe… I agreed.  It wasn’t fun.  It’s hard work to present in front of a camera, with no one else to speak to.  At least it’s hard for me.  But I feel most comfortable using my own voice and my own body to express myself.  I’m not creative nor clever enough to do it any other way.

I suspect that we are going to see some amazingly creative and clever people expressing ideas in a wide variety of ways during the next two weeks (15-27 Oct).  We’ll be seeing blogs, podcasts, wikis, and probably a whole slew of new virtual education tools.  Me — I just talk.

But I want you to talk as well.  Some of you will be twittering your responses, and that’s Great.  Some will be blogging and perhaps even podcasting.  If you do, please use the conference tag (k12online07) and also the tag that was established for my keynote (k12online07pc).

But I’ve also set up a chat room, that works very much like Twitter — that is if everyone of you had a Twitter account and we had all befriended (were following) each other.  The URL is:

http://davidwarlick.com/k12onlinekeynote_chat/

Click there and you will be asked to assure that you will make ethical use of this information tool.  After signing in, I ask that you post any questions, comments, or addendum to my presentation.  Your name and country will be attached to your comments, and they will appear on the pages of every other person who is watching the presentation, or continuing to reflect on the ideas.

Between 24 and 48 hours after the keynote (12:00PM GMT), I will shutdown the chat and transfer the transcript over to a wiki page, where I will insert my own 2¢ worth into the conversation.  You will be able to access that wiki at:

http://davidwarlick.com/k12onlinekeynote_chat/wiki.html

You, too, are welcome and invited to edit the wiki transcript of the chat and add your own answers and insights.  the password for the wiki is k12online.  Be warned that my wiki engine (PMWiki) is a fairly primitive wiki in that it is not a WYSIWYG.  There are instructions at the bottom of the edit page for performing basic editing functions.

Thank you, and let the 2007 K12 Online Conference begin!

First, if you have time, go back to yesterday’s blog, I’m not Teacher Bashing.  What I’m looking for is an image of the teacher, the classroom, learning culture, administration, etc. where the world of new initiatives and models (21st Century Skills, NETS Refreshed), the latest issues of their discipline, and the latest in best practices are a part of the job.  David Tuss said that the 21st century teacher is…

• Connected,
• Collaborative, and
• Creative

What does that look like?  Please post your comments there.

I spoke at my first state school board association conference yesterday, and I must say that I was more than impressed with the conversations that I had, at least with the folks who came up to me wanted to have conversations.  I did an hour and a half workshop during the afternoon, during which I was only able to cover about a third of what I had attended.  The audience was quite interactive, they had lots of questions, expected answers, and sincerely had their students’ best interests in a new future at heart.  I confess that I was a bit underprepared to address what this new information landscape means to being a school board member, other than the obvious — consider using social networks, blogs, podcasting, wikis, etc. as a way to collaborate with each other and communicate with and engage your constituents.

The one area that disappointed me was in the exhibitors hall.  It seemed that just about every other booth was an architectural firm.  Now my observation may not be at all fair, because I didn’t talk to all of them, only three.  They were very busy booths.  But I asked each of the three, how has school design changed in the last ten years, and how do you suspect it will change in the next 10? Perhaps I should have used 20 years or 30.  But their answers disappointed me.

• Schools are greener.
• Construction techniques are much more efficient.
• Wiring in the floors, walls, ceiling.

That was it.  I asked one of the firm’s representative, what it might mean to the design of a classroom when every student has a laptop.  He said that it probably wouldn’t affect the room design in any way.  He did say that perhaps schools should have some smaller classrooms for classes with fewer students such as Japanese Language, AP Physics, or legal terminology.

To be fair, I may have been talking with the wrong people.  I may have completely missed the truely innovative firms who were in other parts of the hall.  There may even be no reason to change the design of schools.  I don’t know.  It’s the reason I was asking.  How do they change?  These folks are the experts.  Is the answer — they don’t change?

Help me, Christian Long!

My sessions are over, and the ferry is waiting. But there is one final session, a panel discussion of some teenagers — the Net Generation. I middle schooler, one graduating senion, on rising senior, and an elementary school. The graduated senior just said that schools should be the first place where new technologies appear. They attended a session here about podcasting and were, evidently, impressed. They want to see podcasting in their classrooms.

The elementary student just said that she was tired of having to go to the lab to do technology. She said that each student should have a laptop. The graduated senior said, “In the workplace, you don’t make people share computers.”

Jenny just asked the question — what do you see in the future with technology.

• Cars that drive themselves
• Robots
• Advances in GPS — integrating

What about video games. The middle school students siad that video games will help students develop social skills. The graduate is talking about a World War II game, and how it might help with history classes. He is using some impressive vocabulary.

Nothing else coming. Jenny then asked, do you play games. All four raised their hands immediately. They’ve gone to the youngest student, and asked her and she’s talking about a virtual environment game called Animal Crossing where she meets her friends, goes to their houses, and works to “pay off her loans.”

