This blog post is between 300 and 600 words telling you that learning networks have changed my life, more specifically, my academic life.  I began the learning journey that brought me to this Walden MS program out of the desperation I felt when, in 2009, I saw  first-year university students experiencing the same teaching method I had in 1978; groups of 200+ in theater-style lecture halls.  It was at this point that my desperation took the form of ranting and raving.

I turned to distance learning for hope and enrolled in an online course but instead of being the solution, it compounded my desperation.  The method of instruction was exactly like the lecture hall except that the lecturer was replaced by a computer screen; the job of the student unchanged – gather information and recall it on command. This generic form of online education was obviously not the alternative I was seeking to theater-style lecture halls.

Around this time I met Michael Wesch, Professor of Anthropology at Kansas State University, thus beginning the creation of my learning network.  I discovered Dr. Wesch through a YouTube search which retrieved a video him being awarded “US Professor of the Year 2008”.  Oh my goodness – he was ranting and raving also; he said that the lecture theaters were not working, that we were not reaching the students, not engaging them in the learning process.  He said that the idea of a single person telling hundreds of people that he knew all of the information on a subject was no longer valid – that transferring the power to the group would mean hundreds of people could gather information from hundreds of sources, share it with the class and build a knowledge base that a single “teacher” could never amass.  Professor Wesch showed me that my passion could be into action.

His videos led me to other videos, books, journals and blogs resulting in the creation of my personal learning community.  I felt the empowerment of the “crowd”, a term made popular by Clay Shirky, an author introduced to me when I “attended” (through webcast) an ISTE conference in 2009.  My learning community led me to SecondLife where a current Walden student told me of her great educational experience, and so began my master’s education.

Having used 354 words on background information I must move quickly to the questions assigned for this post.

How has your network changed the way you learn? Approximately  90% of my learning currently happens through my learning network.

Which digital tools best facilitate learning for you? Along with those mentioned herein, I would include Elluminate (www.elluminate.com) web-conferencing tool which allows for a slide-show with live narration accompanied by live (typed) questions from the audience, with voice capability given to participants at the discretion of the moderator.

How do you gain new knowledge when you have questions? I look for keywords in my area of inquiry, search my bookmarks on delicious and follow the links provided.  If I am unsatisfied with those results, I perform a google search.

In what ways does your personal learning network support or refute the central tenets of connectivism? My personal learning network has connected me to a social group with a shared area of interest.  This fits exactly with the description by Siemens in our video this week that “with connectivism there is that emphasis on the social dimensions”.  This blog post is a testament to the truth in the statement by Siemens in his blog www.connectivism.ca post dated 11/10/09:  “Instead of experts and designers serving as the key sensemaking and wayfinding agents in curriculum, social networks and their ability for context-sensitivity must play a greater role.”

Phew – 600 words

After attending NECC, I had vowed to myself that I would be “one of those outstanding educators”. One common thread that I found with all of these teachers was their ability to find the knowledge that they needed for a question or a situation. These people did not necessarily have the answer to a concern or problem, but they knew where they could look to find that answer. Knowing this, I was still certain that I could move forward, just as the people had, that I listened to at NECC.

However, as I begin to prepare for a presentation to teachers on the use and integration of the Smart Board into their everyday curriculum, I have come to the realization that this truly is hard work!!! I am trying to replay, in my mind, the possible questions that teachers may have. As I do this, I realize that I must have a multitude of sources to direct teachers in the proper direction. Knowing, exploring and understanding these alternate sources takes a LOT of time and DISCIPLINE. Thus, my admiration for those teachers and what they have accomplished and what they continue to do, has immeasurably increased.

As I prepare for this presentation I did come across a site that has HUGE amounts of information and links for the Smart Board interactive white board. Check out the link, I am sure you will agree! The title of the site is Smart Board in the Classroom. Pass this link on to other teachers — it takes in all curriculum areas. Take your time and enjoy, because this site has much for one to discover.

