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Tags: | cipa, coppa, dembo, education, ISTE, learning, networking, personal, pln, policies, teach42, Web 2.0
ISTE 2010 Wrapup
- Image by katerha via Flickr
This was a busy ISTE to say the least! While normally I make a point to hit at least a few sessions, this year it was all work. 3 presentations, 1 workshop, combined with booth time and a Wilkes grad course wrapping up made for a crazy hectic week. The one thing I refused to sacrifice though was face time with my network. It was an absolute pleasure seeing so many of you. Even 30 seconds face to face makes all those 140 character communications so much richer. As always, I wish I could have spent more time in the Blogger’s Cafe hanging out, but such is life. On the whole, it was a fantastic conference, and major Kudos to ISTE for organizing yet another incredibly well run event. Unlike many tech-conferences, bandwidth was never even a topic of conversation. The wireless was stellar, and the wired connections for presenters was the fastest I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t have been happier as an attendee and as a presenter.
Overall, the sessions went incredibly well. The big surprise to me was that the Policies presentation packed the room. Typically it’s a small, dedicated, hardcore group of people attending that one. This year, it filled the room up. Does this mean that we’re finally starting to turn the corner when it comes to making our policies fit the practice we know in our hearts is right? I’m starting to get cautiously optimistic!
For some reason, I seem to have Presenter Upload Deficiency Syndrome. Even when I have everything done in time, I always seem to screw up URL’s, preventing people from getting to my resources quickly. So here’s the links to the sessions I did at ISTE. Hope they help in a small part. I believe the Perpetual Learning Machine and Extreme Makeover presentations were recorded too. If I find them, I’ll link them up later.
Enjoy!
The Perpetual Learning Machine - ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp
Policies Safety and Social Networking
Extreme Makeover – Education Edition (Note, this is a simplistic ‘deck’. Mostly live demo’s done during presentation)
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Image by mamassage via FlickrIt’s been a long time since I blogged daily for a week, much less a full month. I gotta admit, it has been exhausting to do so. Researching, sketching out and then writing each of those challenges every day was much more work than I’d originally thought it would be. However, as I look back on it, I can’t help but think to myself… was I doing any more work than the average middle school student probably does for homework on a daily basis? And the answer is no.
Has ‘normal’ work and family life spoiled me? I don’t think so. I do think I have a pretty healthy balance in my life right now, but adding that extra hour or two that it took to hammer out those challenges definitely put a strain on things. I can’t help but think that this must be how many students are feeling every night.
The big difference is, I chose to do that challenge. And now I can choose to take a break from blogging if I want to. So my question to you is:
If a student came up to you and told you that s/he was getting burnt out and needed a night off, would you let them take a ‘balance night’ and skip that night’s assignment?
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Tags: | 30D2BBB, Copyright, Creative Commons, Creative Commons License, dembo, Intellectual property, License, teach42
Day 4: Own your CContent
First of all, thanks to everyone who has been taking part in this challenge! If you miss out on a day, don’t stress. You can always make it up, or just skip it and hop back on the wagon at any time. After all, the challenge that I based this on was one I’d been intending to take part in for well over a year. The information is still good. So if you get busy and miss a few, no worries. Do what you can.
A blog is a labor of love. Well, some days it’s more labor than love. Considering the amount of effort we all pour into your blog, have you ensured that you’ve protected your content? While there are a number of ways to copyright your intellectual property, by far the easiest is to establish a Creative Commons license.
Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”
You may not think anybody would want to steal your content, but you never know. I’ve had content of mine quoted on other websites without attribution before, and this has given me a legal ground to stand on when asking them to cite it properly. it’s one of those things that may not matter to you… until it really matters and it’s too late. So let’s be proactive.
Head over to Creative Commons and choose the license type that you want to employ. You have a few choices. The first one is whether you want to allow commercial uses of your content. Do you want a company to be able to grab your content and republish it in material that they sell for profit? If not, then choose No. You can always change your mind and allow usage on an individual basis. Selecting no just ensures that they have to ask you personally for permission.
Image via WikipediaNext you have to chose whether you will allow derivatives of your work to be created. Can people take your images and edit them to create their own versions? Can they mashup your videos to create new content? Can they take your text and create their own spin on it and then republish it? If you don’t mind that, then select yes. If you want them to keep your intellectual property whole, unaltered and unedited, then select no. There is also one other choice, which is Yes with Share-a-like. That means that people can make derivatives, provided that the new content they create is licensed in exactly the same way that yours currently is. So for example, if they take a photo of yours and edit it, they can’t republish that with a commercial license unless your photo was originally published with a commercial license.
That’s it! Just choose your country and fill in some optional material if you like, and click submit. The end result is a blog badge that you can copy and paste into your blog. Display it with pride! If you need a little help doing that, see if this page provides you with enough information.
