Cloudy Tag Thoughts

Powerpoint and Levels of Comfort

2009-02-09T11:38:00.001-08:00

Scott Meech had posted a question on whether an assignment was good or not:

SMeech.net - Technology in Education isn't the Future... It is the Present!: Is this a Good Assignment via kwout

I think it touches on some many issues that have to be taken apart layer by layer as to why this is a good or bad assignment. First when I look at just using PowerPoint, I sort of feel uncomfortable and want to ask the teacher why they are necessarily using it? Howard Tufte has written an essay and also posted an excerpt and article in Wired on the problems of professionally using PowerPoint as a way of presenting information. I don't think this is completely relevant for education but it does get at the issue of depth of ideas versus something which is visually appealing. Second, the teacher has instructed the students to access the visual candy of what the software can do. Is there a reason to use backgrounds or designs, none that the assignment makes clear. However the teacher may look upon Powerpoint as a computer generated version of a poster or Kidpix, its not clear. Also, there are no instructions on how the presentation is going to be used, will it be used as support for an oral presentation or is it meant for someone to look at and read later on, why else to necessarily include web links.

This vagueness of specific details moves the question on whether the assignment is good or bad to then be based on us the reader. We have to fill in and determine whether the teacher was going to use rubrics, or what sort of organizers or organization might be given. I feel as if the assignment is being given by a teacher that is not comfortable with using these tools or hasn't had the professional development necessary to see the use of power point as nothing more than a continuation on the traditional way to present. Not only that, but it looks as if each student is responsible for their own presentation so there is no incorporation of peer to peer learning in the project. We don't know what sort of interacting the students themselves will do.

Can we blame a teacher for doing something wrong because they still give these sorts of assignments in Powerpoint? Several years ago I remember that there was a great push to teach students how to use Powerpoint to help them begin using computers in the classroom. Powerpoint was presented as "the" multimedia tool to bring in Quicktime videos, photographs, and even sounds. The tool always came across as a one stop solution for teaching computers skill and for the teacher to organize their ideas and since almost all presentations that a teacher would see in their district were done using Powerpoint, then it was natural for a teacher who was thinking about what a student might need as even a skill in the workplace to feel a need to teach it.

Unfortunately, the style of teaching and presenting which uses Powerpoint has fallen out of favor, but unless a teacher has gone to a conference in which the presenters have become more like facilitators and modified how their information was presented, then even a teacher today could probably argue that within their experience there is still a value to be placed on teaching using Powerpoint. My middle school even last year was making sure that each teacher had their presentation station with projector and computer, again an extension of the overhead and teacher directed instruction. Several teachers were still putting great effort into their Powerpoint presentations for students as the school year started and during the year.

So, who is to blame for this type of assignment still being given? If the teacher has given up on learning, no longer attends conferences, pulls the same lesson off the shelf year after year and doesn't take advantage of new research or discussions on how the classroom of today should look. Then a great deal of the blame goes on the teacher. In that case it doesn't matter what sort of professional development is offered or how new ideas are presented during learning days or ideas sent out from district offices to schools by directors of instruction or technology. However, if a teacher who is engaged with their community and is always trying to find new ideas or websites and dialogs with other teachers about what they are doing in the classroom and feels comfortable giving this type of Powerpoint assignment then I say a great deal of the responsibility lies with the administration of the district and those who help shape what the teacher are doing in their district. Is this then one of those teachers who is primed to be plugged into the global community. I wonder how many teachers are at this point in their teaching?

But one difference today versus a short while ago is that even the mainstream sources of information a teacher might be exposed are being altered. If we look at Alec Couros widely used Typical Networked Teacher than even that teacher is getting exposed to alternative uses of media.
Almost all popular media outlets have podcasts and use social networking resources such as Twitter and Facebook to share ideas. The teacher of today who still refuses to acknowledge that the education landscape has not changed and isn't required to change because they don't see any difference in the media around them is putting their head in the sand. So a teacher using Powerpoint today may be a teacher ready to join the global community or it could be a teacher in which Powerpoint is now that dusty lesson on the shelf that they continue to pull every year.

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CCK001B From the Outside Looking In

2008-10-26T21:17:00.001-07:00

I became much too busy to take on the Connectivism course with George Siemens and Stephen Downes; nonetheless I'm still interested in understanding more about the theory and so I took on some of the learnings for week one as well as creating a mind map using Cmap tools which was the recommended software to use. My understanding so far is somewhat limited as I haven't read about many of the referenced theories in many years. I looked over the text for week one's title of "What is Connectivism?" Instead of trying to stumble through writing text that did not appeal to me at all. I thought I'd use some of the words that occurred from Connectivism:
Learning Theory or Pastime of the Self-Amused?
which was one of the required readings. And after creating a wordle I input the common words into flickrCC.