Hello, my name is Michael Gorman. I have been teaching over 31 years while spending the last 15 years integrating technology with the core standards. I have also presented at various national conferences including NECC, NMSA, BLC 09, and CELL. Welcome to a Blog devoted to free and inexpensive educational activities. I even plan to throw in my two bits, play on words, as I find resources and ideas that can be used as tools to transform the educational experience while promoting 21st century skills, project based learning, and NETS standards. I maintain a wiki devoted to 21st century education (21centuryedtech). Please feel free to visit. This blog will be a companion site and serve as avenue to informally share as I come across transformational ideas in a timely manner. Remember the emphasis is on the cheap, although I guarantee the ideas, reflections, and results will be rich! Thanks for joining me on a journey devoted to student engagement and learning!

Link – Visit my Wiki at 21centuryteched for in depth ideas, handouts, documents, and links

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. Galatians 4.19

The theme of this year’s Northeast Christian Conference this fall is SPIRITUAL TRAVAIL, and runs 9-12 Oct.

Dana Congdon, Ernie Hile, and Stephen Kaung will be speaking and the fellowship times will be rich.

Harvey Cedars

Online registration opens today. Register soon because this has been filling more and more quickly each year.

more info: www.northeastchristianconference.org

As you may have read in in a previous post, my shock that Apple was not at NECC. I continued pacing up and down the exhibit hall, in a daze when I had an epiphany. It happened while standing in front of the Google booth, or I should say booths- or really Google playground. I had a flashback as I stood in front of Google, what I saw happening at the Google spot was familiar. But in my flashback, the name was not Google, the location was smack dab up front, grabbing your attnetion as you entered the exhibit hall. CROWDS, and crowds of educators, salivating who could not get enough of Apple, Microsoft, and others. But fast forward, getting out of the flashback, and there I was staring at Google. As the reality set in about Apples absence from NECC ITSE, it hit me-OPEN SOURCE, freeware- I predict that within 3 years, you will be greeted in the exhibit hall with open arms by Google, Open Office, ZOHO, Scratch, and other open source organizations. Googles exhibit spot was packed from start to finish, and the number of Google workshops, breakout sessions, and poster sessions was unprecidented. Scratch was a close second. Open Source is all the rage, and is not the flavor the month but here to stay. I predict over the next three yeras, most educational software companies will be a distant memorie on the exhbit floor of NECC or rather the conference formerly known as NECC.

Thoughts anyone????????????????????????

For those of you who may not know…this is the last NECC ever. Yes you read me right.
The last NECC ever. But if your jaw has not hit the floor, (and just in case it did, ask someone near you to pick it back up) the conference lives on- but it will now be known as ISTE. (or, the conference formerly known as NECC..we just need a symbol now)

I believe the thought is the acronym NECC is not accurate. This is not the National Educational Computing Conference-because it is much more than that. Computers are but one type of technology integration. My thought is that dropping the NECC from the title has more to do with branding. However this is just guess.

Thoughts Anyone?

I read a CNET report by Larry Magid who attended the 30th annual National Educational Computing Conference. One of the things that stood out for him was how the more innovative teachers were attempting to integrate mobile phones and various Web 2.0 technologies into education. This was despite the barriers such as anti-phone policies or Web filtering to prevent access to sites like Facebook. (Oh, and there was an amusing anecdote about Twitter use in that article too.)

I am guessing that for many of the attendees the use of such tools was news to them. It is the same in teachers in Singapore except that we do not have the same barriers. Yes, there are rules against using mobile phones, but these are for calls, and most do not (yet) have any restrictions to Web 2.0 sites.

Two things crossed my mind as I thought about what was happening in the USA and here. The first was that I hope that teachers here do not wait for a tool to be banned before thinking of ways to integrate them meaningfully for teaching and learning! The second was me wondering why teachers do not use their own personal experiences with phones, games, Facebook, etc., to think up of innovative and effective ways to teach.

I think that will be the approach that I will use in the coming semester: Think of what you and your students are already using and integrate that meaningfully into teaching.

On July 2, 2009 Curriki Global Consultant, Anna Batchelder, spoke about free and open literacy resources to a live and virtual audience of reading specialists, English teachers and technology experts at the annual NECC Unplugged.

To see her full slide presentation, click here.