Even if you’ve already added a Creative Commons badge to your blog, it’s still worth going to get a new one. The license itself has been changed several times, and they are now on version 3.0. Be sure that the badge you display on your blog is up to date.
You can see that I chose a BY-NC-SA license for Teach42. Which license did you choose and why?
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Tags: | dembo, nokia, nokiaopenlab, nokiaopenlab08, open lab, teach42, womworld
Nokia Open Labs 2008 – A look back
I’m pretty sure that I was only in Finland for four days. However, given the number of meaningful experiences that occurred during that time span, it seems hard to reconcile its brevity. That being said, I’m back on US soil again, have replaced jet lag with common, every day exhaustion, and am ready to share a bit of what I learned from the experience.
First of all, I do have to thank three groups. A huge thanks goes out to Nokia for hosting an event like this. It was creative, innovative, and a distinct pleasure to be a part of. I also need to thank WOM world. They truly did a phenomenal job of making sure everything ran like clockwork and that the attendees were treated like celebrities at every turn (more on that to come). Lastly, I want to thank the other invitees who attended the inaugural event. I learned quite a bit from the group to say the least, and much of it had nothing to do with cell phones. It was truly an honor to consider them peers.
Alright, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on with the good stuff.
That which rocked
I’m trying to by concise, something I’m not really good at. But I think I have to say that it was the people that made up the experience. The attendees were an eclectic, international group who each had something different to contribute. Very diverse perspectives in many ways, not so in others, but on the whole just hanging out with them was a learning experience in itself. There were plenty of Nokia employees around throughout the event, and I do have to admit that it was fascinating talking to them. It’s a massive company and there are so many different aspects of it. It was interesting hearing what each of them have been working on, and discussing what the implications could be for education. And of course, the people of Finland were incredibly gracious, with the exception of one drunken Finnish woman. Oh, how I would love to know what exactly she was screaming at Brian.
The conversations definitely rocked. That’s no different from any conference. However, these were intended to be a little more open, less constrained, and focused on asking “What could we do if…” There were some very creative ideas that arose from the conversations, and some that weren’t quite so. While at times we seemed to be spinning our wheels, on the whole I think there were some innovative subjects broached. I truly hope that Nokia learned something from the event, I know that I did.
The social events truly rocked. There were two fantastic dinners, with drinks and merriment aplenty. Between the stand up comedian one night and the brilliant guitar the second night, it was very clear that they wanted to ensure their visitors had a great time. And we did.
The last piece that gets thrown into the ‘rocked’ drawer is the amount of free time we had. I was truly worried that I wouldn’t have much time to experience Finnish culture and explore Helsinki. I was wrong. I had a very memorable walk with Mike and Jen with plenty of photos to be uploaded still. I experienced a true Finnish sauna, which involved getting to know far more of the group than I had anticipated. And that’s all I’ll say about that. A group of us visited the Kiasma, a modern art museum that had some rather evocative exhibits…. and some that weren’t. One exhibit in particular, The Trainee, I have to admit I did not get at all, until I encountered it again at the airport in Helsinki on the way home. They recreated the exact same installation and I have to admit it was much more intriguing than I my original opinion, which seems to be the museum’s motto, “I don’t get it.”
Meh
We were sent out the Nokia e71 prior to the conference to try out. I swapped my SIM card into there and used it for a couple of weeks leading into the workshops, but unfortunately it was the European version and I couldn’t get on with a 3G connection. Not a big deal, I figured that they did that so we could have high speed connections while in Europe. And one of the first things handed to us when we got to the hotel was a SIM card to use for the trip. That being said, this was a group of people that were accustomed to carrying multiple devices. And for the most part, the e71 wasn’t exactly the ideal all in one for this group (myself included). So there was a ton of sim-swapping going on, and to be honest I didn’t really see that many people use the e71 that much. Compounding this, was the minute the conference was over, we were required to turn in the SIM card. I’m a bit perplexed why they didn’t just have us return them before we left, or even mail them back. Most people I spoke to basically turned off the e71 when the SIM card was taken away, and went back to their regular device. If they really wanted us to make proper use of it, I’d think they’d want to either give us the version that we could use in our ‘homeland’, or at least provide us with a SIM to keep making use of it beyond the constraints of the event.
I know how much I hate when groups just go around the table and everybody shares who they are, what they do for a living and what their favorite shape of pasta is, this event really demonstrated why that’s so necessary. When we began collaborating, we didn’t know each other. In fact, by the time we had an idea who each other were, the first day was essentially through. Context is so valuable to conversations, and it would have been helpful to have had some when we began collaborating.
Third ‘meh’ for the event was a certain lack of communication. I never really knew what the goals were for the event. In fact, there were some very X-Files conspiracy theories floating around. One theory was that the event was actually more for internal purposes, to illuminate the rest of the company to the power and relevance of social media. Another was simply that it was good for marketing, because surely the bloggers would type up posts like this one. All buzz is good buzz, so sayeth the gods of social media.