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What my Tagging Habits have Taught me

2008-10-23T19:05:00.001-07:00

I think I'm beginning to realize a few of the differences between the way I should be tagging and the way my mind is inclined to tag. Folksonomy to me has become as much about learning how my mind tends to organize information as it is about how I was taught and trained to use information as say it is organized at a library. I wonder what will the long term consequences be of letting students organize their own metadata versus those of us who are older and were taught the Dewey Decimal system of organizing. When I think about how my books or music were organized I tried several ways over the years. Once I organized my records alphabetically and that didn't suit me for finding my current set of music. I've always tended to let a more organic approach dictate where something went for the physical objects around me. I tend to want what is current to be in the front and yet I like to periodically have surprises come before me. Somehow I've always cherished the idea of serendipity coming between me and the resources online. I've noticed with my delicious/Diigo accounts that I've created broad categories which only need to be reworked when they grow too large. Over time I do need to go back to redraw how bookmarks are organized. There is a dynamic way to organize and I've not gotten there yet. I like that my Diigo account will tell me when I've already bookmarked a site so I don't have duplicates at a glance. There are so many web sites being shared that I'll bookmark something say during an Edtechtalk show and forget to go back to it at a later date. Typically I'll end up with so many tabs open that I never want to reboot and close them unless I have too. Speaking of tagging, here's my blog's front page as a wordle, seems I'm always looking for a pretext to use it.

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Here Comes Everybody

2008-10-19T20:47:00.001-07:00

Having been to NECC and Edubloggercon in San Antonio this year I had many varied experiences and connections. The first day for Edubloggercon I sat in on a discussion of the book Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. A group of educators sat in a circle with Will Richardson facilitating the discussion. Many voices were heard in that short period of time and the most powerful ones were by educators I was not familiar with. Comments by those who were more well known were not as powerful as others. A large part of the discussion was addressing elements of the book and how it should impact our teaching and classrooms. The group who participated included many leaders in the implementation of 21st century tools. Many of them had laptops, cell phones and were well versed in all the vocabulary and experiences that Web 2.0 has to offer. Dean Shareski put together a compendium of video images composed of friends within his PLN from amongst those gathered. One interesting result of what Dean uploaded to Youtube was a repurposing of this home movie of friends as a foundation for a blog post by Mathew Tabor of why he doesn't or wouldn't go to the NECC. It was amazing and somewhat disturbing to see his argument by manipulating what was never intended as a documentary of the event but more of a home movie.

At NECC I even later saw a flash mob in the main area of the conference hall but did not understand what it was for at the time and although it was enjoyable to see a group suddenly freeze with my background in art history and performance art, I didn't realize what it represented.

When you look at Shirky's steps of building community from first sharing, to cooperation, to finally collective action. I would say the edtech community is built around sharing and the level of cooperation is what is seen as individuals and classrooms create temporary projects together but there is really no long term or sustained participation. When I think in terms of the edtech community, what do I really mean? Certainly someone such as Stephen Downes has well reasoned arguments for why there is no community per say. But could there ever be a point in which collective action could be possible. Why haven't we heard of anyone out of such a vocal group that has created a community or new school outside of Chris Lehmann and the SLA?

Of some of the other points the book was making that caused me to reflect back on my PLN and my relationship to it would be the idea of "connectors." These are the people who join together separate networks or groups. I think these are always the people I try to have as part of my network on twitter for example. I wonder though say on twitter if I look at TweetWheel if I can't find visually find connectors within my own Tweetwheel group but also by following certain people begin intersecting networks myself.

Lastly, the idea that struck me in relation to students was that of failure and the "power law distribution." When and how do we share this with students. How do we make them aware without taking away their motivation to challenge and change the status quo with their ideas? I thought of those individuals who can withstand continuous failure for an occasional success versus those awkward and uncertain students just learning to take risks and are sensitive to failure. Would one solution be to use the video game experience of repetition and relentlessness in order to achieve the next level in some game?

When I came home, I left a few days later for China and I decided I needed to read the text and see if it was as important for me as everyone talked about. I purchased the book and started to read it on my flight over to China. As I've slowly learned about the Chinese culture I've been amazed so far at the high level of organization with in the social groups that are formed around family and friends. Just as we've heard the discussion of our children maintaining connections even after individuals leave organizations such as high school, the same is true for most of the individuals I met in China. What I would like to understand better is what organizing principals or structure was in place before the wide spread distribution of the cell phone. This is most peoples primary tool to connect. As where now when someone in the US who is a savvy user has a problem they may first get online and try and search for a solution. For a well connected Chinese individual it is more a matter of making phone calls moving from the small network to a connector until a solution is found. With a lower standard of living most people cannot yet afford a computer so it will be interesting to see how social networks build up around cell phones.