Literacy resources that may be of interest to early literacy and English teachers that were unable to attend the presentation include:

• FreeReading–A free and open K-3 literacy program
  • To see a breakdown of lessons by skill (comprehension, vocabulary, phonological awareness, etc.), click here.
  • To download free early readers, click here.
  • To listen to K-3 friendly vocabulary hip-hop music by Flocabulary, check out the Chipmunk and Fly.
  • FreeReading comprehension materials can also be found on Curriki here.
• Curriki ELA Resources
• Literacy is Priceless–A blog about teaching tips, technology tools and free literacy resources on the Web

Well, hello. Haven’t been around the blog lately. Mid-year holidays and taking time out of my head for a change. And, to tell you the truth, I’ve needed the break. No blog ideas put up their hands in their usual impatient manner. Nothing was hammering inside my head, clamouring to come out. No clear thoughts were forming, no ideas were sprouting. For a while there, I thought I’d dried out for good. Until I realised that I was looking back, only I’m not sure if I’m having second thoughts, or if I’m giving things a second look over.

Our PLP presentation is very close now. I can’t deny feeling unprepared. How have we, as a team, moved forward in changing teaching and learning in our school? How far have we come, if at all?

The answer is simultaneously a great deal and hardly at all. Taking part in the PLP ning, connecting to a rich network of educators, great minds, variety of personalities and viewpoints, forming a personal learning network that I don’t feel I could do without  - this is a new dimension that has changed my life as a teacher and a learner. The Art and English wikis, the personal and reading blogs, the ning I created to support students and teachers at my school are initial experiments, attempts to engage students in new ways, to share resources, to present different types of media as possibilities for discussion or creativity, to use technology for the purpose of re-envisaging education.

But how far does this go in making any difference to the way teaching and learning occur at my school? How many eductors have seen these things, and if they do, how many are convinced that I’m offering them something valuable, something worth trying out? The answer is – not many.

Dean Shareski’s post has resonated with me today. He describes the architecture of learning as transformative where there’s no going back.

The landscape of learning is changing. Rethinking what control means, understranding the power of sharing and transparency all work to topple many of the foundations our schools are built upon.

His post strikes a chord with me at this stage of my journey:

I know this, you know this but after spending 3 days amongst 18,000 in the educational technology field, I still say very few else know this. I made this observation (jump down to #4) last year at NECC and while the number may have increased slightly, those who really have any sense of the changes that are possilbe and perhaps inevitable in education is strikingly small. Yet sometimes the conversations amongst them would indicate they think everyone understands. A good example took place in the last session I attended on a panel discussion on Web 2.0. The panel was made up of all people that I and many in the audience knew very well either because we’ve spent time with them or know them from varoius online circles. The panel and audience were calling them by their first names and having a good discussion One lady stood up and felt frustrated since she didn’t know these people, these terms and most of the content of the conversation. That wasn’t her fault that’s ours. The assumption amongst folks who live and breath social media is that most teachers know about but they just don’t understand social media. We jump in with disucssion about Web 2.0 when they aren’t ready for that discussion since they have absolutely no prior knowledge. I”m not against having these kinds of discussions but it’s a bit like Christopher Columbus and crew arguing over how they would organize and structure the new world when most of the old world didn’t even know it existed and if they did, had no idea why or how they would get over to see it, let alone settle there. It’s not a totally useless discussion but perspective is important.

This is what I’m finding unsettling at this stage -  Dean’s analogy with Columbus. Should I feel unsettled knowing that I’m trying to populate a new world with people who deny its existence? Am I going about this the wrong way? Should I be happy to go slowly with a minority of takers? Am I being naive and unrealistic? Is trying to change teaching and learning in a school insane or egotistical? Am I unrealistically trying to change society itself? Can individuals make this change or is it only possible for politicians?

But then again, I’m pulled back by a comment on Dean’s blog by a teacher who attended NECC:

I paid my own way, as did many of the classroom teachers and a few of the administrators I met, because we are hungry to learn and starving for people who have the knowledge and experience to teach us. Of course, there were sessions and conversations at NECC that were way over my head, but hearing them and trying to understand gives me guideposts and goals for my future development.

If my new, recent direction in learning and teaching came ‘out of the blue’, then why shouldn’t other people make that transition? If a teacher cares about students and thinks about the best ways to inspire students to learn, then who’s to say my little steps, and those steps of my fellow PLP members, or anyone else who is struggling through relevant and engaging teaching and learning – who’s to say these things won’t make a difference?