Fail
This leads me to the stuff that I don’t think worked. Namely, the structure of the event. There were two days. One day was workshops, the second day was presentations. During the first day, we’d have a 10-20 minute introduction about a topic, and then about 40 minutes to discuss, brainstorm and share back with the group.
Side out rotate.
We were randomly put into groups, and often the specific direction that the groups discussed was determined by the age old system of whoever shouts out first and loudest. I don’t mind randomness though, in fact sometimes it’s kind of nice talking about a topic that is far away from your comfort zone. However, that being said, is 40 minutes really enough time to do a deep delve into any topic? I would say no. In fact, at least three times i felt like the conversation was just barely beginning to get rolling, when we realized we had to stop and start planning how to present our ‘findings’. I was mortified when people who were striking out in some different directions that were contrary to what the group had been talking about, got cut off because we simply didn’t have time to explore their ideas. Very disappointing.
Let’s face it. You handpick 35 early adopters, social media gurus, highly connected, bleeding edge leaders in the world of new technologies… You fly them out to Helsinki and put them up for several nights… You create a stimulating environment and host lavish meals and events for them… And then have them contribute for a grand total of 3 hours? (4 brainstorming sessions x 45 minutes each) What a waste… With the group of people in that room, I truly felt like we could have accomplished something, really delved deeply into some of the different topics, provided some new insight or innovative ideas, beyond off the cuff surface thinking. Instead, there were many people who’s ideas were never heard, which is horrifying considering the nature of the event.
Additionally, there was very little effort made to involve the outside community. We pushed quite a bit of information outwards, but short of a brief pseudo-integration with Second Life, there was no effort to bring anybody from the outside in. If we’re sharing the event with the outside world, why not take it the next step and invite them to participate and contribute? Heck, just putting up a Tweet or SMS wall that allowed people to interact with the attendees would have been welcome in my mind.
Along those lines, one of the biggest surprises to me was the distinct lack of backchannel. Backchannel’s are commonplace for most edtech conferences now, so I was very surprised that nobody expressed a desire to create a backchannel for the conference. Twitter kinda sorta served as an unofficial backchannel, but by the time most of discovered and connected to the other people there, the event was basically over. I think that would have been extremely helpful, particularly during the presentations of the second day.
Lessons Learned:
I guess this one should be obvious, but you get out of an experience what you put into it. I realized pretty quickly that education wasn’t going to be a focus, and didn’t really figure much into most of the topics we were discussing. I could have tried to force the groups along my preferred path, but I didn’t think that’d be constructive. Instead, I realized that we had a pretty eclectic group of people gathered, many of whom are currently making a career out of jobs that didn’t exist when we were growing up (sound familiar?). So with that in mind, I thought I’d do a little informal survey and see what people had to say about their education. I asked about 10 people or so some questions about their schooling and got some pretty fascinating answers. Videos to be edited and shared soon.
Another point that I think bears further exploration is the idea of fame in the 21st century. Every person at this event was famous… for 15 people (give or take a few thousand). Very well known, very well respected, among a very tiny community of people. I like to think that I’m pretty well known in the EdTech community. And yet, I guarantee you there was not one person there that knew who I was. And for the most part, I didn’t know anybody else there prior to being introduced to them. There were sites I knew and employers I recognized, but nobody was what I would consider a household name, even amongst the bloggerati. However, as I said, everybody there was famous.
It made for an interesting dynamic. Some were rather outspoken, others rather soft spoken. Clearly a few people felt intimidated and didn’t want to chime in despite efforts to draw them out. Others simply dominated the conversation. It truly did emphasize to me the opportunity that every person has to become famous nowadays. It doesn’t take much to become famous, simply persistence, courage and the confidence to put yourself on the line. That’s it. Ironically, expertise is optional.
The last point I’ll mention in closing is more of a question than anything else… Which is more important, diversity of ideals and interests, or diversity of cultures and personalities? We had plenty of the latter, and not as much of the former. As diverse a group as we had, we were remarkably homogeneous. More often than not, it’s the conflict of opinions that leads to new ideas. Innovation doesn’t occur in an environment where everybody agrees. And there was precious little disagreement during these sessions. If people disagreed, it would come out on Twitter later, rather than verbally much of the time. I suppose part of it could have been because of the limited time available, but I think it was actually more due to the fact that everybody there had similar characteristics when it came to technology.
