I’ve had several requests via email for my Top 10 presentation from NECC, and realized that I should probably post it here. Of course, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing!

So here’s a link to the presentation slides, such as they are. Most of the presentation is live demonstrations, so they’re only of limited value by themselves.

Here’s a link to the ISTE broadcast of the session. Video looks and sounds great, but they didn’t record what I was doing on the screen until 20 minutes in.

Then there’s my own personal broadcast of it using Procaster and Livestream. It has what’s happening on my screen throughout the entire presentation. However, the camera angle isn’t exactly the most flattering one I could have chosen

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Ben Grey wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been sitting on, knowing that I needed to respond, but loath to start because I knew what it would require to do it justice. He asks people to respond to a very simple question: “Why Technology?”

Often, nobody is given the opportunity to defend the cutting of budgets or programs. But what if they were? What if you were? If tomorrow you had to stand in front of your Board of Education and respond to the question, “why should we continue to use and pursue technology in our district,” what would you say?

My initial smartass answer is, “why not?” But obviously that doesn’t do it justice. So I sat down and thought about it. And then I came back to it. Again and again I mulled it over and couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I know how important it is, but I was having trouble pinning down exactly why I felt as strongly as I do.

It all gelled together when I saw what I thought was an unrelated video. Someone on Twitter linked to the Larry Lessig Ted Talks video as an example of how to use 200 slides in a 20 minute presentation in a GOOD way. However, when I only got about four minutes in before I had to stop watching.

At the 2:54 mark, he begins to tell a story about property laws. Trespassing laws used to extend property borders straight up, all the way to the sky. When airplanes began flying overhead, the question was raised before the Supreme Court, whether planes flying over property were trespassing. It seems some farmers were worried about the planes distressing their chickens. So the Supreme Court studied the law, discussed the issue, and as you might imagine they ruled that the farmers were wrong, and that “the doctrine protecting land all the way to the sky has no place in the modern world.” Just think about how complicated it would be if those LA to DC flights had to zig zag around different properties. And then came the phrase that made me hit the stop button. “Common sense revolts at the idea.”

And there you go. Failing to teach our students technology? “Common sense revolts at the idea.” That sums it all up for me. It’s an integral part of our world at this point. It’s not a matter of preparing them for life, it’s a matter of setting them up to be successful. It’s a matter of giving them every advantage. It’s a matter of teaching them ethics, citizenship and… well… common sense. And to be honest, it’s a question that we shouldn’t even be asking anymore.

At some point, we accepted that every student needs to know how to read and write in order to be successful. Well, technology falls under the same category. The problem is, people assume that just because a student is classified as Digital Native, people think the student knows everything they need to be successful. That simply isn’t the case. Is uploading video to YouTube a skill? Something that can be done ‘well’ or ‘poorly’. Take a look at this video and compare that with all the videos on YouTube of kids smoking Salvia and you tell me whether there’s a difference, or a teachable moment waiting to happen.

So why technology?

Because every career in the world is being impacted by it.

Because every student has an equal opportunity to ruin their chances of being successful through it.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

It’s just common sense.

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Hi. My name is Steve Dembo. If you do a Google search for “Dembo” I have four hits on the front page. Considering all the famous Dembo’s, that’s quite a mediocre feat! And that’s how I identified myself to most people for the first few decades of my life.

About five years ago, I registered the domain name Teach42.com. Since then, there are thousands of people who know me primarily by that name. It has become my brand, my online identity, my signature. People know that if they see Teach42 on a website, that’s me.

This is nothing unusual though. Anybody who registers for just about any website has some sort of alter-ego now. An alias that they use to refer to themselves. Use the same one often enough, and you become quite attached to it.

How disappointed would you be if you had visited Twitter, intending to register, only to find that YOUR username had already been taken? Somebody else was online and communicating under the name that you had dibs on. Deliberate or not is irrelevant. First come, first served.