Should we despair that our efforts are mere drops in the ocean, or should we appreciate our small steps?  So many rhetorical questions…

Dean points us to Tom Carroll’s article, If we didn’t have the schools we have today, would we create the schools we have today? written 8 years ago and still very pertinent:

If we continue to prepare teachers as we have always prepared them, we are going to continue to recreate the schools we have always had. We have to start preparing teachers differently. If we are going to continue preparing educators to work as solo, stand-alone teachers in self-contained, isolated classrooms, we are going to perpetuate the schools we have today.   If we want schools to be different, we must start today to prepare teachers differently… significantly differently.

Yes, I do feel a few can make a difference, but it’s a slow and laborious process. Why isn’t teacher training aligned with the educational needs of students today? Who should we be influencing in order to revise teacher training, in order to go to the source of the problem?

I might stop before another flood of questions is unleashed. Please come in and help stop the flood.

Ran across this posting on the IEAR.org Ning group by Helen Crompton this morning, who was one of our volunteers at the SIGML forum at NECC in DC:

I have been asked to explain more about the NECC WWII session. For the session we had to have phone with internet connection. The session began with a quick history of the WWII memorial the design and some opposition incountered towards the memorial. As a quick overview we were then given a leaflet that told us to go to certain parts of the memorial, when we reached those parts we looked at our leaflet, read the short information there, then used the program Scanlife on our phones to scan the code for that section in our leaflets. The code took us to a web page or a sound file etc. giving us more details about that part of the monument.
While we were doing this there were a group of students being lectured to by a tour guide and they were more interested in what we were doing with the phones.
We have iTouches in school and I could download the app, they could then connect to the local wifi. I could use this to send the students off on a tour in the classroom getting them to work through problems on many subjects. If they went on a tour to the museum I could plan beforehand, they could find the artifacts and after scanning they could find out further information, or even listen to me as I tell them that they need to pay particular attention to.
I could go on forever with tasks I can set with this tool. Even young children could use this tool and it could connect to sound files.

I was especially pleased that she wrote the sentence I highlighted above. Goes to show what the power of mobile devices for students is these days. Thanks Helen!!!

I just got back from the ASCD Convention as well as NECC 2009, and I am filled with ideas and inspiration. They truly were two very different conventions.

The ASCD Convention was phenomenal because I was able to listen to and work with some of the greatest educators of our time. I began with Carol Tomlinson and Jay McTighe.   Each course was 3 hours in length; thus I was able to get a deeper understanding of Differentiation and UbD. My next day was similar, but began with Robert Marzano and ended with Grant Wiggins. Both speakers challenged educators to do a better job – the status quo is simply not acceptable. I will blog more about these ideas and concerns in future blogs.

NECC was amazing — 15,000 people bustling in our nation’s capital, the convention center filled with talking, blogging, gaming and sharing. I have never been to such an event. While ASCD was serious and subdued in many ways, NECC was filled with the sharing of ideas, links, blogs and products. The expertise exhibited by the teachers presenting was amazing. I often think that I am a good teacher and devote hours of my time to become a more effective educator, yet these teachers have inspired me to be even better than I am. I will also comment on this in the next few blogs as I begin my journey to become a master educator.

As I finish this post I do so with the hope that the ASCD and NECC/ISTE begin to forge a bond to help educators raise the academic rigor that our students must experience as they enter this 2.0 world.

This comment appears on a Google Doc called ‘Your biggest take away at NECC 2009′. Interestingly, the contributor did not provide their name. 

“That our PLN is distancing themselves from the “norm”. There is the sense that most teachers are falling behind. But is the issue becoming that the PLN is getting to far ahead to even notice the difference?
Being a leader also means being a teacher and sometimes that includes repeating things several times.
The biggest take away I saw was Arrogance.”

I found this very interesting. Mostly because it rings true. I think we have to be constantly aware that just because some of us have adapted to new technologies and think they are transformative for teaching and professional learning, we can’t anticipate that others feel the same way.

We need to help others understand, be what our profession expects us to be; teachers. Not just for students, but for our colleagues too. If we don’t model, support and encourage, we do run the risk of appearing to be arrogant. We want knowledge to be powerful for all, not just in the hands of the few who make others feel inadequate without it.

“The biggest take away  I saw was Arrogance.”

