14
2008
CTAP 3 in Sacramento
I am spending two days in beautiful and sunny Sacramento, California. I can not believe that it is only May 14, and it’s going to be 105?. That just isn’t natural. But we are going to be talking about some hot topics, literacy, Web 2.0, some specific new Web 2.0 tools, the times we are teaching in, the times our students are inheriting and must be prepared for, did I mention literacy?, and acceptable use policies (AUP 2.0).
Day one is with educators from throughout the CTAP region three area, which appears to be a ten county area in central California. In my part of the morning staff development I’ll be talking about 21st century skills, specifically, reshaping what it means to be literate. The fundamental question is what do the three Rs become in a world where something like Wikipedia can flourish?
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It’s a pretty good descriptor for this day an time, where an encyclopedia, that is written entirely by its users, is accessed almost two million times a day, serving 253 languages.1 It is a time where approximately 112 million people, world wide, are publishing, what is essentially an online magazine, and some of these bloggers have daily readerships in the thousands and are earning an income through advertising.2
Our current notions of literacy are about an environment dominated by print, published, and broadcast information. What are the basic reading, arithmetic, and writing skills of an information environment that is increasingly and, in some contexts, exclusively networked, digital, and overwhelming? And just as important is, “What are the pedagogies of teaching in an information-abundant learning environment?
Day two, with state and regional education leaders, will be about story telling, specifically, about telling a simple, yet compelling story about the learning experiences and learning environments that are necessary for educating children in a time of rapid change, in a time where the future, our children, and the very information landscape that we live and work in, are dramatically different from the environment that formed today’s educational dogma.
These and other topics will be covered by myself, and other technology educators in the middle of California and the middle of May, 2008.
- Wikipedia Contributors, “Wikipedia.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. May 14 2008. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 14 May 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia&oldid=212312335>. [↩]
“About Us.” Technorati. Technorati. 14 May 2008 <http://technorati.com/about/>. [↩]
24
2008
Learning Beyond the Barriers in Vancouver, British Columbia
It has been a unique joy and privilege to be able to attend this conference on distributed learning in Vancouver. These DL conferences are perhaps the most forward reaching events that I attend, because technology is already such and integral part of what these educators do that it truly is the conduit and not the object of 21st century education. I’ve learned that British Columbia as an even more exemplary example of this with a rich history in the field already, not to mention a spirit of inventiveness and dedication to promote and provoke learning.
Unfortunately, I am closing the conference. It would seem that it’s all be said, the engaging and provocative conversations have been started, cultivated, and closed. The new ideas have been sprouted, watered, and pruned. I guess the one thing that is missing is a southern accent.
I will, however, seek to bring things together, into a single three-bullet slide, although you will see almost no bulleted lists on my slides. I want to factor everything down to just three conditions that are bearing down on every province, district, school, classroom, and teach, regardless of whether they are teaching from from, a cubicle, or a classroom. It is important to bring it all down to something that you can describe in one paragraph, three sentences, a trio of bullet points, because, as professionals, part of our job is to express this time of rapid change and its impact on teaching and learning to people who are not professionals.
Here are some online resources that will be available to you after the presentation is over:
21
2008
21st Century Skills in Colorado Springs
Back in Colorado at 6,000+ feet above sea level. You have to experience it to know what altitude can do to you. For me, I’m drinking lots of water. This is going to be a fantastic day of learning and sharing, and I’m sharing leadership rolls with some pretty fantastic, smart, dedicated, and visionary people. I had dinner with them last night, and I’m not how far I can push these folks.
The more than 400 attendees will sit through my keynote address about contemporary literacy. Then they will cycle through four workshops on inquiry-based learning, web two point oh, a roundtable discussion with me, and 21st century learning — what it means.
Here are some links to online handouts for my keynote:
18
2008
Podcasting in Garner, NC
I’m spending Friday afternoon, working with some truly dedicated educators of the Garner Schools, part of Wake County Public schools in Raleigh — and we’re learning all about Podcasting.
The school system is a Windows shop, so we are using Audacity for the post production work, and I’m using Parallels for the first time so that they will see at the front of the room, the same thing that they see on their computers, here and in their schools.
Here are some additional materials:
14
2008
Back to Prince William County Schools
It is wonderful to be back in Northern Virginia, one of the most exciting places on Earth. So much is happening here, so many new people moving in, so much diversity, and challenges. We face much of this in the Raleigh area.
My work here will be about technology — though not about the machines and infrastructure itself, but more about its impact on our children, on our environment, and on the future that we are preparing our children for. Interestingly, as I was preparing, the Social Studies Department Head walked in and we had a fabulous conversation about history and the future — the history of the future. I think that it all clicks.
Anyway, here are links to materials related to this presentation:
Tags: warlick, session, Prince William County
6
2008
Flat Classrooms at V.A.I.S.
VAIS stands for the Virginia Association of Independent Schools, an organization that holds professional development, an annual conference, and advocates and lobbies for the benefit of independent schools across the state. I present at a lot of these conferences, and work with independent schools across the country, and find it to be, in a sense, a parallel universe of education.
