Teach42

On the bus right now heading back to the hotel. I’m typing on my PPC so forgive the grammar and terse writing style.

This has been quite a learning adventure, and an international one at that. We just heard about the new bombings in London, and I’m trying to remember who I met this week from London. I feel a much greater connection with the UK after spending so mnuch time with people from there. I hope their friends and families are ok and my thoughts and prayers are with them. This conference really emphasizes how we’re all part of a much larger world community.

I don’t know what the name of the software is yet, but it definitely sounds interesting. It’s an online tool, Free and Open Source, that provides you with your own URL, 100mb of storage, public and private aspects, blogging, polling, links, chat, discussion, WYSIWYG web page creation, and more. Oh yeah, and it’s ad free.

So, what exactly is it? I still don’t know! I have to tell you, if he’s really trying to hook us in, he’s doing a great job of it. Definitely piqued my interest.

Ok, the list of what it does isn’t done yet. It can do a formative assessment against all state standards throughout the year. I’d make some sort of snide remark along the lines of “all that and the kitchen sink” but the title of the session is Better Than Baking Soda, which seems to describe it pretty well. I would imagine that we’ll get to the actual tool sometime soon

Bah, I had to step out to use the restroom and missed him getting started on it. So I just stepped back into the room and everyone in the room is ooo’ing, aaaahhh’ing and whispering amongst each other. Definitely sounds like people are digging this so far. Looks like the site is MyEdesk Reference Desk.

Ok, a few quick links to samples. Bakerstrail.rwlo.org, pstudent.rwlo.org, polarissda.rwlo.org, mbaker.rwlo.org, germanexperience.rwlo.org What does RWLO stand for? Real World Learning Organizer? I still don’t have a great feel for what exactly it is, but like I said I missed out on a small but important chunk.

Here’s the blurb from the main page:

The PT3 Pathways Project is funded by the US Department of Education through its Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers with Technology program. This project adapts a proven set of P-12 training materials and Internet-based curricula for use in math, science, language arts, and educational technology in community college courses taken by pre-service teachers. This site will house an online library of technology-based learning objects to promote constructivist learning in the community colleges. Faculty from thirty community colleges are to participate in a face-to-face/online training and development program and will be supported by mentors in an online learning community to promote institutionalization.

Ok, now he’s saying that this e-desk is basically like iDisk on steroids. iDisk??? What the heck IS this thing??

This is pretty amusing. Right now he has Skyped in somebody in Utah who is also sharing the screen via Breeze. So he can see what we’re looking at and talk to the crowd. He’s taken over the presentation at this point and is doing the presenting. Every once in a while, he asks the actual human being in here and says, “Can you flip me to the next slide?” It’s cracking me up.

We just took an IQ test that was created using this tool. Sounds like Utips.org is a new version of e-desk. Or something like that. This seems interesting, but everything is really confusing which kind of undermines the effectiveness of the presentation.

We’re looking at the results of the IQ test. You really can pull up the data in every way possible. You can see how everyone did in general, in raw data or as a chart. You can drill down to individual questions and see how each individual student did on any given question. It’s a pretty decent interface, very intuitive. You can even align the questions to standards, so you can see how students did against certain standards throughout the test. I’m assuming that with multiple testing opportunities, you can track them over time as well.

You can create your own tests as individuals, or the school/district/state can do it as a group.

Let me reiterate, the software is Free and Open Source. The backend is SQL, so you if you already have your questions and standards, you can import your stuff in. I like the way they put it, “If you have a big enough geek, you can certainly do it”.

They did a nice job with Javascript, making the pages pretty quick and dynamic. He’s demo’ing how one goes about creating a test and it has some nice options, like the ability to make it “open book” meaning you can try an answer and if you get it wrong you can guess again until you get it right. He just built a test in about 3 minutes. They already had questions created that were aligned to standards. Basically, he said I want 5 questions addressing this standard, 5 questions for that standard, put in a few options and voila! You have a test.

I do want to point out that this is a very high tech way to do very traditional testing. In that sense, I feel a small sense of disappointment. I bet it will also make a killer worksheet. I’m not saying the tool isn’t cool, because it is. But I don’t think that it really pushes us forward. However, we do have tests, we do have quizzes, and this is the type of thing that teachers do on a regular basis. So this tool would definitely be valuable to teachers and schools. Considering how many sessions I saw this week that emphasized moving forward and changing the way we educate our children, this session stands out markedly as not following suit. This is an innovative tool to do something very traditional. Ideally, we want to make drastic changes to education. This is something you can use in your classroom tomorrow, and every day until we get there.

If you want your own copy, you can email cody@myedesk.org. It’s Free and Open Source, did I mention that? So you can host your own copy if you want. If you want to do it on their server, head to rwlo.org and sign up for a free account. They have tutorials there as well.

Beginning on September first, e-desk and utips are merging. That explains some of the confusion.

Unfortunately, I have to catch a plane now so I won’t be able to see the demo.