A damaging statement. We need to work hard to ensure this is not the perception people have. If we don’t, we can’t expect to see others adapt and change their practice.

As most of you know, I am slowly integrating back into the real world after 6 days in Washington DC for NECC 2009. This was my first National Educational Computing Conference, and I have to admit that I didn’t quit know what to expect.

Leaving for Washington DC, I had a few personal and professional goals. I knew I wanted to learn more about educational uses for the iPod Touch in my classroom. I wanted to venture into the world of Second Life a bit so I could be taking advantage of more learning opportunities for me and my students. I also wanted to meet the people that I interact with daily online through my PLN (personal learning network) on various nings and Twitter. The experience itself turned into so much more. I will be processing and digesting this experience through a series of posts that I am working on, but I wanted to start with the idea of sharing about meeting my Tweeps, or the people in my Twitter learning network.

People throughout the week asked me about my favorite part of the conference, and I had to say that it was meeting the people in my Twitter learning network. I just got started on Twitter in October 2008, but it has quickly become an integral part of my personal learning and professional growth. I can numerate countless ways that these people have influenced me and my students both directly and indirectly. It was amazing to see the seamless transition between virtual interactions through Twitter and blogs into real life. The beauty of using Twitter as a PLN means that most people involved are there with a common goal – learning, growing and sharing for the benefit of students and education in general. The passion and enthusiasm that is so evident through our 140 character interactions became magnified in long conversations in the Bloggers’ Cafe (which ironically didn’t have food), impromptu meals (like the one I shared at La Tasca with a truly awe inspiring group of special ed teachers), and in hallways, sessions and panel discussions. We all have visions of Ed Tech celebrities, those people who we see as being just on a different level in the ed tech spectrum. Well, guess what folks? They are people, not just tweeple. The enthusiam for being change agents in the world of education were contagious. The fact that some members of my PLN even sought me out, saying that they wanted to make sure that they met me, was flattering and humbling. I always think of my time of Twitter very selfishly – I feel as if I certainly take much more than I give.

So what does this mean for us all? Build a PLN. It could be Twitter, Plurk, Classroom 2.0 or any other form of virtual learning network. The responses coming across your screen are coming from people, not tweeple. They are people who are gleaning much from your thoughts, fears, ideas, resources and struggles. Our perceived Ed Tech celebrities are those who are speaking the loudest and the longest. They are the ones living the educational goals we are championing. Jump in. Hang on. Be you. Encourage others to join. A flattened world for our children’s interactions must begin with flattening the walls around our own personal and professional learning.

Photo Credit:

Update: Someone asked me why this photo was so small, and how they could read the various items in the mind map.  I said, “just download it and then zoom in!” thinking that would solve the problem.  Wrong! So I’ve now linked it to the original on my Flickr account.  Original post continues below.

MindMap of NECC '09

At right is my visualization of my NECC experience in 2009.  It’s a tag cloud or mind map, lightly linked by lines radiating out from the center.  I generated it on the train ride home on my iPhone, using the program SimpleMindX.

Wednesday evening I stopped at my parents’ house on my way back to home and school. There’s no internet connection there for my own laptop; I have to go through the rather cumbersome process of borrowing my mother’s computer and logging in to websites and tools to us the Net there, and of course she’s a heavy computer user so this means stealing her time.

Yesterday, Thursday, I drove home, stopping along the way for a chapel service at the Boy Scouts camp where I usually work in the summer.  (Some of you may criticize me for working for an organization you perceive as sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, and all I can tell you is it’s not like that, really. REALLY. You’ll have to trust me or not on this one).

All of the principles and guidelines I heard at NECC 2009 about meaningful learnng — that there should be opportunities for failure; that there should be teamwork, creativity, and interconnected learning, with project-based curriculums and connectivity between disciplines and across social networks — already exist in Scouting programs across the US.  In a sense, it’s this alternate social framework for schools that’s been doing learning 2.0 actvities without learning 2.0 tools.

Don’t get me wrong.  The BSA has some growing and transforming to do.  But a loyal and dedicated cadre of scouts and former scouts will teach 350-500 students a week for six weeks this summer, just at this one camp.  The kids will leave with 6-10 merit badges under their belts: in swimming and boating, first aid and citizenship, environmental science, crafts, shooting a rifle, archery and more.  Kids and staff together are motivated to help each other learn and grow.   The scouts span a range of mental and physical abilities, but everyone gets stronger along the way.  There are requirements (set to high standards), but no formal tests.