Ok, one more point/rant and then I swear I’m closing off. Let me just say that after spending half a week with this hyper connected, social media obsessed group, I really wanted to throw my cell phone through a window by the end. Believe me, I’m still pro-twitter, pro-blogging, pro-sms, pro-cell phones in the classroom and all. But I was appalled at how many people simply were unable to UNPLUG even just for the duration of a meal. I vividly remember at one point looking around, and at a table for ten, six people were busy typing away on a total of 8 devices. We were flown halfway around the world, being put up in an incredible hotel, and had the opportunity to collaborate with some brilliant minds… and people couldn’t seem to break away from the network overlay. Believe me, I understand the desire to tweet everything that happens, and I’m hardly a model example for the manners textbook, but that was just too much… Cell phones and mobile technologies should augment communication, not replace it. I just kept flashing back to the presentation we had seen earlier in the day by Adam Greenfield. He showed an image of a woman walking through the mall talking on her cell phone, and pointed out that while physically she was there, mentally she was nowhere near that mall. Her mental space was a technology overlay completely separated from her physical space. For the most part, that’s what seemed to be happening quite often throughout the weekend.
I’m not advocating that we eliminate the technology, but I do think that this is even more of a reason to teach appropriate use during schools. After all, the flip side of appropriate use, is understanding when NOT to use it.
Welps, that’s enough of a rant for now. More to come. And while it may seem like a lot of moaning and whining, it truly was an incredible learning experience. I hope Nokia got as much out of it as I did!
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Tags: | backchannel, Bud Hunt, cell, Darren Draper, dembo, DEN, Discovery, Discovery Education, education, Hall Davidson, Jen Wagner, Kelly Dumont, Miguel Guhlin, mobile, NECC, NECC08, phones, qik, streaming, teach42, ustream, vicki davis
A NECC to Remember
I know most people have already put up their post-NECC reports, but I figure it’s never really too late and I’m glad that I had time to put some things in perspective and do a little soul searching before writing this. There’s so much to write about, both positive and negative, so I think I’m going to try to separate them into two different posts.
Without question, while the sessions are phenomenal, the most memorable parts of NECC often seem to be the networking. It seemed that every ten feet there was another person on my list of “People I Need to Meet F2F” and unfortunately there was never enough time to have a proper conversation. I truly felt humbled that I met so many people who consider me a part of their learning networks, personal or professional. Additionally, there were so many people that I’ve been a fan of for so long that it was an honor to finally meet them in person. I hate to do name lists because I always forget people, but among the most memorable were Miguel Guhlin and Bud Hunt. These are colleagues and friends that I have known for years, but never met face to face. It was truly a pleasure to finally be able to shake their hand, give them a hug and tell them in person just how much I’ve admired their work over all these years.
Of course there were so many others that I could say the same for, but this isn’t about name dropping. It’s about friendships, and making personal connections between nodes in our networks. And no matter how many names I listed, I couldn’t name them all. I can’t remember who said this, but someone at EduBloggerCon truly summed the networking side up quite eloquently: “Every single F2F conversation with someone makes the 140 characters that much more meaningful.” That’s not a direct quote, so if you said it, then let me know so I can get it right and give you credit.
Without a doubt, live video streaming was (as predicted) a big topic at NECC. I’m still trying to get a grasp on how many sessions were streamed. EdStream.TV was not as successful as I’d have liked it to be, but it was a spectacular learning experience that I think has huge potential. In particular, I learned that you really need someone dedicated solely to keeping the project organized and handle the video production, whether on site or off site is irrelevant. Unfortunately I just had too many other time commitments to devote the necessary hours to make it a true success. MAJOR kudos to Jen Wagner for her incredible effort aggregating the streams together here and making sure that virtual attendees had just about as rich an experience as physical attendees.
While backchannels and live streams were becoming commonplace in many sessions, the internet connectivity issues were always around to throw a monkey wrench in the works. During two of the panel discussions I participated in, I couldn’t stay connected to the backchannel to contribute there. Very aggravating. Even my cell-phone-as-a-modem solution failed me, despite the fact that we were in AT&T’s corporate home. However, most backchannels were archived and quite honestly are a wealth of information. That being said, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to assume that people know what a backchannel is, how to find it and how to participate. Vicki Davis has made it a priority to explain the fine art of backchanneling in some of her presentations, and I think she’s got the right idea. I’m going to make that a priority in future presentations.
Speaking of backchannels, while Chatzy and CoverItLive seem to be the hot ones right now, my backchannel of choice has become Plurk. Why Plurk? Well, for one thing, I think it could be the best successor to Twitter that I’ve seen yet. Instead of a series of loosely related posts, you get one threaded conversation with its own RSS feed and permalink. Check out Ginger Lewman’s live blog from Ian Juke’s session. Not only that, but it has a rock solid mobile version that you can use from a cell phone, iPhone or any other mobile device. Heck, on a PC it looks alot like Twitter for those that don’t like the timeline. So while I couldn’t get online, if the backchannel had been on Plurk I could still have participated actively via mobile.