When I sat in the train station to begin my journey home and was reading, I realized that not only is this mode of transportation quite common. It also to me represents a way of living that I experience so little of here in the US. I've ridden my share of public transportation while I lived in San Francisco and didn't have a car. But these days by and large I am driving by myself or with my family and don't have the direct experiences of others that I experience when I'm in China. It makes me wonder if my experience of my PLN has the same sort of separated or indirect experience of other as opposed to sitting on a train and having so much direct experience. I may ask of my Twitter network how to solve a problem, but for my wife she begins with calling close relationships and slowly if an answer is not found does she shift to more of a superficial connection. Is this natural way of connecting with others a better way to organize a social network?

If the majority of Chinese are coming with their cell phones, then what effect will this have on how Web 2.0 social networking sites develop. Certainly for those cites such as photography or music sharing they've had to spend a great deal of effort in trying to uphold copyright laws and distribution laws. There are no such restrictions in China, and people there are used to accessing music, movies, pictures for free, without any compunction. We have the luxury here of being able to afford the access to media. What will happen when more people participate that feel it is their right to have access whenever and wherever without giving thought to who should receive compensation. If in this time of micro-markets and the tiniest of margins a group doesn't even participate in fair use. How will the issue of DRM and other failures of the media companies be dealt with in light of the large groups of users who only believe in free?

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ILC Day Two

2008-10-19T18:33:00.001-07:00

For the second and last day I attended the ILC, or Innovative Learning Conference there were three very good presos.

The first very early session was with Chris Walsh who shared reasons why our and our student's learning is moving from a temporary place driven context to a 24/7 environment. Or in other words, "learning extending beyond the classroom." He shared numerous examples in which the student is shifting their focus into a multi-media, mash-up, mixing creation driven world. He ended by sharing his new venture Brightstorm which will be launching shortly.

The next session was done by Ted Lai, (here's his blog post with links for the preso including slides). He shared many examples of very creative podcasts and iMovies in which the students showed their understanding of content through a means which is more natural to their learning. Ultimately, he also acknowledged that many of the sites that teacher's work at are still organized along more traditional styles of teaching. His steps to be successful in creating a 21st century classroom were.

Start small
Be a partner in learning
Add a twist of creativity
Practice flexibility
Publish the work to celebrate success

The last session in which I was able to focus was with Gary Stager. His fiery rhetoric made for an interesting explosion of ideas and the exhortation to change the classroom into a suitable and more effective learning environment for children. His focus was on ways to use a laptop in order to create such an environment.

Overall the level of presenters was good, and I hope the Innovative Learning Conference continues next year. As was my experience at the NECC it was just as much about the conversations outside of the presos as it was about the content being shared formally. It was great to meet Twitter friends again and some for the first time.

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Innovative Learning Conference 08

2008-10-16T11:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my first day of attending the ILC the Innovative Learning Conference in San Jose marking its first year of returning to Northern California.

The first session I was able to attend was Colette Cassinelli's session on VoiceThread including her wiki with lots of great resources. She also gave access to her presentation slides on Google so that there was an open chat with people outside the conference participating. She did a great job of stepping the audience through the process of creating a Voicethread along with the resources necessary to use copyright free pictures to incorporate.

Next session I attended was by Aaron Sams a Colorado educator teaching High School AP courses using vodcasting. The model involves using previously recorded screencasts being accessible via the web and as DVDs that the students can take home.

The last session I went to was by Gail Lovely on using Web 2.0 tools with elementary age students. The wiki she created has some excellent links to various examples and tools. One tool that is a web version of a tool many of us use is an online version for Inspiration.

Similar to the NECC conference I attended in San Antonio this year it is as much about meeting educators from my PLN network as it is about listening to presenters. Overall the conference is smaller in scale than the CUE conference or NECC but the quality in level of presenters so far has been just as high.

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Goodbye Lee Baber

2008-09-18T13:49:00.001-07:00

I've been determined to make the next time I wrote on my blog a reflection on Lee Baber and what she meant to my learning and feeling connected to my online experiences. Its hard to believe in the rush of time that she's been gone a month. I first had a chance to interact with her through the Webcast Academy and watched her help in sharing knowledge on how to set up Apple computers for webcasting. She was a good person to help think through a problem, a type of teacher that I enjoyed doing think alouds with. I hardly knew her and yet I feel as if a path that I could have taken in my life is gone. So much I could have benefited from, her experience in music, her use of computers with students, her P-21 Second Life project, all will be left to where she left them frozen, sitting on some server somewhere. Looking back I understand more of the little bits of information and things she shared when we talked always on Skype, its funny that I rarely used the chat function with her. Speaking was the most common way when I communicated with her, it was the timbre of her voice the inflections and accent which I enjoyed. Although I remember one time when she couldn't talk and I had to use the Skype chat with her while I tried to walk through verbally what we were trying to do. Always I felt comfortable sharing and learning. Even up to our last few interactions she surprised me with her involvement and the breadth of her participation in the "edtech" community for lack of a better word. Even though we never met face to face, Goodbye Lee, my life will not be the same as what could have been, what should have been. You left too early and so many of us still had so much to benefit from your interactions with us.