At this conference, my focus will be on Flat Classrooms, the conditions that have pressed down on our traditional, top-down notions of education, and some ideas about what happens to fundamentals of teaching and learning, such as literacy.
I will begin with a keynote address about Flat Classrooms. Here, the audience will learn about three converging conditions that demand changes in how and what we teach, changes that most educators intuitively yearn for. Those conditions are:
- A rapidly Changing Future
- A New Generation of Learner
- A New Information Landscape
Here are online handouts for the opening keynote:
On the second day of the conference, I will follow up with a more indepth explanation and demonstration of how we prepare students for an unpredictable future, that we rethink literacy, that we start to expand our notions to a range of skills require to be a life-long learner, or Learning Literacies.
- Our Students • Our Worlds — a New Literacy
- Hypertext Outline for presentation
- Transcript for Twitteresque Chat
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: warlick, education, conference, vais
3
2008
Learning 2.0 with JCCS
At this point, I do not recall what JCCS stands for. But I will be spending two days with small and large groups of educators who work in a bewildering variety of alternative school settings, including full-blown high schools structurs to store-front classrooms.
The task is Learning 2.0, or learning in a new information landscape. We’ll be looking at the new web and many of the tools and potentials that they afford educators. The topics will include, but not be limited to:
- Back-Channeling
- What is Web 2.0 & How is it different from Web 1.0?
- Blogs and the Blogosphere
- Podcasting
- The Wiki Wiki Web
- Social Media — or “Growing the Global Library”
- RSS — the Glue of the New Web
- Social Networks & Social Networking
- Assorted Tools
- Content Mining
- Mashups
- Virtual Worlds
Participants in the extended workshop will use a new Moodle course as the support documents. At some point, the URL for this course will be moodle.davidwarlick.com. However, at present, it is:
There is also a wiki site that supports these topics:
There will also be an extended group presentation by me and the technology resource educators of JCCS. Here is a link to the wiki resources for my part of that presentation:
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: warlick, education, technology, jccs
28
2008
American Leadership Forum
In the ALF Houston web site, the state mission of this organization is to…
Join and strengthen diverse leaders to better serve the public good.
I can think of no better mission of 21st century education than to join and strength the diversity of learners, learning styles, avenues of communication, and especially the world that our children are learning about. We find ourselves in a time where much of our world is changing, and especially the ways and means that we use to communicate about it — and where should this be more manifest than in our classrooms.
This presentation and day will be spent explore three fundamental questions:
- What does the future hold for education?
- What do schools and districts need to do to prepare for the future?
- What will this future require of me?1
For more information related to my presentation, Our Students • Our Worlds, please see the following linked to pages.
- Online Handouts
- Presentation Bibliography
- Outline for presentation
- Transcript of Ustream Conversation
[photo2 ]
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: warlick, education, technology, school, future, alf
- ”Education 2021 - Preparing Kids for a Future We Can’t Describe.” American Leadership Forum: Houston / Gulf Coast. ALF: Houston. 26 Mar 2008 http://snurl.com/22pe2 [www_alfhouston_com]. [↩]
- Elaine. “My Favorite Mural in Houston.” Cybertoad’s Photostream. 24 Feb 2006. 26 Mar 2008 http://flickr.com/photos/cybertoad/103688845/. [↩]
20
2008
Brainstorming in Little Rock
Today, I’m working with a group of school board members from all around Arkansas. The two-part event is sponsored by the Arkansas School Boards Association, and is billed as “Brainstorm! What Education Leaders Need to Know about the Human Brain and 21st Century Technology.”
The human brain part of the day will be presented by Dr. Patricia Wolfe, where she will be describing synchronized learning environments and teaching strategies. Her focus, I assume, will be how this learner generation thinks, how their brain works. My focus will be on the changing environment that they are thinking in.
The breakup of my presentation will be:
- Preparing our children for a future that is changing faster than we can imagine.
- Preparing children who are a dramatically different breed of learners than our generations.
- Preparing our children inside of a brand new and exciting information landscape where content flows and grows and is lived by any and all of us, not just publishers and broadcast networks.
I hope that you enjoy our presentations and that the meld in a way that helps the education leaders of Arkansas grapple a little more easily with the challenges of teaching the millennials.
Your supporting materials are here:
Technorati Tags: warlick education elearning asba
12
2008
NCAECT - A Gem in North Carolina
I blogged about this conference yesterday, inferring that it was one of the best small conferences that I attend. Marlo Gadis, one of the conference organizers commented that it is not so small, with more than 1,200 pre-registered attendees.
It may well be my favorite, not so back as NCETC but just as rich with presentations, keynotes, and people. It is a techie library conference. Or maybe a bookie technology conference. Not sure which.
While here, I’ll be presenting on two topics, Personal Learning Networks and video games. Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and I will also be conducting an EduBloggerCon. Here are links to online handouts and other resources.
- The Collaborative Web
- Video Games as Learning Engines
- EduBloggerCon
EduBloggerCon
You can visit and review the initial probing questions created by the audience and the chat that was generated in the Ustream page.
