I’ve collaborated with other schools recently as a tech-facilitator and before now for over 15 or more years as an elementary classroom teacher through email, wikis, blogs, Voicethread and Skype. However, Silvia Tolisano’s Around the World with 80 Schools collaboration I’m participating in now is different in that a template for participation and participant network was already established when I began. Also important is it’s ideal for the teachers I work with who are new to global/online collaboration because the community and template were established and the time commitment allows for easy integration into the established classroom environment. The framework is flexible enough to allow many conversations or a few a year and classroom-based participation or school-wide as we are doing. I have also enjoyed the opportunity to expand my PLN through the contacts I am making while setting up conversations for classrooms. Most of all, the students are excited, engaged and they raise questions for further learning that wouldn’t have occurred to me.

So, why participate? Why make the minimal effort to have a short conversation with students in a class on another continent? For me, the answer is that the students and I feel lifted up, engaged, and want to know more about what our new friends know and think about our world. The social interaction and connection is stimulating. But not all educators are on the same path- what is passionately clear to me is not for everyone, so I feel the responsibility to ask Why? to be able to effectively express my point of view to those who aren’t “in the choir.”

I can start by again sharing the ISTE NETs standards, but these are a bit broad for a starting point.

I wanted to refer to conversations and research so I started with Silvia’s post where she shares the project and links to other related posts she’s written.

I then decided to re-listen to SOS Podcast 2: How does making connections affect learning? With David Carpenter, Jeff Utecht, and guests Justin Medved and Julie Lindsay. Here are a few of the thoughts I came away with:
-Students know how to use tech for entertainment and communication but not as well to communicate and collaborate for learning.
-How well do we value and allow process, sharing and reflection of learning?
-Collaborations create an authentic audience that engages kids in the learning process
-Students can learn how to collaborate globally (as they will no doubt be doing in their future) by doing it.
-Start with the end in mind and if we believe in these 21st Century outcomes we need to redesign what we are doing with our curriculum.

I also found a Wes Fryer post from 2 years ago(!)
Wes shared quotes from Google CEO Eric Schmidt when asked in a WIRED interview, “Google’s revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic?
His response:  It’s a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model remains small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. The attempt to provide order drives out the creativity. And so it’s a balance.
To this Wes reflected, “The lesson here is that the business world does not merely want to hire listeners and fact regurgitators, but rather thinkers who can collaborate, “run fast” and create innovative ideas which reflect both higher level thinking as well as creativity.”

The SOS podcast was recorded a little over a year ago and Wes’s post was written 2 years ago. While progress is being made and I am inspired every day from contact with those in my PLC, I am also impatient because it seems we’re still just discussing these issues and stalled in this regard in most schools.

As a classroom teacher I would use 80 Schools from the first week of school. First begin to explore the talents and interests of each person in the room but also introduce the classrooms we have access to and the possibilities of interaction with the individuals in those rooms. An 80 Schools Ning and Twitter group would be a great way to share what classes are studying and experiencing that would be beneficial topics for other classrooms. I can see it as a living, thriving collaboration for the entire year.

Finally, just as I have a PLNetwork or PLCommunity, students in a classroom should be growing their own as well- the network within and outside the classroom walls. We need CLNs- Classroom Learning Networks and our 80 Schools collaboration is the first example of a CLN that I have participated in.

John Cusack (Con Air) and Charlie Sheen (Major League) lead a “superb ensemble of actors” (Newsweek) delivering “striking performances” (The New York Times) in this “mesmerizing story” (Los Angeles Times) about the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal certainly one of the saddest chapters in the annals of professional sports. Buck Weaver (Cusack) and Hap Felsch (Sheen) are young idealistic players with the Chicago White Sox a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey a penny-pinching hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey’s demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes ripping the cover off America’s favorite pastime.

Eight Men Out (20th Anniversary Edition) is available at Amazon for $12.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• 61*
• The Pride of the Yankees (Collector’s Edition)
• The Natural (Director’s Cut)
• Field of Dreams (Widescreen Two-Disc Anniversary Edition)
• Bang The Drum Slowly

So I made it to the Quad Cities/Cedar Rapids game after all. I figured the weather would only allow one day of play, so I had to jump at my chance. They are coming back in June, I would think it would be warm by then, but I’m not sure with this Never Ending Winter of the Apocalypse. It’s like I’m living in Alaska this year, in my 5 years here I’ve never seen anything like this. Anyway, I was sitting front row, right behind the screen near the visitors’ dugout, so I had a great view. Wow, it was butt cold! I forgot my camera, but did snap some pics of Kozma taking practice swings on my phone.

Pete Kozma looked pretty good to me. He had wiry, strong looking frame; sturdy lower half. It was the 2nd game of a doubleheader so the QC manager was DH’ing him, which sort of hacked me off but whatever. I really wanted to see him in the field; I guess I’ll have to wait ‘til next time. His swing wasn’t as bad looking as in his draft report video, at least in my view. More of an inside/out swing. He had the quickest bat on the team. Because of that bat speed, I think he could develop some moderate power as he fills out. You heard me right. Patient approach, he laid off some close pitches, including a called strike three in his last at bat. He slashed a line drive to the opposite field, and he showed some plus speed. I wasn’t counting one Mississippi’s, nor did I have a stopwatch but I’d say he has good speed.

Here’s my little attempt at scouting the Koz, FWIW

Present/Future
Power 30/40
Hitting 55/60
Speed 60/60

I think he could hit .300 one day, but will I see him more of a .280 hitter with a solid walk rate. With the aforementioned bat speed, I think he could hit 10-14 homers a year. With his speed, he could steal 15-20 bases. And if he’s as good of a fielder as some say, he’ll be a valuable piece. I’ve seen Jose Martinez and I’ve seen Tyler Greene. Koz impressed me a lot more.

As for others, it was a pretty uninteresting lot. De La Cruz was sitting; David Carpenter was in his place. He threw out a basestealer and would’ve had another if Folli caught the ball. Good, accurate arm, fast pop.

Domnit Bolivar looks pretty decent at short. He’s a pretty strong looking guy who could hit some homers, but sweet fancy Moses his was swing long.

Beau Riportella has a short, compact swing. Looked pretty level and if he ever hit a homerun in his life I’d be surprised. He can however run like the wind, as advertised. His plate discipline seemed to fall short from the 3 at bats I saw him, swinging at a pitch outside and up for strike three on one occasion. He’s yet to get a hit.

What else…Charlie Pelt dropped a flyball on the infield, which allowed a run. He was of course laughed to scorn by the small, sparse crowd of 600. Shaun Garceau was muttering curse words heading into the dugout, partly because he was extremely hittable in the first, and I’m sure partly because of Pelt. Matt Arburr is a big, big man. Andrew Brown looks like he has no business at 3B and made a bad throw to first. The team had a whopping two hits, all against a soft tossing lefty named Robert Fish. He made them look pretty bad, fanning 8.

Shaun Garceau pitched; I’ll have an amateur scouting report on him later. The other pitchers were Matt Spade and Wayne Daman. Spade was sitting at 85 MPH, Daman at 86-87. Myeh. It could be a long 1st half for the Banditos de Rijo.