And that seems to be what we expect of our schools: high standards, deep reflection, rich connectivity, meaningful learning, goal-oriented, and turning out successful students eager and willing to learn more.

I keep wondering: how do we make schools more like Scouting?    I have a few answers, but we all have a long way to go.

In the meantime, I’m getting ready for a family reunion this weekend, and an interview today.  I seem to have picked up a sleeplessness while in DC, too, because I’ve been so wired since NECC that I’ve not slept more than three hours a night since Tuesday.  Yow.

During NECC 2009, Dalia Khalil, director of E.era, the Egyptian Association for Educational Resources, shared with me the recent success of The Big Read Egypt-U.S., a Global Cultural Initiative of the Cultural Programs Division of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.  A partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Arts Midwest, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the initiative is designed to deepen cultural understanding and dialogue between Egyptians and Americans through the shared reading of each nation’s great literary treasures, and forms an international component to the NEA’s The Big Read.

The selected book from Egypt is The Thief and the Dogs by Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. People in Egypt have their choice of three books from the U.S.: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

You can find more about The Big Read Egypt-U.S. on the U.S. Department of State website in their coverage of the announcement event and on the initiative’s page, which includes a slide show of the opening event produced by E.era.

As part of this exchange, there has also been an effort to align musical performances by exchange artists with the time period and cultural themes of the selected books.

In addition to The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz, the other international selections in The Big Read 2009-10 were The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Russian author Leo Tolstoy and Sun, Stone, and Shadows: 20 Great Mexican Short Stories edited by Jorge H. Hernández.

I spent a bit of a wild and windy Mt Martha holiday day yesterday plowing through the undealt with emails from last term and watching presentations from the latest NECC Conference on ISTE Vision. You have to register but the site is free and works well. I saw several presentations from comfort of my own study and got some good tips and advice.

And in terms of tips, I liked the presentation by Tammy Worcester, which was really just a run-through of some interesting technology tools, many of which I hadn’t seen before. I like fur.ly and the instant backchannel tool called Today’s Meet. Both have potential for instant classroom use.

Oh, and a tip of my own. Plugging the laptop into an external monitor, and setting up as dual monitors (see pic below) meant that I could work through my emails while listening (and glancing at) the presentations on the other screen.

I use dual monitor setups whenever I’m not in the classroom and love that functionality. Combine it with the excellent little tool MultiMon Taskbar and it’s easy to whisk applications back and forth across the monitors without dragging and resizing. I generally have the document I’m working on in the main window and Outlook or Itunes in the secondary window.

“From Banned to Planned: Cell Phones in Schools” is the title of Hal Davidson’s spotlight session this year (session materials are here). I figured I’d go see him again this year as I really enjoyed his talk at NECC 2008 in San Antonio. The room seemed emptier than last year, which seems a little odd, as there has been a lot of talk about mobile phones and mobile learning at NECC this year (however, more people did enter during the session, which was quite entertaining).

Hall compared NECC 2008  and 2009, 2 cell phone sessions as compared to 13 this year!!

Hall Davidson first mentioned polleverywhere and Liz Kolb’s book on cellphones. He then proceeded to give Liz a call, and talked with her about k12cellphoneprojects.wikispaces.com. Hall asked Liz about her favorite site and she mentioned drop.io and how some teachers she knows use the tool. Lots of shameless plugs here, but some useful resources as well…

Rethink, return, rename: Why are we still calling our mobile phones cell phones? In Korea and other parts of Asia the device is called a hand phone (hence many of the advertisements there show a hand holding a phone). In Japan it’s called a “keitai”: a device that’s with you all the time: “snug and intimate technosocial tethering .. a mundane presence in everyday life” (quote from the Personal, Portable, Pedestrian book).

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is covered by mobile phones, according to Davidson (ironic but true):

• basic physiological needs: order pizza
• safety and security: anti-bullying friend
• belonging: texting, networking
• esteem:
• self-actualization: turn your phone off

Mobile: It’s America: free speech, freedom of the press, right to assemble (mob!!), petition the government. As compared for example to how these freedoms are currently being stifled in Iran, following its presidential election.