Image source: Image: 'maze'
www.flickr.com/photos/73645804@N00/2786241330

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Edubloggercon08 in San Antonio (just one many stories)

2008-06-28T19:47:00.001-07:00

I arrived at the Edubloggercon 08 session start late and the room was not quite what I had expected with many rows of chairs facing the riser area where Steve Hargadon was facilitating a discussion on which sessions would be presented based on the pollster voting. There was also what looked like a professional video team whom I later found out were from Pearson and had posted on the NECC Ning their intentions to capture Edubloggercon with professional cameras and boom mikes as well, which added to the effect. I was a bit distracted as I was meeting people and trying to deal with my computer's inability to access the wireless. I spent most of the morning recognizing and introducing myself to people who I have only met virtually.

I went to two sessions before lunch. The first break out session I saw was on social networks. It was great getting to hear the many voices from people who shared their varied thoughts and experiences. The second session by the time I reached it was discussing Here Comes Everybody and was very animated. It doesn't seem to matter in some ways what the topic is because the discussions in trying to find the essential questions and problems begin analyzing road blocks to moving ours and other teacher's classrooms into a collaborative student centered environment. I noticed several times participants and one instance in particular Chris Lehman standing up for teachers whenever a discussion was moving towards accusing them of resisting and being unwilling to change. I have to agree because I don't know any teacher who when asked whether they enjoy and embrace this age of testing and multiple choice state tests wouldn't support change.

During lunch I met several more educators and took some pictures including my favorite of the day, Maria Knee who because she has done amazing work with Kindergarten students with such things as her classroom blog, holding up both her award for the Kay L. Bitter Vision Award but also balancing on her shoulder Trixster (hope I have that right) who has traveled to many different locations including several NECC conferences.

After lunch I was sitting working in the Blogger's Cafe when several folks walked over and because of the participants I wanted to hear what was being said. After a certain point several things happened simultaneously, smart phones started being brought out and an open fun exploration of the technology occured and Bud Hunt started streaming on Mogolus. Because it has the ability to stream and capture several sources at once I quickly set up an account and sent him my permissions. What Will Richardson and Steve Dembo were asking people to share on the edstreamtv wiki which was what and when they were streaming and to be able to coordinate, Bud was essentially doing in a spontaneous fashion. I think this is something I realized today that every time someone tries to organize and centralize some element of the edtech learning network that it sort of goes against what we are trying to do in the classroom which is to create more of a decentralized messy learning environment.

After the spontaneous gathering at the Blogger's cafe I set up for some more streaming with Alice Mercer and the Edtech Talk show It's Elementary. Unfortunately the wireless was cutting in and out and we couldn't set up the simultaneous video Ustream, chat room projection, speaker, and Skype conference call. What a fun and amazing day and there are still many days to go including attending for the Constructivist Consortium tomorrow (bad news is there is no wireless where it is held).

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Earth Day Webcast

2008-04-30T10:56:00.001-07:00

Earth Day is finished and it was a challenging but very rewarding experience for both my students and myself. The students all did a great job presenting and each group was allowed to choose the visual component that they felt best expressed their topic choices. Overall I think the most effective student presentations involved the use of slideshare while the students gave their oral component. One group did a VoiceThread, and a couple of groups even did podcasts although they are not uploaded. This first 24 hour Webcastathon will hopefully be the first of many to come. Overall the variety of presentations from other classrooms and teachers was amazing as well as the participation from several different countries.

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0.0

2008-02-22T14:24:00.001-08:00

TEACHER 0.0

STRANGER!
if you, passing, meet me, and desire to speak to me, why should you not
speak to me?    And why should I not speak to you? - Walt Whitman

If by chance we meet on a road. . .           along a path. . .                         or during an odyssey. . .

Use the skills you know to communicate, because the Read Write Web is every teachers' responsibility to know and help our students learn. . . learn to be creators and organizers of content=ideas not just passive consumers.

beyond the dots. . .

beyond the dashes. . .

Ones and Zeros first began with. . .
Morse code the 19th century and the transatlantic cable between NY and London that allowed for real time data and interaction.

And place no longer matters as learning is happening all over the world. Ideas from any one teacher everywhere can be available to everyone. A classroom project can be seen by everyone. This is what is called a flat world. . .

And the data and information and knowledge to become a 21st Century teacher is not decided upon or settled by any one teacher or place in the world. . .

TODAY

come write, determine, participate, and share the knowledge with us

go all the way to Timbuktu

chat speak listen respond write

    Teacher X.0!

I was in the chat in Classroom 2.0 and Lisa Parisi made me think of the importance of beginnings, beginners and being open to learn, and I've always tried to abide by that feeling too. The first time I learned of someone believing in this was when a teacher of mine quoted Albert Einstein "He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed," for a "conceptual design" department (this link is from Stephen Wilson, who has been a constant presence) class in my art department. So I remember creating a small box with a view hole, plastic baby, mirrors, and cotton and taping to the side a walkman playing over and over "retain the child within you," and that's when "childlike fascination and sense of wonder," first came to form a phrase in my mind that I remember. Trying to find the A.E. quote I stumbled upon this page of artists reflecting on the word "wonder."