On the subject of mobiles, I don’t think I’ve ever used my cell phone more at a conference before. I used it to keep up with Twitter. I used it to keep up with Plurk. I used it to check in with emails, both work and personal. I used Google Maps on there to find where I was going. I used it to read blogs and to look up people’s names and information. I used my phone as a camera and a camcorder. And as many saw in both Will’s and Hall’s sessions, I used it to do several live video streams. I broadcast solo from the airplane on the way to NECC, and interviewed Kelly Dumont, Bonnie Muir and Darren Draper (who had the misfortune of sitting next to me) on the return flight. Video of that one is embedded below.
While the videos may be a little rough and got cut off before the end, I felt that they were a great proof of concept and something I will definitely continue to pursue. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I believe that live video streaming via mobile is going to play a crucial role in education within the next five years. These devices are just too powerful and diverse to blow off. I’m seriously considering upgrading from the Blackjack to a Nokia N95 just so I can improve my live streams and get a full screen browser.
I was pretty busy presenting in formal sessions, panels and in the booth, so I didn’t have too much time to attend many sessions. I did attend the DEN’s Second Life Leadership Council’s panel presentation about building out their personal learning networks which was absolutely phenomenal. A classic example of how you can never be over prepared. They knew what they wanted to say, had it timed well, and really did magnificent job of sharing the fine work they’re doing in Second Life.
Speaking of being over prepared, I did catch Hall Davidson’s cell phone presentation. It was easily the best presentation I saw at NECC, and I’m not just saying that because I work with him. I don’t think there’s anyone out there that understands the art of presenting better than Hall and watching him up on stage is like a magic show that you actually learn from. It was chock full of hands on demonstrations and it was a pleasure watching hundreds of educators break out their own phones and participate. If you missed it, they did record it. You can catch it at ISTE’s NECC On Demand website.
Of course, then there was the DEN Pre-Conference which was an absolute blast. Where else are you going to get to see your boss get thrown in jail, a friend get hog tied, participate in an Old West scavenger hunt and STILL have time to network, share ideas, and do a little presenting? The DEN’s 3rd birthday party was a huge “overflowing” success and with STAR Discovery Educators in every corner of the room it was more like a family reunion than cocktail party. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Howl at the Moon, the piano bar where I left both my voice and my dignity. I can honestly say it’s the most interesting place I’ve ever celebrated my *ahem* birthday.
All in all, it was definitely a NECC to remember. Next time I’m going to try to make a point to carve out more free time so I can actually spend more time chatting with people beyond the 10 minute, “Hello! I follow you! I read you! Thanks for all you do! Hope to see you again soon!” There were way too many of those unfortunately.
SO that’s the end of part 1, The Good. More to come.
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Of all the big players in the social networking landscape, Facebook is the only one that I can honestly say that I actively participate on. After arriving home from NECC, I posted a question asking people to share their one ‘big’ takeaway from the conference. Alfred Thompson’s response was:
Bloggers will talk and talk and talk if you put them together in a room with other people.
Seriously though I took away that there are many more technology tools for education then administrative support to use.
He makes a great point that was one of my major takeaways too. With all the talk of Web 2.0, School 2.0, Teachers 2.0 and Students 2.0, who (besides Doug Johnson) is really talking about Policies 2.0?
With nearly every type of software being represented on the internet in a free, cross-platform, browser agnostic version, why aren’t more schools adjusting their filters and policies to encourage teachers and students to make educational use of these tools? If students using real world tools in a more organic fashion isn’t a good enough reason to make the switch, what about saving schools some major dollars? Wouldn’t that be a good enough reason?
I know that there isn’t any single sector that we can target that will instantly enact widespread change, but antiquated school policies can certainly serve as an inhibitor. If the tools are blocked, then teachers won’t even have the opportunity to make use of them.
Given that we’re still in the heart of summer break, this is a perfect time to start revisiting your school’s policies and see if they properly reflect the environment you want to your teachers to promote. Do they really address the needs your school has in 2007? Are they structured in a way that allows teachers to prepare students for the real world? If not, get the conversation rolling and start making some change!
Here are some links to posts and policies that you may find helpful:
How do we teach kids to cross a busy street?
Bud the Teacher’s Blogging Wiki - Examples, links and more. Contribute!
AHS Blog AUP Wiki
Youth Voices AUP
EFF’s page on Student blogging – Great info, well worth reading through.
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Last week, I spent two full workdays in Second Life, delving into the nitty gritty of how things are actually put together and learning some very basic scripting. Of course, when I say learning scripting, I actually mean looking at other people’s scripts and learning how to tweak them to suit my needs.
This wasn’t an individual journey though, and I was thrilled to have so much support from friends and acquaintances alike. It really made me appreciate just how powerful having a network to draw upon really is.