I’m seeing a lot of evidence of these kids having trouble seeing connections between their video game and other home information experiences and their classrooms.

They’re now opening questions up to the audience. Someone is asking about violent video games. Do they think that they make kids more violent. “I says that peole get angry toward the video game.” “I don’t see any influence from my violent video games.” “When you’re watching TV, and something violent happens, you can see the differences between how older people reach and younger viewers.”

I just asked if they used a social network (MySpace, FaceBook, or Bebo, etc.) Only one of them does, the rising senior. One boy said that his Dad convinced him that it was a waste of time. Of the boy who uses MySpace, I asked how he stayed safe. He described some things that he did with his profile to keep himself anonymous. Then I asked, “Who taught you that!” He looked confused, “Who taught me?” I guess the guy who built the site. I just figured it out. “So it was because it seemed like the size thing to do?” “Yes!”

“My teachers are not teaching me how to use the Internet. They just teach you how to use Google. There is so much more to finding information on the Internet than just Google.”

“What’s getting missed in school is Art. One of the best, most useful classes I too was Digital Photography.”

While the Laptop Institute is winding down, and the Building Learning Communities conference is winding itself up, I’m sitting in the middle of nowhere.  It’s a Hampton Inn in Salisbury, Maryland, in the middle of the Delmar Penninsula.  It’s 4:11 and I just got through to tech support, so Internet started running much better, though I’m beginning to worry again as I try to load Google Maps.  Now I’m trying Google Earth to see if it comes up better.

Anyway, I just wanted to write to say that I do not feel entirely left out.  In a few hours I’ll leave my hotel to drive about an hour to Lewes, Maryland, where I’ll take a magnificent ferry boat ride to Cape May, New Jersey (pictures to come).  From Cape May, I’ll drive another 15 minutes to Wildwood for NJELITE’s annual Wildwood conference for school administrators.  I’ve worked this conference several times in the past, though not in a couple of years.  It was originally funded by Bill & Melinda Gates, when they were funding administrative staff development, but this conference now runs on its own momentum. 

The conference use to be run like a workshop, where groups of administrators would work together with technology trainers from across New Jersey and neighboring Pennsylvania.  But this year administrators will cycle through sessions such as…

• Unique & Compelling Internet Applications for the 21st Century Learner — from CIESE (Mercedes McKay, Associate Director)
• Podcasting — from Apple (David Marra)
• Thinkfinity — from Verizon
• Teaching through Second Life — Beth Lynne Ritter-Guth, Lehigh Carbon Community College
• Video Games as Learning Engines — I’ll be doing that one
• “Net Generation” Speaks Out — a panel presentation from local students

I’ll also be closing the conference with a keynote about 21st century literacy.  The theme of the conference is “Digital Age Literacy.”

The high point, however, in my opinion, will be the opening keynote by Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind.  I will likely be blogging his keynote, A Different World, A Different Worker, plus, he’ll be doing a follow-up discussion about Transitioning from the Information to The Conceptual Age. 

But back to the podcasting, I have always tried to focus down on using information technologies for learning that are accessible for schools that are willing to invest just something into it, and consistently say in my presentations and workshop that you don’t have to go buy an iPod to record a podcast. 

“I use an iPod because I already owned an iPod.”

“Just had to spend $30 for an iTalk to turn it into a recorder.” 

They’re a little more expensive now, but what else is available?

So I went to the local Staples store and bought an Olympus digital voice recorder.  Its a WS-100, $79 (usd).  I’m still working my way through the buttons, but I tried it for the first time yesterday, when I visited a technology showcase in Durham, North Carolina, and found that the operation was pretty darn intuitive.  The event was an excellent test of the audio quality because there was an enormous amount of background noise and confusion.  But when I gave one of the files a listen last night, I was overwhelmingly impressed.

I especially like the built-in USB plug.  You just plug the device directly into your computer, and it shows up as an external hard drive.  Just audio drag the files off into your podcast directory, and get to work.  One glitch is that the files are saved in WMA format, so you have to find a converter to change it to a wav or mp3.  I used Switch, which worked very quickly and effectively.  The files go from there directly into Audacity or GarageBand.

My only irritation is the weight.  I’ve been accustomed to holding a very solid and substancial iPod when interviewing people.  The Olympus is extremely light weight, and cheap felling, but again the quality of the recording surprised me — and at almost a quarter of the price.

Look for the next episode of Connect Learning.

Jane is currently researching the benefits of podcasting and has asked me to forward a request for participation in her research project.

*** ICT U Can!: A request for help:

I am currently undertaking research looking at the question:

In what ways does podcasting enhance oral literacies?

I have been gathering data in my own context but I would love to hear what other teachers have found when using podcasting in their classroom programme and add voices from further a field into my final write up.

I hope that you can help her with this very important question.