This has led to hundreds of thousands of URL’s being snatched up and squatted on. The cost is so low that it’s easy to grab them, either to hang on to or to put up for sale/auction. Heck, for only 8 bucks, I can register any open domain I want. 8 bucks is nothing, right?

Well, mull this one over. Twitter accounts are free. And considering that Twitter is now one of the largest social networking sites on the internet, are names on Twitter as valuable as domain names? Some sites seem to think so. People are snagging up Twitter names and putting them up for sale. After all, there’s only a finite amount of ‘good’ ones, right?

Of course, why stop at Twitter? While it may be the flavor of the month, who knows what will be replacing it. With new sites being launched daily, perhaps the next big thing went public this morning. How can you ensure that you will be able to get in there and get that perfect username, the same one that you used everywhere else?

Sites like UsernameCheck.com provide lists of Web 2.0 and social sites, and will check your username against all of them, to let you see where it has been registered and where it as available still. You could easily use that to see where you haven’t registered yet and start chasing windmills, registering your username on every site out there. But more will be coming out tomorrow, and the day after that. Can anyone really keep up?

Which leads me to KnowEm.com. It’s similar to UserNameCheck, but with one small twist. They’ll check where you’ve registered … and for a small fee they’ll register you on the rest. Then, for $20 a month, they’ll keep registering you on any new sites that they add, an estimated 15-20 per week.

I puked a little when I read that at first. Really?? I’m going to pay more than I currently pay for Tivo to have somebody register my name at every site that gets released? But then I started thinking about how bummed I’d be if I didn’t have Teach42 registered on Twitter. Or on Flickr. Or anywhere else for that matter. It’s my own personal brand. It has led to my current job, speaking gigs around the country, and an audience that I’m eternally grateful for. Is that worth a few bucks per month? Well, I haven’t plugged in my PayPal account yet, but I no longer think it’s such a crazy idea.

And that’s for me on a personal level. From a business standpoint, I think it’s almost a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t you want to maintain a tight leash on your brand and online identity?

So the question is, just how valuable is your online name? Can you put a price on it? And how upset would you be if it wasn’t available? What, if anything, would you spend to ensure that you maintain control of it and to be 100% positive that you have it reserved for you when the next big thing hits?

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Illinois Computing Educators 2009 has come and gone! I’m too tired to write a coherant wrap up post right now, but I will say this: There was a closeness, family type of feeling there this year beyond what I’ve seen in years past. Not that it hasn’t always been a tight knit group, and a wonderful conference to attend, but this year it seemed to be a little more so than in years past.

I can only attribute it to 3 things. 1) The addition of the PLN Plaza. An open lounge type area for people to network/hangout/plurk in. Scott Meech did a fantastic job putting it together and keeping it active. 2) The bar area being smoke free. In previous years, only the smokers would hang out there, and everyone else would do their best to hold their breath and race past it. This year, it was a place for anyone and everyone to congregate. And congregate they did. 3) The attendance of Kevin Honeycutt. Not to take anything away from anybody else who was a speaker or traveled many many miles to come, but I must say hanging out with Kevin was like a breath of fresh air. Truly a kind and genuine human being and it was a pleasure to watch him ‘in action’.

So, with that, I’ll just share two highlights. So long as we’re on the subject of good feelings, Thursday night Kevin broke out his guitar and we were treated to a fantastic jam session. Here’s just a little taste of it.

The second is my ‘geekbumps’ highlight of the conference floor. The latest and greatest from SMART. Their response to the Microsoft Surface. But this thing is produced for the consumer market and ready for sale. I played around with it for about 10 minutes and was way impressed. It ain’t cheap, but it truly is a magnificent piece of technology. The vendor showing it was Bradfield’s, so if you’re interested in it feel free to drop them a line.

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Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to.

As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly?

Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults?

Enjoy:

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Jim Beeghley pointed out to me a bill that was introduced in Pennsylvania that made me start dry heaving at my desk. House Bill number 363 of 2009 attempts to amend an earlier bill to further prohibit “telephone pagers and certain electronic devices.”