I wanted to learn how to create a typing animation override, so that whenever my avatar was typing, a laptop would appear just beneath his moving hands. I found a script that I could use, but was struggling with finding a free laptop that I could apply it to. Fleet came to my rescue and found a fantastic laptop that I could tweak to my hearts content. All I had to do was delete the keyboard and mouse (which I learned how to do thanks to Kathy Schrock), slap the script in, and then tweak the position just a little. For bonus credit, I added a DEN logo and a screenshot from unitedstreaming. Voila! Instant cool looking laptop!
I had pretty similar experiences learning how to hyperlink objects to web pages and creating clothing. Meg Ormiston sent me the basic templates and together we stumbled through creating things like logo shirts. Here’s a picture of Meg with her matching shirt and poster.
At this point, people see some of these things and think that I’m some sort of expert or guru when it comes to Second Life. I’m not, I’m still just a total newb who has learned a few tricks. But what’s key is that I’m taking advantage of my network and learning what I need to accomplish my mini-goals. I have yet to meet anybody in SL that was too busy to answer a question or lend a hand. And I haven’t even mentioned Ryan Bretag and Kevin Jarrett, who have booth been extremely helpful as I fumble my way through this. It’s an amazing world within a world. If you haven’t given it a try yet, you should dive on in. And don’t be a stranger. I have the perfect outfit for pouring you a nice tall glass of Kool-Aid.
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In case you hadn’t seen yet, Google has been pretty busy of late. Buying up YouTube, starting up an educator network (sounds vaguely familiar), and now bringing Writely into the fold.
Writely and Google Spreadsheets have now joined forces to become Google Docs and Spreadsheets. The interface is clearly all Google now, but the functionality remains the same. It’s still in beta, but now with an open registration. If you never got the chance to try it under its other name, give it a whirl.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with the apps, just think of Word and Excel, but free, online, and collaborative. Multiple people can work on the same document at the same time. You can also publish your docs publicly online or even post them directly to a blog. Take that Micro$oft!
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UPDATE – You can find copies of the presentation slides and resources here: The New Permanent Record, Making RSS Work For You, Going Mobile
*PHEW*
I’m not exactly what you’d call a ‘seasoned’ presenter. I mean, I’ve done quite a bit of presenting for teachers at my old school, and I did teach for years (which is basically presenting for students on a daily basis). But there’s a big different in my mind between that stuff and presenting for teachers at conferences. I’ve only done about 10 of those. And there’s an even bigger difference beteween normal presenting and doing a keynote, which I’m a complete newbie at. I know, I know, it’s all psychological and in my head, but it certainly seems like a big difference to me. Regardless, when I got asked to do a keynote and two other presentations at the Connecting and Learning Conference in Holland, MIchigan, it was a pretty darn big deal to me. And stressed me out more than just a little bit!
So the past few weeks I’ve been doing a ton of research and learning a whole lot of new stuff, but I haven’t really shared too much of it because my focus has been on figuring out how to fit it all in to the presentations. I gotta admit, some of the stuff I’ve found has really blown me away though. If you subscribe to my del.icio.us account, you’ve probably seen the flurry of activity, and maybe caught a few new ones yourself.
The keynote presentation was called The New Permanent Record. In a nutshell, it took a realistic look at what kids are doing online, the long term effects of their actions and what we as educators can do about it. I think it might have come off a little more ‘gloom and doom’ than I wanted, but I was really hoping that it would be like a splash of ice cold water that wakes people up a bit. One thing I did while preparing the presentation was study the Holland, MIchigan ‘metro’ on Xanga. Unbelievably, I found out that over 100 different people (mostly teenagers) updated their profile within a 90 minute timespan. Think about that one. Over one person changing their profile per minute in a town the size of Holland. And that’s just on Xanga. The point is, the issue is much more widespread than people truly believe and it’s a larger problem than just a few kids posting photos of themselves with beer cans
The presentation went well was actually webcast by the WorldBridge’s crew. I’m not sure how many people popped on to listen to it, but I saw people from Belgium, Moroco, Canada and Australia in there! That was incredibly cool, big thanks to Jeff Flynn for putting that together! I’m hoping that they got a recording of it so I can listen to it later.
The second presentation I did was called Going Mobile and focused on using disruptive technologies in the classroom. Wait, let me rephrase, CONSTRUCTIVELY using disruptive technologies in the classroom (I got yer back, Wes)! The presentation revolved around two ideas: 1) There’s a heck of alot of educational things you can do with a PSP or Cell phone and 2) Schools could save a whole lot of money if they took advantage of the technology students are currently hiding in their backpacks. It’s a fun presentation, an extended version of the one I did for EdTech Connect. I’ve found some incredible resources using mobile technology, and I get the feeling I barely scratched the surface!
