Colette Cassinelli’s edtech VISION

Dan Meyer has done it again – another contest – Annual Report II. 

The basic idea is to DESIGN information in four ways to represent 2008 as you experienced it. If you look at my second graph (below) you’ll understand why I missed the first Annual Report contest – I was on a self-imposed “no computer” hiatus during January 2008.  But this year I used the opportunity to play around with Photoshop – something I never take the time to do.

These four slides best represent 2008 for me: School, Learning, Family and my PLN. 2008 has been a great year for me professionally.  I gave presentations at three conferences (ITSC, NCCE and ILC) and  I attended the Google Teacher Academy.  I blogged regularly and was active in many online learning communities. I joined the Oregon EdTech Cadre and met tech-loving teachers from all over the state.    I feel more comfortable in my role as a Computer Teacher than I ever have before and I think that is reflected in my teaching.

With that in mind, here are my four slides:

Slide 1: This bar graph shows the number of students who walked through my classroom door in 2008, starting first with the end of Fall /Winter Semester 1, Spring Semester 2 and Fall Semester of the next school year.  I teach 6 different classes each term.  There are not a lot of electives at my small high school and many students choose to take the advanced computer classes their Junior & Senior year.  I love having them all – but it does make for a busy day and lots of planning.  Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleopold73/2906486794

Slide 2: I started this blog in July of 2007 – right when I was finishing up my Master’s of Educational Technology from Pepperdine University.  I had just spent the last year and half blogging for the program and realized I enjoyed the connections I made and the reflective writing.  I never really considered myself much of a writer before but I enjoyed sharing what I was doing with my students in my classroom and resouces I discovered. I wrote 120 posts in 2008 – which I’m sure isn’t a lot for some people – but it is for me.  This 3-D cone graph was made in Excel.

Slide 3: This slide is a timeline of the major family events for 2008.  We traveled to Arizona for Spring Break to visit my husband’s parents and took a side trip to Sedona.  My youngest son graduated from high school and the summer was busy with 2 weddings and trips to the beach and lakes.  We traveled up  to Gonzaga University in the fall for Parent’s weekend and I attended the ILC conference in October – where I met the charming Mr. Meyer himself <smile>.

Slide 4: My Personal Learning Network exploded in 2008.  I have met and stayed in contact with so many fabulous teachers from the Google Teacher Academy, the Oregon EdTech Cadre and the conferences I have attended.  My favorite part of ILC was folks coming up to me and saying, “Hey, I follow you on Twitter – and then the next thing you know we are sitting next to each other, sharing ideas, commenting on each other’s blogs and entering fun contests!

Wow … I wonder what 2009 will bring?

I encourage you to participate.  Alice Mercer already has posted her four slides.  Come on – it’s fun!

After discussing an article about how the Obama administration is using technology to make a difference and encouraging community service, I asked my students in my 8th Grade and Computer Applications classes  to reflect on their experience of using technology to “Be the Change in The World”.  Here are a few responses taken from their blogs:

I don’t really know if I have changed the world all that much…  I’m just glad for a chance to help get the word out.  Hopefully this will help in some small way to change what’s going on.   ~Bree

Having this blog has shown me the power of the web. It is becoming more and more apparent that the web will become a very important tool for people all over, from high schoolers to Barack Obama. Even young children are just as web saavy as their parents. With the mass global population online we must use it to get information out to change the world, whether it be steroids and drug awareness, global warming, or recyclling. We must be the change we want to see in the world!  ~Taylor

Using blogs to tell others about abortion has really helped me think about how big of an issue this is. When children and teens of this day and age use the modern materials, such as the internet, to tell others about what they think on big issues in our world today, it gets people thinking about what they can do.  ~Emily

Creating and writing in a blog was interesting. I learned a lot from having one. I hope that my blog changes the world, its hard to say if it did. If my blog affected atleast one person that would make me satisfied. A lot of people use technology so it is smart to use technology a source to get through to people and change the world.  ~Ashley

Using technology to improve the world is very effective because many young people use it. Spreading news through technology will help change the world because when they see the serious problems that our world faces, they will hopefully be motivated to help out to make the world a better place for themselves and for future generations.  ~Sophia

I used this blog to get the word out about other fuels besides gasoline we can use. This experience was good, but because the blog was so infrequently visited it is hard to feel the word reached very many people.  ~Eddie