Lately I refer and share in many instances when trying to show, how we should work together to learn Web 2.0 tools, Carolyn Foote's Beginner's Mind. I used this and chose for my playful application Moolvl for a presentation I made for my school district.

photo sources:
Image: 'Roofie'
www.flickr.com/photos/49503155549@N01/238573192
Image: 'Peek-a-Boo'
www.flickr.com/photos/57038667@N00/476731882
Image: 'Tree path'
www.flickr.com/photos/32863204@N00/241899410
Image: 'Odysseus and Tiresias'
www.flickr.com/photos/36021911@N00/75102722Image: 'Holes'
www.flickr.com/photos/31426589@N00/119131442Image: 'dots'
www.flickr.com/photos/76014095@N00/400696203
Image: 'green dots'
www.flickr.com/photos/50367113@N00/17828926
Image: 'Ladybug (FI-22993)'
www.flickr.com/photos/57267425@N00/140266515Image: 'Red + White Ball'
www.flickr.com/photos/12074797@N00/17952630
Image: 'The Stronghold'
www.flickr.com/photos/95492938@N00/219852893Image: 'and who are you?'
www.flickr.com/photos/77467550@N00/290274557
Image: 'IMG_3453'
www.flickr.com/photos/54087404@N00/155629109
Image: 'geeks'
www.flickr.com/photos/54903723@N00/20318677Image: 'IMG_3454'
www.flickr.com/photos/54087404@N00/155629110Image: 'Who needs a hybrid anyway?'
www.flickr.com/photos/90832828@N00/1675538078
Image: 'volvo'
www.flickr.com/photos/37996575334@N01/288095
Image: 'Sum blu cawr'
www.flickr.com/photos/15245443@N00/1300476032
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Flatland_cover.jpg/200px-Flatland_cover.jpg
Image: '6569'
www.flickr.com/photos/98572879@N00/276168731Image: 'First Impressions'
www.flickr.com/photos/15401080@N00/88760582
Image: 'Djingareyber Mosque'
www.flickr.com/photos/44124370103@N01/60323
Image: 'Angel Oak MK3'
www.flickr.com/photos/91178396@N00/470623754

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The Storm and Dangers that Took Down the Global Project

2008-02-20T03:09:00.001-08:00

The ice storm took down the power grid for Scott Meech and his black out was nowhere in my radar of feeds or messages. Lucy Gray and myself exchanged a few chat messages and I played with Skype emoticons. Sundays are reserved for our ProTechT conference call on Skype. Later I thought about the fact that I don't even have everyones' cell numbers, addresses, etc. close at hand, but I assume it is accessible on the "net." And in a way, our connections are as tenuous as the wind, fragile but determined, and yet we are as close as we can be. I say that for the moment from a stand point of each members' abilities, and the fact that I can follow, if allowed, each members' status on Skype. No this project does not have the staying power of an ARPANET, we are each joined in a highly personal way, on computers that each of us must maintain, different hardware and OS. We are not at a distance from each other however, in that my concern would surface should anything happen to any one of the participants. Participants have already been sick and earlier Scott also had a very close connection to NIU. It has something of the miracle about it, a project living and breathing with its members. I always hope for my students something of a sense of "groupness," such as this.

And The bleeding edge of what we do doesn't help maintain clear communication and has many dangers in terms of misinterpretations should messages be truncated or too few words not convey the real meaning with conversations interrupted as software crashes or fails. I think there is the element of half empty and half full in ones relationships with others that allows something to grow with these types of activities. Following up on more perspective on Wesley Fryer's Ustream presentation for ProTechT - The wireless started cutting out and a third of the class didn't seem too bothered by it. They moved to the front of the room between the screen and my traditional science black countertop. They were following the chat as well as what audio they could as I kept reloading/refreshing the Ustream feed. The sound came back at the end of a period as if another class had been using up all the bandwidth, which unfortunately my school has a strong tie with iMovies, and was probably the case. There is no bandwidth management and some teachers still don't have good wireless. For the last fifteen minutes the sound was fine, but students, as one would move progressively towards the back, were now holding conversations and they were not listening but were engaged and listening and speaking to each other. So I was let down somewhere in the delivery system, each part not quite correct, but also a future non-issue. I may gain here though the experience in knowledge that sometime shortly will be obsolete, but you have to enjoy in some way or tip the scales to favor the successes over failure and along with all of it the messiness.

image sources: www.flickr.com/photos/9147703@N03/2243954328
www.flickr.com/photos/38819451@N00/84401047

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Can an Evolutionist and a Creationist both be part of one's personal learning network?