The last presentation was a little tough. I was asked to prepare at least one presentation that would really challenge people. People who already had their own blogs and aggregators and wanted to know what else they could be doing. So I created a presentation called Making RSS Work For You. It featured highlights from the bazillions of sites that now offer RSS feeds, showed some of the more innovative ways it’s being used, and then some ideas for integrating unusual RSS feeds in your own site. However, when I asked how many people had their own blog, about 10 people raised their hands. That was out of around 80 or 90. Then, when I asked how many knew what RSS was, I got three hands raised halfway up. Yikes. Not exactly an ideal audience for an advanced RSS session! So, the advanced presentation quickly turned into an introductory session. I did my best, but I think I went over most peoples’ heads. I definitely could have done a lot better on that one had I been better prepared for that eventuality. Regardless, I got some really nice comments after this one and it definitely struck a chord with some people. I’m gonna chalk it up under the ‘pretty successful learning experiences’ column.
I did also get to attend a few sessions. I got to attend about half of Jim Wenzloff’s "It’s not your father’s Internet" presentation. Amongst other things, I learned about an incredibly cool site called Protopage. Think OS X’s Dashboard (or Konfabulator for you Windows folks) but web based. Very interesting and on my "To play with" list. He was also way more bold than me. Had the guts to put the words "RSS" and "Ajax" on the same slide in his Powerpoint! Heh, I limited myself to just RSS.
For the final session of the day, I hung out with Kristin Furdak, the Michigan DEN manager, as she did a hands on session about Bloglines and iTunes. It’s always tough to have the last slot in the day, but the class was really into it. She gave the group plenty of ‘play’ time and everyone got a really good start into the world of aggregation. If you want to do an intro to either of those tools, her presentation is definitely a great place to start. She was planning on ending early, but most people wound up staying late! It was a great chance to let everything soak in after an incredibly busy day.
Big ups to Andy Mann for putting this whole thing together. I heard nothing but good stuff from everybody, and from my own perspective everything when incredibly well. Amazingly, I didn’t hear about a single tech issue from any of the attendees. Pretty amazing considering the number of desktops and laptops involved! A great one day conference that I was honored to be a part of.
Related Reading on Teach42
Updated with Photos
By all rights, this should be a series of 4 or 5 blog articles. Instead, I’m going to make the classic blogging mistake and cram it all into one post. But I had so many fantastic experiences at FETC that crossed over so many lines, I don’t think I could seperate them if I tried.
My Florida trip began with a preconference event organized by Karen Seddon and Danielle Abernethy, the DEN regional managers for Florida. Since it’s spring training time in Florida, the theme of the event was baseball. I was the ‘top of the ninth’ so I had some time to actually attend a few of the workshops and snap some photos of the event. The day began with a welcome from Executive Vice President, Ron Reed. He definitely set the tone for the day. Afterwards, we split up into three blocks of concurrent sessions. There were a total of about 6 or 7 to choose from, covering Inspiration, Google Earth, unitedstreaming, iMovie and much much more. Some were presented by other DEN regional managers, while others were presented by teachers from the Florida area. Scott posted more details at the DEN National blog. After lunch, the implementation team answered some questions and Shelley from product development gave everyone a sneak peak into the future of unitedstreaming. After a quick break for peanuts and cracker jacks, I spent half an hour sharing the new Discovery Educator Network website and telling everybody about Discovery Educator Abroad. Lots of good buzz there, people seemed real excited about the possibilities there.
What blows me away is that what I just described was a 100% free full day of professional development for 100 teachers in Florida. That’s why I love working for Discovery. What other company really GETS what it’s like to be a teacher and provides support like this for their products? If there’s another company doing it to this extent, I haven’t heard of them.
After leaving the preconference event, I spent some time in the Discovery booth and then met up with David Warlick, Will Richardson and Rob, one of Will’s co-workers. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then rushed off to make sure we could get seats to Apple’s Podcast Palooza. We all remembered what it was like at NECC, when the line continued on for as far as the eye could see, so we wanted to get there early. Turned out we didn’t need to. There was great energy in the room, and there were definitely plenty of people there, but they didn’t come close to filling the room. Will kept leaning in to me and saying, "Well, you were around when podcasting began and looks like you’re here to see the beginning of the end!" Sorry Will, but I don’t think podcasting is going anywhere anytime soon! As he pointed out on weblogg-ed, "There must be at least 134 sessions on podcasting…" Tim Wilson was the one doing the presenting and he had a smooth informative session. Obviously, like all ADE’s, he used Keynote instead of PowerPoint. Aesthetically, gotta admit that Keynote makes things look pretty! But he definitely followed my own style of presenting. Let the stuff on the screen serve as background and keep the audience attention on you. If there’s something important to say, say it. But don’t force people to split their attention. He included some great suggestions for incorporating podcasts in the school environment as well. Tim wrote about the session here, and also provides links to listen to the entire presentaiton, which was recorded of course. Warlick did quite a few informal interviews before the presentation and came to an interesting conclusion. While there were fewer people attending the session than we would have expected, one the whole they were a very educated group when it came to podcasting. The majority of the people he spoke to not only knew what a podcast was and had listened to a few, many had created their own already.That’s always encouraging. It’s not that I think everybody must be podcasting, but the more people taking chances and experimenting with new technologies and evaluating their educational use, the better.