It’s short and sweet.

The possession by students of telephone paging devices, commonly referred to as beepers, cellular telephones and portable electronic devices that record or play audio or video material shall be prohibited on school grounds, at school sponsored activities and on buses or other vehicles provided by the school district.

Of course, recognizing that broad sweeping legislature at the state level may be intrusive, overbearing and insufficient to accommodate the needs of all local communities, they do allow for individual districts to bend the rules under certain circumstances.

Well, two circumstances.

If the student is a volunteer fireman, or if they need it for medical reasons.

So all portable devices that record or play audio or video material are going to be banned from school grounds and activities. I sure hope that there aren’t any schools in PA that have laptop initiatives. Or that allow students to record lectures. Or that do any sort of podcasting. Banned, banned and banned.

EVEN if they did just restrict it to cell phones, it’d still be ridiculous. Regardless of your feelings about cell phones in the classroom, I hope you agree that it is a decision that should be made at the school or district level, not at the state level.

If I lived in Pennsylvania, I’d be throwing a hissy fit (technical term) right now.

Feh. Someone tell me some good news before I go yack.

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As many of you have seen on Twitter lately, I’ve been promoting my wife’s new social network Jobless In Chicago. She was one of the many people who were let go from their jobs as the economy has continued it’s steady nosedive. With signs looking like things will be getting worse before they get better, she decided to create a Ning for people to support each other and their efforts to find new employment. I personally know at least 8 or 9 people that have been let go recently and many many more that are in fear of it.

When times get rough, it’s important for people to band together. We’ve all been jobless at one time or another, we’re all hurting from the economy right now, and many of us have family members and friends that have been greatly impacted by layoffs. So Jobless In Chicago is a site for people to share ideas for finding new jobs, support for people that are struggling, and suggestions for new ways to get back on the right track.

You don’t need to be jobless or live in Chicago to participate. Show your support ‘employmently challenged’ people who are banding together. Stop by the Ning and join today!

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Janet English over at KOCE has been hard at work putting together the Film on the Fly video challenge and yesterday was the big day! Early in the day, she sent out a text message to everyone who signed up with the prompt: “Everything changed – when the box mysteriously arrived at my doorstep.” The challenge was to then grab your cell phone and create a short story (2 minutes or less) based on that prompt, filmed entirely on your cell phone. The results have already been fantastically creative. You can see the videos over at their group ning, FilmontheFly.ning.com.

Two of my favorites so far were Hall Davidson’s, who actually did his while in the security line at the airport. You gotta see it to believe it. Yes, he got his phone back and the men with the rubber gloves were surprisingly gentle! My other favorite was a Dr. Seuss style incredibly creative story featuring hand drawn images.

Matt Monjan and I are in Pennsylvania together right now and decided to team up for it. We shot the entire thing on my Nokia N95 and then did just a touch of editing. We used iMovie 6 and pieced the entire thing together in about an hour or so.

If you think this looks like fun… well, it is. And if you’d like to be a part of the next one, you can. The next Film on the Fly is going to be on 3/14: PI DAY! I can’t wait. To signup, visit FilmOnTheFly.

So here’s our entry. Hope you enjoy it!

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Welcome to the new theme for Teach42.com! This is something that’s been in the works for quite a while now (far too long), but I’m thrilled to finally switch over to it today. I’d been thinking about getting myself a new theme since I started seeing other blogs using the same one I’d be using. I’ve always wanted to have something completely original, but in the past must of the custom ones I’ve used have had issues on the backend. I finally decided to take the plunge when I saw the EFL Geek’s new theme which completely blew me away. So I emailed Sean and asked him if he’d be interested in creating a custom theme for me and he mentioned that he was creating his own design company and would love to work together.

Heh, I have to give him major credit. Between conferences and family and this that and the other thing, I haven’t been the easiest person to work with. But he’s always been a true professional and fit the development around my crazy schedule. From brainstorming ideas out, to graphic design to creating a complete custom wordpress theme with all the features I wanted, he did an absolutely phenomenal job.