This is a very cool, practical tool that you teachers can take right back to the classroom and start using from day one. The presentation was a little confusing and I’m still a bit confused by it, but I definitely see a lot of potential here.

Final keynote is Sowing hte Seeds for a more Creative Society by Mitchel Resnick. Started off by asking us to identify which of the three don’t belong: Television, Computers, Paintbrushes. Most people might say paintbrushes, but he’s saying that it should be televisions. People need to be using computers to express themselves more, to be creative and innovative in their use of them.

Some of the best learning experiences occur when education is about more than just information delivery.

In his mind, computers are not just about information, but they’re really about a new medium to let us express ourselves and communicate with one another.

His research book (group) is called Lifetime Kindergarten Group. He’s talking right now about the history of kindergarten, how it came about and how it was originally designed by Froebel. The new technology tools of today are able to take the ideas behind kindergarten learning and apply them to more advanced learning and concepts. The original materials and manipulatives in Kindergarten were called Froebel’s gifts. What would be 21st century Froebel’s gifts?

According to Alan, Mitchel was one of the people who created Lego Mindstorms, you know the legos with motors, processors, and the ability to program them via computer. We used to use those in school, the kids loved working with them. I’ve seen some really innovative projects. He showed a hilarous video of a few robots battling over ping pong balls, a predecessor to Mindstorms.

Side note: I am so tired today that I’m having trouble getting decent notes taken. It’s not that I’m not paying attention, but I’m getting wrapped up in what he’s saying and showing us, to a point that I keep forgetting to write things down! Oy vey. That’s what happens you when you stay up late drinking and talking about tigers, haggis, soccer, football and why North Carolina is attempting to recruit every good teacher at the conference.

This stuff really is interesting, but very visual. He’s got a slide up right now showing a six year old, the hat he created that spins a propeller when a person puts it on and the page he wrote to describe what it is and how it works. Six years old. That’s amazing.

Wow, he has a ‘birthday cake’ with some sensors in it and light up candles on it. When you blow on it, the lights go out and it plays happy birthday. He also has a cat that has a “cricket” inside (programable processor) that is connected to a light sensor. When you pet the cat, a shadow goes over the light sensor and the cat meows.

He’s really emphasizing how kids are much more creative and motivated when they are working on projects that really mean something to them. For example, a student created a device for measuring how fasat she roller bladed. Not how far, but how fast. It wasn’t too hard to figure out relative speed in RPM’s but she really wanted MPH for her own personal reasons and figured it all out.

It’s not just about the technology, it’s about being creative and trying to find ways to make a difference in the world.

Four guiding principals
1. Learning through designing
2. Following your intersts
3. Encouraging emergent community
4. Respect and trust

They’re going to be webcasting this session at some point. Quite simply, if you find any of this interesting you have to watch it. He’s showing a program called scratch that is a descendant of Logo and the Mindstorm programing language, but also has some photoshop elements to it. It’s called Scratch, and believe me when I say, it’s really wild. Doesn’t look like it’s publicly available yet, but I want it. Simple, intuitive, powerful, interactive, collaborative, and creative. Very very cool stuff.

Bringing all around, this sort of program is one more way turn a computer into a paintbrush.

Let me say this one more time. You have to see this webcast. I’ll post a link once I have it.

Unfortunately, today is the last day of the conference for my little posse. Last night was a great way to sort of cap things off. About 300 of us invaded the Star of Boston dinner cruise ship for an evening of schmoozing, drinking, schmoozing, dancing, and taking digital photos. A lot of digitial photos. Perhaps it was in part due to the martini I quaffed at the beginning of the cruise, but I found myself mostly snapping pictures of people taking digital photos. Sort off a modern art statement for people who have no idea what modern art is, like myself. I did bring my iPod and microphone along and captured a bunch of mini-interviews with people for a podcast. You can see all my cruise photos here, but here’s a small sampling of some of my favorites.

I went to the blogging drop in center to do a little reflecting and type up a few blog entries. Unfortunately, I was so busy talking with people like Jim Wenzloff, Jack McLeod, and Will Richardson that I never got a chance to! Then I went to the afternoon reflection time and was going to do some serious blogging there, but I got into a conversation with Alan and got wrapped up in the discussion, so I didn’t get a chance to do much there.

Heh, isn’t that an awful problem to have? Too much great social, live, real interaction to have time to blog much.

What a wonderful problem to have! Like Will said, “The blogosphere is great, but it’s also a lot of fun to get to spend some time with people who I read on a daily basis. And to learn with them as well…”

The moral boys and girls? Don’t forget the truly social part of social networking.

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Christopher Tan, Tamil Selvam Chareston, and Mohd Paruk are presenting Learning Communities in a Singapore Primary School. I’m looking forward to hearing some more about what they’re doing, Chris really piqued my curiosity yesterday.

The school is called Shuqun primary school. The main focus was the pedagogy, the process itself of the project. In order to get there, he wants to start off describing education in Singapore.