The next day began having breakfast with Warlick and Scott. Turns out that David is going to be doing some presentations for the DEN Regional Institutes. You can read more about them at the link, but suffice to say that they are free regional institutes over the summer that are going to have the likes of Hall Davidson, David Warlick and Will Richardson presenting at them. As Wesley Fryer says, "Anytime innovative and passionate educators get together to learn at events like this, it’s bound to be worthwhile!"
Immediately following breakfast, I raced to find an internet connection because there was going to be a live videoconference between Josh Wolff, our Discovery Educator Abroad, and a school in DC. Josh stayed up until 1:00am in Sydney so he could share some of his experiences with the stTeach42 – Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo › Create New Post — WordPressudents in Mrs. Reynold’s class. Everything worked perfectly and they had an incredible conversation despite a few thousand miles seperating them. Josh shared some stories, answered questions and got some feedback about things for him to research. He blogged about it the next morning as well. Such a fun project to be a part of.
From there, I raced back to the Discovery booth to spend half an hour sharing DiscoveryEducatorNetwork.com. What always amazes me is how many people stop by the booth, not to find out more infomration about our products or to ask about pricing or even to ask for help. The majority of the people that I spoke to stopped by just to say how much they loved unitedstreaming and how much it brings classroom experiences alive for their students. I know it sounds like I’m just plugging the company, but it’s so true it’s almost spooky.
After a little booth duty, Scott, Betsy and I raced across the street to a luncheon hosted by eSchool News to celebrate the four winners of their Best of Education Blogs awards. I had the honor of hosting a little panel discussion with Wesley Fryer, Frank LaBanca, Sara Mead and Bill MacKenty. What I really loved about the discussion was that they all came from such different perspectives. From a EduPolitical blog to educational theory, to classroom perspectives, to just partical blogging with students, the winners really reprsented the multitude of ways that blogging can be used in education. You can read more about the discussion at eSchool,or Moving at the Speed of Creativity, but I think Scott summed it up pretty well when he said, "this brief 30 minute discussion may have been the best professional development experience I have had in years." ’nuff said. They did video tape the entire thing, hopefully they’ll get it cut and published soon.
After getting a little bit of work done in the lobby of the hotel, I joined Will, Tim and Steve Burt (virtually) for the next episode of EdTech Coast To Coast. We had a nice conversation about the usual sorts of stuff: EdTech, where’s it going and what should we be doing about it? I say the usual stuff, but every time we talk about it, I always feel like we’re getting just a little closer to figuring out some answers. If the solutions were easy, then there wouldn’t be much to talk about. It really made me realize just how much I miss podcasting. I gotta get something published soon. Good time, good conversation.
As soon as they stopped recording, I sprinted downstairs and hitched a ride to the Dixie Crossroads where we were hosting a DEN dinner. It was to celebrate FETC, as well as honor the blog award winners. Frank and Wes came by, as well as a few surprises. Tim and Will came by, but the big surprise to me was Dean Shareski, who blogs at Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech. I’ve been a big fan of his work for quite a while now. The theme for the night was to spend some time casually chatting, but also learning from each other, and there was PLENTY of that going on. I saw Will, Tim and Dean break out the recorder and pass it around, which means something good was going on down there! I chatting with Dawn Strunk, Frank and a few other Discovery Educators. I spent a little bit of time explaining to the group what RSS was and what an aggregator was. It blew me away that Frank, an amazing blogger who was doing extremely innovative stuff with blogs and students, had never heard of an aggregator. Seems crazy to me, but the point is that you don’t need to be a complete blogging geek to make great educational use of the tool. One thing I found extremely comical was that everyone in the group was what I would consider pretty high tech, but we all had a piece of paper in front of us and were frantically scribbling down notes of things we wanted to look into later. We got a few nice photos of us with all of our low tech notes. Good thing pencils haven’t been banned yet. You can read more about the event here, here and here.
That was about it for me. Two days were busy enough to last an entire week. Honestly though, it was probably the most stimulating few days I’ve had in quite a while. Lots of great conversations, lots of learning, lots of sharing, and best of all, lots of connecting face to face with other passionate educators. That’s what it’s all about when you get down to it.
I want to throw out major kudos to Karen and Danielle. They really kicked off the DEN in Florida with a bang. To cheesily go along with the baseball theme from the preconference event, they hit a grand slam. Now I just need a week off to assimiliate it all!
If you actually read through this entire blog post, leave a comment for me letting me know. Every person that comments will get a shout out in my next podcast. It’s coming soon, I swear! Seriously! It is! Stop laughing! I mean it!
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