2008-02-11T13:33:00.001-08:00

For myself I think there is still a disconnect in my relationship to others for whom I haven't met face to face but interact with online only. Just the same as my students this week who had difficulty being quiet when Wes Fryer was sharing his thoughts on his Ustream presentation for the ProTechT project because he wasn't a live speaker in our class. I feel a connection but also a certain distance to people I interact with on networks like Twitter, Second Life, and Ning.

I've enjoyed David Weinberger and many of his ideas on altering the hierarchical thinking of how we organize ideas and thoughts since I saw him for the first time giving the opening keynote presentation at the NECC in Philidelphia. He comes to mind because for his recent book he used the title Everything is Miscellaneous and for the most part I prefer listening to him speak of his ideas such as his presentation on the topic at places such as Google. During the New Hampshire primaries while the student Arthus was sharing his ideas on the political candidates via Ustream, the issue came up of one of my favorite edtech people being a Creationist, later on another of my favorite edtech bloggers took Arthus to task for not pressing the issue from an Evolutionist perspective and offered to take on the person in a debate. I myself don't feel a need to debate someone who believes in the Creationist philosophy and wondered if that is a justifiable passiveness on my part or a disconnect from these virtual relationships. I don't know of anyone in my circle of friends where I live as being a Creationist I do know that I have been emotional and very moved by direct messages and communication with people on Skype and Twitter that I haven't met face to face. The thought that came to mind is "if everything is miscellaneous," then is truth just another tag in the virtual universe with no more real meaning than the electrons it takes to create the text in displays? How can I as a science teacher not argue for further examination of the motivations of someone to side on one side of the argument which is in opposition to how I teach and believe in?

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Meme: Passion Quilt

2008-02-11T10:10:00.001-08:00

Following the meme sent me by Miguel Guhlin, I'm posting my picture for what I am most passionate about to be part of the passion quilt. When my students use tools for learning such as computers I typically ask them to work and participate in teams. I used FlickrCC to find this image.

Caption for this Quilt Image: Project Based Learning and Teamwork

The five people I'm tagging are:
Ann Oro
Jo McLeay
Pam Shoemaker
Tom Barrett
Jeff Whipple

3 Simple Meme Rules:

Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about...and give your picture a short title.
Title your blog post "Meme: Passion Quilt" and link back to this blog entry.
Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

reference: www.flickr.com/photos/30864080@N00/131488403

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Voicethread

2008-01-31T14:11:00.001-08:00

They May Look Different but, the Message is Still the Same

2007-12-23T02:29:00.001-08:00

It's been interesting to follow the discussions on using other microblogging tools such as Pownce besides Twitter. Some writers have sounded somewhat defensive and upset over having to try one more thing. I don't think I could entirely explain what this jumble of PLNs, chats, and teleconferencing apps. means in the long run. I would have said Skype instead of teleconferencing, but I was invited to try out Grandcentral, which alleviates the need for paying for the Skype-In feature and it may have some other features I can use in place of Skype. Each of these apps. seems to have their own following or people experimenting with what is possible. I've never been bothered by using multiple tools interconnected to get the most out of each one, rather than dealing with multiple weaknesses of just one tool. After all doesn't this really come down to communication and the most effective method to carry out a discussion across the internet, one's network, and to also get enough people aware of your ideas that someone responds? In the case of webcasting for me it is that more people participate through listening and also exchanging ideas in the chatroom.

This whole quest to interlink these PLNs and chatrooms began now that I've become involved with the Webcasting Academy, I noticed that there are usually 2 or 3 or even more people posting tweets about events happening live on Edtechtalk. If I happen to be following the twitter stream I usually try and participate. Most of the time the chat room has between 10 to 40 participants. There is no shared calendar function in Twitter, so unless a person is following the calendar through the website or someone happens to post to a shared chatroom they rely on the haphazard method of following closely their twitter stream. Also when I check to see if someone has responded to something I've asked in Twitter, again I must be careful about keeping track of someone writing back. I'm fortunate now because I can use Snitter to manage and make up for deficiencies in several aspects about the Twitter website and stream I'm trying to follow. When I check the tweets, I notice several possible means through which people post either as a general message, using the @, or by using the direct message method. Again I rely for the most part on Snitter to help me keep track of everything that is happening within the Twitter stream. Pownce has two features built in such as a direct response to a post as well as a calendar for events to be shared by others in the network, built in, and this could help, but this isn't the point really of why I use it.

Someone sent out a tweet the other day about another app. called MoodBlast. It has a fairly simple interface and allows a person to simutlaneously post to several different points on the internet at once. I was impressed because they've built in a way to post to a service such as Facebook and omit words that will still be posted otherwise to Twitter, Tumblr, and Skype. So what is the point of learning all these different tools? Well I would like to see events that happen on Webcasting Academy and Edtechtalk to reach a greater audience. I would like to see the continued development of tools such as MoodBlast to make the need to stick with one PLN such as Twitter no longer necessary. Why would someone be bothered or mind just signing up for other tools if they can post their 140 word Twitter posts and yet someone on Facebook or Tumblr or Jaiku can still read what they wrote? Part of the problem for now is following all the sites, but I envision a time shortly in which this bother of which tool to use for one's PLN will be of less and less important as the forwarding will work both ways between sender and receiver.