Think Schools, Learning nation. A vision which will ensure that Singapore will be a nation of thinking and committed citizens who are cable of contributed towards Singapore’s continuing growth and community. Education can no longer be build upon purely domestic foundations. Computers and IT literacy are as important as books and traditional learning.

Because Singapore is such a diverse culture, they believe in Unity in Diversity. One people, one nation, one Singapore. Sounds similar to the US, but at the same time very different. Singapore has no natural resources, the only resource they have are people, which is why education is so important. They have National Education. They want their pupils to learn to be friends, to not make fun of people who are difference, people should be trated equally regardless of race and religion, they should do the same. “how do we build bridges across cultures, races, religions, and nationalities?”

Their answer is a Problem Based online Discussion Forum.

They are trying to move away from “making cookies”, they are trying to move forward to “designing cookies”. They promote innovation and enterprise. Teach Less Learn More.

Teach Less Learn More.
Teach Less Learn More.
Teach Less Learn More.

Forgive the repetition, that one just really resonates with me. The teachers teach less, the students learn more. That phrase was worth the price of admission alone.

The project itself was Ehanncing thinking skills through a problem-based online discussion forum using the contrsuctivist approach. The target group was a 10 classes of 40 fifth graders, total of 400. They had four months to work on this. Training was 2 periods, or one hour. It was an asynchronus project.

Constructivism: Students construct USEFUL, as opposed to inert, knowledge. It should be inherently interesting.

Objectives: OT create learning environment, that ehances ciritical thinking skills and cognitive development. To create challenge learning environment, to expose pupils toa future mode of communication, and to foster understanding and communication: racial harmony.

For the project itself, they gave the pupils a sort of real world problem. I’d say it isn’t truly real world, but it’s a very realistic problem. Basically your friend is having a birthday party and 2/3 of the people invited declined. Why is that so and what changes should you make? They were also supplied the invitation which listed the date and menu and such. So, for example, a third of the people invited were Indian and the menu included beef and pork. Then the students took over the problem.

One of the objectives was to enhance critical thinking skills. Using the tool they’ve developed, the child first has to choose their thinking type “I agree, a theory, opinion, illustration, etc”, and then choose their scaffold, “Someone said, Reason, My Experience, I need to understand, I need evidence”. It forces them to consider what they’re doing carefully, to reflect as they’re going along. Doing so encourages higher order thinking skills.

Constructivism demands persistent questioning throughout the process on the part of the learners, in particular “Why” questions. As he’s showing us more and more posts that these kids wrote, you really see some interesting lines of questioning. Somebody said in an opinion that muslims don’t eat pork. Somebody else asked for proof of this and a link. A third student looked that up, copied and pasted in a few pertinent passages, and links to their source material.

Teacher did point out that students needed to provide evidence, couldn’t just state an opinion. Had to provide their reference materials, sources. The teacher did intervene a few times, but mostly let the students work, figure things out. Sometimes if a group was way off in their information, or had a significant misunderstanding, the teacher might step in as well.

Reconstruction/Peer correction: Students read through each others comments, questions, opinions, and respond to them with their own personal experiences. In this way they reconstruct their own mental models.

They wound up creating a spreadsheet of sorts with new suggestions for the menu. They chose to avoid beef and pork out of respect for all religions. They brought in a separate caterer for the muslims, but made things as common as possible. They did have a budget as well, and found creative ways to work within it.

When you go to analyses, you can see how many notes people have read, how many they have written, and just about every other stat you could possibly want. He’s pointing out a child who only wrote 37 notes, but read 389. They might not have been typing up a lot, but they’ve been actively participating. You can also separate out the types of posts they’ve done, and so on. Reflections are also incorporated.

Interestingly enough, this would also be a great way to practice basic reading and writing and research, simply because the vast majority of the communication is in written form. This is an incredibly fascinating project. I have got to find a way to get involved. The more I hear about education in Singapore, the more it sounds like exactly the sort of system I have been trying to find.

He does admit that this pilot was done with high level students. Can’t fault him for that. I’d love to see how low income, inner city students handled a project like this. I think it could be incredibly effective. It could really connect them to a world far beyond their own neighborhood.

There are some aspects of the program that are still a little hazy to me. Students are put together in groups of 4. The do work as a group, but they do post invididual.

Wow, one of the ‘rules’ was that they are not supposed to communicate at school. In fact, ALL communication occurred on the site. No IM, no email, no phone, no face to face. Online ONLY. So this was done 100% from home as well.

Wow. Now it’s really starting to sink in. So in the international version of this, you might have two students from the US grouped with two students from Singapore, working in exactly the same way.

This is incredible. It’s the same type of collaboration that people are doing in the business world. While the problem itself was sort of fictitious, or artificial based on real world situations, the method which they worked it through is incredibly authentic, just skewed to emphasis on the education involved to learn the skills necessary.

Link to the school is www.shuqunpri.moe.edu.sg

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