So what name should we give a mobile phone? Telepotent? Telemundo? Some answers that are given via polleverywhere are communicator, telemanager, infophone, …..

Challenge-based learning: finding answers to questions, basically… (not sure how this is so different from problem-based or inquiry-based learning, other than that you could potentially get your answers quicker).

The new student skills: national texting competition: texting the alphabet backwards, texting the Gettysburg Address while being distracted, text and dodge. The point is: students like their phones.

Shows qik and how you can embed it in Google Earth, pretty cool stuff…

Notion that a cell phone is different: it’s an input, output, and analysis device.

Shows Shazam, the music recognition software.

Shows QR codes! Example: CAOS Living Book, a book of QR codes that’s constantly updated, because the data behind the QR codes is updated. I wonder if he knows about the SIGML forum from yesterday.

Using QR codes for assignments is a possibility, and Hall also showed an example of codes that will then show 3d images on a computer screen.

Amazon has acquired an image recognition technology company. Hall described a scenario where you could take a picture with your phone of a pair of shoes somebody has, and Amazon can then hook you up with the same pair.

Called Vicki Davis who was presenting in another session. She didn’t pick up, but Hall had one of her videos that shows how you can determine mobile phone technologies for classroom use. CPA: cost per assignment use.

Joe Fatheree (at the session): talked about how he started using mobile phones in his classroom, when he found out how a kid one day shot a video using just his mobile phone.

Need to create a pathway to success:

• brainstorm how to use phones with kids (link to standards) -> action plan
• work with administrator next to find a way to make this work
• communicate with parents: letter and parent survey (find out what phone plans they have)

Location-based teachable moments in student lives. Text a writing prompt as an assignment.

All in all another entertaining session and a great way to wrap up NECC this year, well almost.

Image Credit: Rob Pettit: http://robpettit.com

I thought NECC was a twitterfest, as did the folks at Think Like a Teacher, until one of my PLN friends showed me how to use the Twitter search API to count the number of posts that used the #necc and #necc09 hashtags. Counting the responses even after the conference ended, there were about 200 users of Twitter and about 1500 tagged messages. I posted over a hundred, and I believe you and a few others posted a lot as well, which means that a lot of users posted only one or two.

Of course, there may have been a lot that went untagged; I know I posted at least as many untagged messages as tagged during the conference, because I went from about 800 tweets to 1200 over the course of Sunday to Thursday. Even so, the statistical evidence suggests that the Twitterers weren’t as much of an influence as we thought we were.

With over 18,000 attendees, 1500 messages (only 1,300 if you count only messages logged on the official days of the conference) isn’t that many.  Given that only 200 users generated those comments, and that perhaps 20 users generated 80% of them, it suggests that Twitter has a long way to go.

On the other hand, I encountered a young man in the halls, and he said that Educators were the only people who knew how to use Twitter ‘correctly’.  He didn’t really explain what he meant by that, but it was clear that he was impressed by the way that we logged sessions and conferences, and talked to one another constantly. This may be one of the turning points for this technology, where we demonstrate a new communication medium — talking loudly in a conference hall while giving the speakers and panelists our complete attention.

Part 2:  The Student as Contributor:  The Digital Learning Farm

I didn’t know the title of this session until now and I think Alan November must have changed his content since he submitted the session because there were no references to farm/farming that I heard.  However, he did outline what he considered to be the jobs of students in the classroom:
• create tutorials using screencasting (Example:  Factorization with “Bob”)
• contribute to the curriculum by expressing curiosity and finding their own answers.  Through researching answers, students can contribute sources to a custom Google search engine for the class.  A custom search engine shows results only from sites that have been pre-selected.   (Example.  Type a math term in the search field to see how the search is limited to only pre-approved websites.  Learn about creating your own custom search engine.)
• take perfect class notes using collaborative writing such as Google Docs.  Teacher supplies headings for the day.  A student is assigned each heading.  Periodically notes are projected for review and correction by the class.  Teacher can also review to see if any material was omitted in his/her presentation.
• find the work of other kids and build on it
• contribute to the knowledge of the world

My V-8 take-away:  “We underestimate the level of responsibility students will take for their own learning.”