I have to admit, at first I balked a little bit about paying someone to create a theme for me. After all, it’s just a blog… But then again, it’s also something I’ve invested five years of my life on. It’s gotten me my current job, and introduced me to thousands of educators world wide. It’s my identify online, my resume, my cv and my permanent record. And once I started thinking along these lines it seemed almost odd to me that I hadn’t invested more in it already. So I took some of the money this blog generates from Google Ads and I set it aside to have the new theme created. I wanted something somewhat whimsical, and yet geeky. I love the computer cables strewn about everywhere in the sidebar widgets and such. Usual web 2.0 tools are integrated in as well. Gravatar user images are thrown in for commentors and so on. I also have a few plans that we didn’t stick in yet but may be added in the future.

I hope you like it! It’s funny but this theme has been ready to switch over to for a few weeks now, but I kept putting off making hte change because I wanted to do a proper introduction for it. However, in the meantime, I kept putting off blog posts because I wanted to wait to post them until the new theme was ready! And while waiting for that to happen, I just didn’t post anything. I should have taken the advice I always give to other new bloggers. JUST DO IT. Don’t wait for bigger and better, don’t waste time with things to come. Do it now, as you can always add more and improve later.

So with that, I hope you like the new digs! Leave a comment and let me know what you think. And if you decide to do something along these lines yourself, I personally recommend you reach out to Sean. He was a true professional and great to work with.

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VERY excited to share with you the latest monstrosity to come from the Davis/Lindsay labs. As you’ll see, they’ve come up with a fantastic collaborative project, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. Read, soak it in, and then apply to become a part of it…. and join the book club!!

Net Generation Education Project

Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay

As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students.  The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project.

Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video.  The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause.  Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his new Book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.

So, the next level of “flattening” is to not only have classrooms connect but to have the classrooms connect in new and more far-reaching ways with the authors of their books. Recent examples of connected classrooms and authors include Karl Fisch’s Whole New Mind Project as they work with  Dan Pink and such as Will Richardson and Anne Davis did with Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees.

In the same genre students in this project will interact on a Ning jointly created with Don Tapscott. Don will post weekly questions to the Discussion forum and leave video messages to the students.  It will be a read/write project.  He will also interact LIVE via a webinar.  Don has a vision for improved educational outcomes and is reaching out to interact directly with students through his challenge and this project.

Additionally, the Discovery Educators Network is going to be providing and sharing tips and information on effective video presentations and how-to’s and a book club group for educators.  Don Tapscott will keynote and the student keynotes are award winning virtual worlds educator Peggy Sheehy and her middle School students from Suffern Middle School using machinima from their Island in Second Life.

We will be studying this year’s Horizon Report (released January 2009) but adding to it the intro and Chapter 5 from Don’s book, Grown Up Digital:  (Rethinking Education) to the reading assignments for students.    Students will be divided into groups to analyze some of the key trends in reworking education to create collaborative report written with other students from around the world.  Each team will have a project manager and assistant project manager to help facilitate the work on the team.  These “managers” will be students with teachers working as facilitators.

Each student will cast their vision for the future of education with a video to be uploaded on our project ning.  All videos will be automatically entered into Don Tapscott’s Net Generation Education Challenge competition and could win scholarship money for future educational pursuits. 

You do not HAVE to be a part of the project with Julie and I to join the Ning and participate in Don’s challenge competition – so go ahead and do that.  But if you are ready to have your students collaborate globally and follow the best practices as used in the award winning Flat Classroom, Horizon, and Digiteen projects fill out this form before February 9th and applynow!.  