Using a blog is could be a smart way to change the world and spread your ideas. By using a blog, you can access the information about whatever the issue is at any time.  ~Marcus

Having a blog has been exciting and a relief to me. Exciting in the sense that I met new people who commented on my blog and I learned how to manage a blog. A relief, because I feel like I’ve helped at least one person out there dealing with cancer or family members with cancer, just as I am. I think that using technology is very useful in many ways: it can spread information very quickly, connect many different people, as well as be personally useful to the user. To be honest, I wish I could have had more time to work on this blog; it was probably one of favorite projects from this whole semester.  ~Vivian

I read with interest Will Richardson’s recent article in Edutopia about an 11 yr old girl named Laura who started a blog last year titled 25 days to make a difference.  In the article, Richardson shares the story of how she gets her ideas for community service projects.

Earlier this year, as I was listening to a presentation by an eleven-year-old community volunteer and blogger named Laura Stockman about the service projects she carries out in her hometown outside Buffalo, New York, an audience member asked where she got her ideas for her good work.  Her response blew me away. “I ask my readers,” she said.

Like Laura, my Middle and High school students are blogging around the theme:  “We must be the change we wish to see in the world”.  After receiving parental OK, my students choose a topic for their blog.  The topics range from global warming, recycling, humane society, pollution, alternative energies, friendliness to more serious topics such as abortion, teen steroid use, human trafficking and cancer.

I direct their beginning posts and also model for them what kind of posts they can have in their blog.  Recently every student embedded a Google form in their blog to either quiz readers about their knowledge of their topic or survey their opinions.  Below is a sample that I made for my blog titled “Mrs. Cassinelli’s guide to Digital Citizenship”.

Our currently focus in our blogging is to encourage interactivity and create interest in the blog  topic.  Having a survey gets readers to your blog but we are also trying to encourage commenting and conversation.

I taught my students about memes.  Each student is reflecting on their topic and creating a meme and challenging classmates to blog about THEIR topic when tagged.

Here’s a sample of a recent post by one of my students:

Students are also participating in a comment challenge for two weeks and tracking the number of posts they comment on and number of words.  Luckily we recently have made contacts with some other classrooms (http://thinwalls.edublogs.org/ http://wyatt67.edublogs.org/ http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=73127 ) that are blogging and look forward to sharing our message of change with classrooms around the world.

If you’d like to participate – leave the URL of your class or student blog or visit ours at http://vcs.21classes.com

Watch out world.  Today’s youth are going to be catalysts of change.

Each semester my students create their own blogs around the theme “We must be the change we wish to see in the world”. I use this activity as part of my digital citizenship unit.  I want the students to experience what it means to be a digital citizen in an authentic manner.

I’m careful.  I clearly explain to the students the purpose of the blogging project and I send home a letter to the parents asking them to approve their child’s topic,  Many students choose topics such as pollution, recycling, global warming, mosquito nets, charity, alternative fuels, etc..  See this post about how I use Web 2.0 tools in my blog assignments.

This fall, I had one parent who was concerned about allowing her Freshman daughter to post online and participate in the blogging activity.  The signed permission slip came back with lots of questions and several email communications questioned the value of the project (I think she thought it was going to be more like a journal).

Here is a copy of my response:

Dear Parent,

I understand you concerns about the blogging project and protecting your child’s privacy – that is exactly why I am teaching this digital citizenship unit.

Too often today students don’t even think twice about what they are posting online and who will be reading their posts.  I feel the best way to teach students about Digital Citizenship is to have them practice it in a safe & protected environment.

Here are some of the things I am doing with the students.

1.  Draft your message before you post.  Take time to carefully think out what you want to say and how you will say it.  Each student drafts their posts in a Google document before posting to their blog.  I encourage them to only blog about the topic at hand, “change the world”.  We do not discuss where we attend school, our activities, etc.  This is not a personal journal.  The only difference between our blogging project and making a PowerPoint is that your classmates can have a conversation about the topic.

2.  Design your blog carefully.  Some students did put their photos on their site immediately – and now are correcting that.  I have showed the kids how to take an image and modify it in Photoshop to protect their privacy or consider using an avatar to represent them instead.

3.  I have only invited a few schools who participated in our blogging project last Spring to comment on the blogs.  Most of the commenting done right now is done by students in the student’s  learning circle (3-4 students).  I moderate all comments before they are posted and don’t hesitate to delete comments that are not well written, have nothing to do with the topic, or are inappropriate (though none have been).