Yesterday, I began to interlink as much as possible the different services. Facebook seemed to have the most options to bring in other social netorking tools such as delicious, twitter, and flickr. I had set up an account with Jott a couple weeks ago and yesterday I posted to Twitter and then it was automatically picked up and posted on my Facebook front page.

Now, I'm trying to get in an invitation to Jaiku, if anyone has one. There is a feature to use small icons to indicate what the micropost is referring to either music, writing, etc, possibly a way to let the reader elliminate posts that they are not interested in. It may look different but the message shared between it and everything will be the same.

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Catch the Buzz

2007-12-07T12:10:00.001-08:00

Haven't posted anything in several days, but I noticed many educators getting excited about this student created web site.

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The Incredible Mr. Limpet and Second Life

2007-11-25T10:59:00.001-08:00

Having been enjoying the many resources available in Second Life, I realized that the environment is growing on me. I was trying to think of what in my childhood were some of the experiences that could have prepared me to accept its "cartoonish" nature. I thought back to one of my strongest emotional experiences involving cartoons and that had to be when I watched the movie, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, one night at my aunts while all the adults were having a discussion at the kitchen table.

In the movie Don Knotts wants to be a fish, and in this instance his wish is fulfilled. But for a child like myself that loved watching cartoons, here was someone who got to become a cartoon. Relative to Mr. LImpet, the creators of Second Life have chosen flying rather than swimming as a primary way to experience the new physics of this environment. Swimming here seems more like the video games in which after you've fallen off the path you have to move slowly through a sludge like environment. Perhaps someone will come up with a "penguin" mode so a person can sail through the water.

I remember being caught up in the movie as the two worlds of Limpid collided and interweaved, but the essential message was that being a cartoon underwater was a place were one's dreams could come true relative to the harsh and unfair real world. He becomes a hero, falls in love, and with the help of his friend Crusty, defeats the Nazi submarine navy. At the end of the movie as Limpid swam off in the sea and his "oogah" sounds faded off I remember the tears welling up in my eyes and feeling sad. Was it because the two worlds that he had been in were going to forever be separated? I can't be sure because getting back to how I felt I only remember the sadness.

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The Importance of Personal Learning Networks

2007-11-22T14:03:00.001-08:00

This is my second attempt at writing and trying to explain the deep feelings I've felt after watching Jeff Utecht's preso on personal learning networks. Last year I went to the NECC in San Diego and came away energized and excited for the school year. I learned about ideas and teaching tools that I either had no or a little exposure to. I thought about implementation of these tools as I started meeting with some of the other teachers at my school. My Bloglines account was up to about 220 feeds and that was after I trimmed it and even lost all my RSS feeds while trying to set up NetNewsWire (I've since switched to using Google reader and Netvibes). I was determined to bring onboard at my school more of the teachers on my 4th and 5th grade team to the triumvirate of blogging, wikis and podcasting. As the school year started I slowed up on my reading to set up what I was doing and helping other grade levels with and stopped blogging all together by the later part of September. I wasn't too bothered by this as within the RSS feeds that I subscribed to were some of the most brilliant, thoughtful, connected and cutting edge teachers that I could find. I started a few blog posts about some idea that someone had written about, or examples of what I was also reflecting on based on current edtech events, and by the time I was ready to publish I would usually see 4 or 5 references to what I was writing about only articulated in a much clearer way than I could muster. I didn't fret too much about this as I keep a writing journal that I write and scribble on with an old style fountain pen with "sea blue" ink. By the time the December break came around I had met someone whom I'm now engaged to and by the beginning of March we were talking on Skype every day for at least an hour and my RSS reader was piling up with articles. I went to the CUE conference in Palm Springs and got to see Will Richardson for the second time since the NECC give a keynote address, saw David Thornberg and his amazing reflections, and got to see Steve Hargadon in the Open Source area. Over the course of the school year I felt more and more disconnected to the writers whose thoughts and experiences I had followed for close to two years. I wasn't an active participant in the conversation but had become a passive observer and reader. I didn't know how to reconnect. But two things altered my understanding of what I was doing wrong in my professional development. The first flash of understanding has come with my signing up for the Webcasting Academy, listening and interacting at Edtechtalk, and a few friendly and welcoming chat messages from Lisa Durff . And it wasn't until I saw Utecht's preso that I really understood why I've felt so connected over the past few weeks. I've been stumbling and fumbling but beginning to build my personal learning network. And as Jeff says this isn't the same as a learning community. I've been signed up for a long time with all the communities I could find on Ning, Yahoo groups, Google groups, and newsletters, that seemed pertinent like Edutopia, Edtechweek, Discovery Education Network, Technology and Learning etc. for a long time. I'd occasionally post a comment or reaction. They are a part of the information I need along with my RSS reader, but it was the PLN that I was missing. I've been needing the interactions that were more like a true conversation and personal either through chat, or Skype or Twitter. It makes me want to cry to think of what I was not understanding. Perhaps for some of us because we become the go to person or source of information for some tech or computer question that we lose the understanding that we have needs as well as fulfilling the needs of help others around us. Start now, build your personal learning network. Watch Jeff's presentation. Unfortunately many of us exist in a place where most of the other teachers around us may not be ready for Twitter, and chatting, and Skype and Ustream, but don't make the mistake I did and let yourself be fooled into thinking that a personal relationship with a staff at a school or the district office can substitute for what you need deep inside for your own learning. Don't limit your conversations to those whose views you are trying to move into the 21st century. Unfortunately our colleagues around us may take a long time or perhaps never reach the same level of understanding of what we feel so passionately our students need to keep learning and the classroom relevant for them.