Our tentative timeline: 

•   2/1- 2/9 – Application process for classrooms
  • 2/1 – 3 pm EST – Information Meeting
• 2/2 – 2/7 – Selection Process (classes will be notified as soon as they are selected)
• 2/6 – Ning, wiki, and google group are “live” by this date
• 2/10 – Final announcements of Classrooms
• 2/11 – Greeting from Don posted to the Ning via video – this may be his “author keynote” or he may choose to have a challenge each week and have it be small pieces.
  • Weekly- discussions posted to the forum (can we pick a day and a time for this to happen?)  Will Don have a blog on the site as well?

• 2/11-2/18 – “Handshake process” – Students join Ning – post introductions

  • 2/18 – Teams announced
• 2/18 – 3/2 – Research phase of project
  • 3/2 – Wikis complete
• 3/1 – Suffern Middle School Student Keynote

• Some time in March, there will be a live session with Don Tapscott

• 3/3 – 3/31 – Movie Artifact phase of project (note that there will be some overlap between Research and Movie Artifact)
•    *Storyboarding 3/3 – 3/8
•    *Outsourced video requests posted to the Ning by 3/10 (we would like students to be able to do this with a blog post on the Ning and tag it outsourced – we can then add a menu item for everything tagged outsource_request and students can sign up with a reply and post a link in the comments, this is a change from the last project but will work better)
• 3/31 – Final Deadline for All Movies to be posted
• 4/1 – 4/8 – Post project reflections, student summits

Net Generation Education Challenge

Written by Kasi Bruno

A crisis is emerging in our schools and universities.

Traditional, one-way broadcast models of education are out-dated. Schools have not evolved as quickly as other institutions, and students are becoming disengaged as a result. Why are connected students at home suddenly disconnected at school?

How can we reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness for the 21st century?

Inspired by the work of Don Tapscott and Grown Up Digital, the Net Gen Education Challenge offers everyone an outlet through which to express their ideas and opinions about their ideal model of education. The challenge community will connect engaged participants all around the world, bringing educators, students, parents and professionals together in a global dialogue on learning. In partnership with the CBC, Flat Classroom Project, the Discovery Channel’s Educator Network and Classroom 2.0, Don Tapscott invites you to share your ideas and help make education engaging, inspiring and relevant.

Discovery Educator Network/Net Generation Book Club

by Steve Dembo

In conjunction with the Net Generation Education (NGE) project, the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) will be hosting a weekly book club for Tapscott’s work, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World.  While the NGE project will be focusing just on the Intro and Chapter 5, we will gather together weekly to discuss the ideas within the book and their implications for education.  Best of all, the author himself, Don Tapscott, will sit in on the final week to share his thoughts in a candid conversation with everyone who participates in the book club. 

There will be both live and web based discussion options for participants.  The live component will take place Monday evenings, 2/9 through 3/23 at 7pm EST. We will be looking for people to lead the weekly discussions as well.  If you would be interested in volunteering to lead the discussion for one of the weekly meetings, please mark it on the registration form.

If you are a DEN member and would like to be a part of the book club, please register here.  If you are not currently a DEN member and would like to learn more, please contact me !

Don’s publisher has been gracious enough to offer the book for only $18.45, a generous discount, to everybody who participates in the Book Club.

There are three ways to order:
Order directly from website http://www.800CEORead.com
Email Aaron at and let him know you are participating in the DEN / Net Gen Book Club Aaron@800ceoread.com
Call Aaron at 1.414.274.6406, ext. 204 and do the same.

Schedule

Click here to register for the book club

Net Generation Education Webinars

by Steve Dembo
To support teachers and students who are participating in the Net Generation Education Project, the Discovery Educator Network will be hosting four webinars with two of the country’s foremost experts on digital storytelling; Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan.  These webinars will be intended for teachers to attend WITH their students so that they may learn ways to create digital stories from the very best.  To learn more about Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan, visit the Discovery Education Speakers Bureau.

Webinar 1 with Joe Brennan: Wed, March 4, 1pm EST
Webinar 2 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 11, 1pm EST
Webinar 3 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 18, 1pm EST
Webinar 4 with Joe Brennen: Wed, March 25, 1pm EST

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