Too many of student’s assignments in school are not relevant to their lives or do not encourage communication among students.  I believe that blogging (in a safe environment) can do that.  Having an authentic audience to write for and having classmates comment on the writing raises the level of quality of student work and engagement.  They are eager to see what their friends say and in return – create posts that are interesting and “comment worthy”.

I do  respect your decision and your concerns, though.  That is why I have parents sign and approve the topic.  I still want your child to participate and offer a couple of solutions.

1.  Change all posts to “private”.  I will be the only one who can view and comment.

2.  Change all posts to “P3″ or “V** Computers” – this will limit viewing and comments from either her class or only students from our school.

3.  Allow posts to be public but I moderate all posts and comments (I already approve all comments).

4.  Remove blog completely and all the assignments will be done on a Google Document.

One year ago I began blogging at edtech VISION. Previous to that I had only blogged for my Masters of Educational Technology about my Action Research Project for Pepperdine University and occasional posts at Classroom 2.0.

Anyone who knows me will understand that a one-year anniversary is a big deal for me. I’m the queen of startups. I get excited about something new and charge head first full of excitement and energy.

My husband teases me that I have two speeds – fanatic and couch potato. I will begin a new project – whether its a new piece of software to learn or painting a room – and I jump in and completely immerse myself in the project. I will spend hours focused and gleam as much information as I can. My enthusiasm continues for awhile and then slowly the newness wears off and the project turns into “work” and there the project stays. Sometimes half-finished, sometimes done (but not cleaned up – yes, honey I am admitting to the mess I left in the garage) or sometimes i only occasionally pay attention but my heart is not really into it.

This blog almost became victim to my disease. Last Fall I went for almost a month without any postings. I wrote …

It’s not that I haven’t been connected. I am been dutifully reading my Bloglines and occasionally participating in Classroom 2.0 but just haven’t felt inspired to write lately. The truth is the end of the term, grades and personal activities have taken up my time (life? What’s a life?) and I haven’t felt the tug to share.

I also gave myself permission to take off time from this blog during the holidays and around exam time in January.

The thing that I noticed was even though I wasn’t blogging much, I was still connected to my network. I dutifully read postings in my Bloglines account, I added new people in twitter, I began listening to EdTech Talk and participating in the chats.

But the thing that really brought me back to blogging is my need to process what I was reading and reading a post somewhere who wrote in a post to not worry about blogging for an audience, just begin by describing what you do with your students.

So I began blogging about my classroom activities and began to get excited about sharing what I was doing with my students. i focused on the learning that was happening and not just the tools. I used my blog to prepare and promote workshops I was offering at local conferences. I blogged because I was inspired not because I felt like I needed to post something profound.

I am much more of a talker than a writer – but blogging has been a great exercise for me. I love meeting people at conferences who I have been following in Twitter or if I read their blogs. I have a different voice inside my head when I now see their posts and responses.

I love having the opportunity to broaden my personal learning network through the OETC EdTech Cadre, the monthly meetings of the local Catholic school tech teachers and the great folks at Google Teacher Academy.

Blogging for me will never replace these interactions for me – I’m too social. But I do value the quiet time I get to just get my thoughts down and reflect on how much I have shared and learned this past year.

So thank you to everyone who has taken the time to join me in my little corner of the blogosphere. I love having you here and I appreciate more than you will ever know when you take the time to say hi, leave a comment or respond to a twitter plea.

Thank you .. God bless – i can’t wait to see what the next year brings!!!!

This past month my middle and high school students began blogging at http://vcs.21classes.com . Each student based their blog topic on this quote by Gandhi, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world”. Students chose topics such as recycling, Darfur, donating blood, AIDs, pollution, animal abuse, genocide, teen stress, depression …

This is the first exposure to blogging so I directed their beginning posts. Here are the suggestions:

1. Write two paragraphs explaining why you chose your topic. Tell about your topic and why you chose it. You might explain what you hope to accomplish by writing in this blog.
2. Find three resources that you think will be helpful (examples, advice, facts, PSA, news articles, etc). Give the URL. Write a 1-2 sentence explaining the resource and how it will be helpful.
3. Create a motivational poster at http://www.bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php. Cite where you got your information or explain why you made your poster the way you did.
4. List very specific things that people can do to support your topic or change the world somehow. There needs to be 2-3 (or more) suggestions for all three categories: Personal level – what can people do personally about your topic; Local level – what can people do about your topic in your community; Global level – what can people do about your topic on a global scale.
5. Educate your classmates about your topic in a fun and creative way. Choose one of the following sites to create a cartoon, slideshow, or creative project and educate us about one aspect of your topic. Pick something that we probably don’t already know about your topic. Make it fun and educational at the same time!
6. Participate in the comment challenge. Visit a new blog every day and write comments, ask questions or give more information for each entry.
7. Embed a survey or online quiz on your blog. Report your results in a week.
8. Post additional entries of your choice: personal reactions, news story, research, YouTube video, Discussion from comment, graphs, interesting books/videos/podcasts on topic … your choice.

Some other helpful hints when blogging with students:

• Group the students into “learning circles”. the 4-5 members of that group read and comment on each other’s blogs before the rest of the class. This ensures everyone receives comments – not just the popular students.
• Give the students time to play around and personalize their blogs. 21classes.com allows students to change background colors, themes, etc.
• Make reading and writing blogs a priority. I decided to include blogging for a shorter period of time with more intensity than spreading it out over the course of the school year (this will be reevaluated when semester is over).
• Give specific ideas on what to post but allow extra postings and creativity.
• Teach the students how to comment. See Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments.
• Teach digital citizenship: only first names, don’t identify school, use avatar or creative filters in photoshop for image, be kind when commenting, take blog seriously, and write for intended audience.
• Moderate all comments.
• Have parents approve topics and give consent. Students should agree to abide by blog rules and etiquette.

I’ve only had a few issues with student blogging. I’ve had to remind students to write properly (no IM speak) and edit some posts for content. I had to remind the students to know your audience and keep information age appropriate – especially when dealing with sensitive issues like AIDs, Darfur, depression, etc. Even though it takes time, I moderate all comments I am not afraid to reject comments if they are silly, inappropriate or poorly written.

The students especially enjoyed being able to embed comics, Voki, images and surveys in their blogs. This added a creative aspect beside writing and also created interaction between the students. Students supported members in their learning circles with lots of positive comments and praise.

Blogging is a new addition to my computer curriculum and is here to stay.

Photo credit: Motivational poster made by Gloria http://vcs.21classes.com/12-Gloria

New blogger Jon Becker lamented in his blog a few days ago

“It’s as if folks like Will Richardson, David Warlick, Wes Fryer, Vicki Davis, Dean Shareski, Stephen Downes, Chris Lehmann…(and, yes, you Scott) are having an awesome cocktail party conversation and I’m standing on the outside staring over their shoulders and listening in, trying to get a word in, but not penetrating that conversation at all. I know there are LOTS of us on the outside looking in. “

Since then, there has been flurry of activity on the blogosphere and twitter about why do we blog, technorati rankings, numbers of comments, who is our audience and the idea of an exclusive cocktail party.

Obviously it has touched a nerve of many people including some of those listed above but more importantly the questions posed asks each one of us to reflect on why DO we blog. Are we in it for the glory, the popularity, the ratings … or is it something deeper, more reflective .. personal.

I am the only computer teacher in the small high school where I teach. I loved the ongoing discussions during my Masters of Educational Technology online program at Pepperdine and longed for that type of interaction with my own staff – but honestly – only a handful were enthusiastic about technology and “spoke my language”. I have connected with other tech teachers in my area and found a home online with other educators who are also passionate about technology.

I began this blog last summer and use it to document what I am learning and share resources with my friends. I am amazed how many times I tell someone “Oh, I just blogged about that” and then show them my blog and additional resources.

I read a lot more blogs than I do actually writing. I am finding my voice and absorbing so much through Classroom 2.0, twitter, Ed Talk Talk conversations and so on.

Personally I like to meet interesting people at cocktail parties. I’d like to join more often in the conversation but for now – I am happy to just be listening and giving my input when I feel comfortable.

Thanks for the conversation Jon. It’s been interesting and I’m glad that you’ve learned a lot about yourself and blogging along the way.

I gave myself a self-imposed blogging sabbatical during the months of December and January.  I found myself spending way too much time reading postings from my bloglines account, bookmarking cool sites, surfing the net – but not really spending any real quality time learning and reflecting.

I’m glad to say that after two months off I am geared up and ready to get involved in the educational blogosphere again.  Bring on the twitter, bloglines and Classroom 2.0.  I am refreshed and ready to participate (but not overdo it).