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Tags: edtech, k12online, utecht

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Jeff Lebow's WebstreamingUstreamChatting Unconference Keynote

2007-11-22T09:47:00.001-08:00

Earlier in the week I was privileged to participate in an unconference keynote by Jeff Lebow at the NEIT and NYSAIS conference via a Ustream feed that also allowed me to interact and chat. The experience was pretty overwhelming, and I struggled the rest of the school day to understand and process what I had gone through. The vision and work Jeff put into what he was doing amazed and heartened me. It was as much about vision and utilizing what's available and pushing others into a conversation to help them understand as it was about perfection. The conference space bandwidth was quickly overwhelmed with what he was doing. But it worked, maybe not perfectly, but all these tools are available as open source or free. Yes, we see satellite feeds and video feeds all the time from TV networks, but what he did was on an open internet access point with tools available to anyone. Having the vision to dream of what these tools can do for education, playfully applying them without regard to trying to impress or sway anyone, and helping other educators/librarians/technologists learn about what these tools may/will do for the education field eventually by promoting conversation was the point. All the conference participants were expected to actively participate by any of several possibilities. What made this conversation different was that it was more a "digital conversation," as Lisa Durff points out, as it was a face to face conversation. As Durff also points out our students may have types of face to face conversations all the time but we need to help them move their digital conversations to a meaningful and organized level. Here are some of the web apps. that were used: Ustream, Meebo, Snapvine, VoiceThread, Twitter, Widgetbox to promote participation.

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Lesson Learned

2007-11-22T09:44:00.001-08:00

For numerous reasons I haven't posted much in the past year. Why start posting again? I think I've altered my stance on learning about technology tools that don't relate or I can't implement for my students to use. Last winter/spring there was a lot of excitement over the use of Twitter and Second LIfe. I half-heartedly set up accounts but didn't go much beyond that. I realized right away that I wouldn't be having my 4th and 5th grade students twittering or creating avatars anytime soon. Now however I realize that for some things I need to learn them regardless of having direct applicability to my students. In fact I felt rather disconnected to the edutech bloggesphere (is that spelled with two "g"s or one?) by not learning more about them. My RSS reader was full of articles that I couldn't relate to. Instead of trusting the educators and bloggers whom I've grown to feel close to through their writing, I let my own personal growth lapse and I suffered because of it. Lesson, some things I need to learn for myself and the fun of doing so just because. So if you haven't tried something, but all the brightest people you read are, I would recommend doing something about it.

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How do you Handle your Data Streams?

2007-11-22T09:42:00.001-08:00

I thought I had a glimpse the other day on why I'm fascinated by data streams big and small. For my students I feel connected to them, somewhat maternal I have a better knowledge of when and what they like to work on. I know which of them has been working and solving the puzzle of Wikispaces. I feel maternal and protective that everything is ok with them. I can feel connected to them even when I've been to the dentist and not taught at school that day. Many students that are the least successful on the standardized assessments shine and grow on the production of virtual code, data, pictures, sounds, real time flow. Am I moving to a place where the stream as source is what I crave? Too impatient to wait for the archival process. Is Wikipedia . . . I have a bad habit of working in fits and starts, but streams even when down to a trickle still flow. How do you handle your data streams? I put them in places they don't belong. My Entourage email box fills with tiny little edits, and I let it be because the steps are small but just as important as many other items that fill my email. I keep multiple copies of these streams through RSS and I have apps. and web apps. so that I can look and play with the data, or let the data play with me. Streams, got to keep the streams flowing and becoming more meaningful, the path of conversation and learning. I've never understood completely certain books, but have my own vision of what they hold. An example of one of those is the noosphere of Teilhard de Chardin. All that data circling over head and through us the Wifi photo microwave cellphone voice internet video streams. . .

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