Well, I have been blogging with 2 different classes this semester and would like to give an update of how it’s going so far.  I chose to use http://www.21classes.com with my Graphic Design and Digital Video Production classes.  I chose to blog with these students because they are considered “advanced” project classes and incorporating reflective writing along with the projects will give me insights into the students thinking of why they designed projects the way they did.  Plus the blogs give an authentic audience for the student’s work and opportunities for comments create interaction among the students.

First of all, the Graphic Design students immediately taught each other how to customize their blogs with colors, backgrounds, embedded images, and tweaking CSS code (see samples).  I only pointed the way and soon I noticed kids helping kids and lots of learning happening without any of my help – thank you MySpace!

The Digital Video students enjoyed embedding their first video project into their blog.  I have also assigned them to look for examples of interesting video clips, editing techniques and add them to their blog for assignments.  Almost all written work for both classes is placed on the blogs.  I am requiring (for now) student to comment on other’s post to encourage communication – but most of the kids do it without specific direction.

21classes keeps our student’s blogs private and also has a community portal so students can easily access each other’s blogs plus it gives me a place to post assignments for both classes.  Students from Graphic Design and Digital Video classes can see each other’s blogs and this has increased interest in what the other class is doing.

So far I am please with the overall layout, user interface and ease of use of 21 classes.  We are already maxing out our free space so I will be upgrading to the paid subscription ($8.95 per month) but this gives each student 25 mb of space which will be needed by the Graphic Design students since we are posting graphic samples and student projects on the blogs.

I spent last week as a Graduate Assistant for the Pepperdine Master’s of Arts in Educational Technology [online] program in Malibu (yes, Malibu!) California. VirtCamp is a chance for the new cadre members to meet face to face and learn the communication tools for their online year ahead. The excitement in the air was contagious and as I sat there and reflected about my 13-month journey through OMET – I was struck about how much I learned this year and how my community taught me most of what I now know.

I admit – I had to hold myself back from gushing all kinds of advice like: You’ve got to learn about del.icio.us and other social bookmarking sites. If you work on multiple computers like I do you will love having all your bookmarks in one place (plus it’s fun to snoop through other people’s bookmarks!). Wikis? I love wikis. I use them all the time. Whenever my cadremates and I were discussing a situation I was always to first to suggest, “Let’s add a link to our wiki and add our ideas there”. Wikis are so great for collaboration and giving each person a voice. Oh … and you must post all of your pics on flickr and play around with flickr toys! I found myself proclaiming the wonders of blogging – even though before this program I could barely keep a diary for more than a week. Now I find that I have so much swimming around in my head that I have to write it down so I can digest it slowly, let it mull around in my brain for awhile and then come back to the idea later on and discuss the idea some more.

I was so busy during the week that I didn’t have time for much blogging and realized how much I missed it. Now that I am finally reflecting on what happened I am realizing that blogging is so much more about the process of my thinking and actions – and less about “what happened”. I definitely missed a golden opportunity – oh well – next time.

During the course of VirtCamp, class members are thrown into social learning activities where they share how they learned what they know and are asked to complete activities in groups where they are given little direction of how to complete the project. It is basically organized chaos. Some people love the open-endedness and interactions and others crave some written directions. There is no better way to reflect on your preferred learning style than to be thrown into a situation where you are challenged to grow and be a learner again. Most of the people in the program are K-12, Higher Ed or corporate trainers and I am sure they are used to being the experts and “knowing how to do it all”. Being placed back in a position of a learner is good for educators. I think it is critical to experience and remember the feelings of nervousness, fear, frustration, exhilaration, and sense of accomplishment. It will make each of use more sensitive to the learners in our environment.

My main role was to assist the new students when they needed help with communication tools, setting up blogs, designing websites or answering basic questions. The students were eager to learn and there was A LOT to learn in a short amount of time. After teaching someone how to set up a template in Dreamweaver or how to add tags to a blog entry I found myself saying to them, OK now, pay it forward. Teach this skill to at least one other class member”. I am happy to say that after two or three days I observed many new Dreamweaver templates, lots of interesting blogs and many new skills being shared with classmates.

Just think. Individually we know a lot – but what if each of us really takes on the theme of “Pay it forward”. Collectively we know so much more and we can accomplish a great deal together. The OMET program embraces social learning at it’s best. Educators can learn a great deal from each other if we take the time to share best practices and be open to learning.

Pay it forward!