Pennsylvania

Many of you have either seen or heard others mention the powerful "Did You Know" video originally produced by Karl Fisch with secondary edits created by Scott McLeod. 

The embedded video below is hosted on TeacherTube as well as YouTube.  If you are unable to see it due to restrictions, you can view it as a streaming Flash video.

Well, Karl and Scott have been approached by XPLANE to collaborate on a sequel to their original creation.  Karl blogged about it on March 30th (as did Scott) and included in his blog - in true read/write web fashion - a few questions for his readers.  He is soliciting responses to incorporate into the revised and expanded version that XPLANE will help produce.

Now that you’ve watched this presentation, we would suggest the following:

• Ask yourself this question: . . .
• Ask your child(ren)’s (school’s?) teacher(s) this question: . . .
• Ask your child(ren)’s (school’s?) principal this question: . . .
• Ask your child(ren)’s (school’s?) superintendent/school board this question: . . .
• Ask your state representative/senator/governor this question: . . .
• Ask your congressperson/senator this question: . . .
• Ask your employer this question: . . .

So, please click over to Karl’s blog and post your responses to those questions.

In case you missed the posting on the DEN National blog about the upcoming EdTechConnect webinar series, check out the upcoming all-STAR lineup and how YOU could be on the roster for May.

EdTechConnect, the monthly webinar series featuring the biggest
names in the ed-tech community, is going weekly!  For the entire month
of April, we will have a different webinar every week.  The Discovery
Educator Network team is pulling out all the stops and sharing with you
some of the most cutting edge ways to incorprorate digital media in the
classroom.  From iPods to Podcasting, and Google Earth to Widgets,
we’re going to be showing you new and innovative ways to take
unitedstreaming to the next level.

April 4: Staggeringly Great Things Mixing Media and Google Earth with Hall Davidson
April 11: unitedstreaming 24/7 with Lance Rougeux
April 18: Widgetizing the Builders with Steve Dembo
April 25: Do You Have the Audacity to Podcast? with Jannita Demian

OR Click here to register to register for them all!

But that’s not all.  This month it’s our turn, next month it will be
your turn!  If you’re using Digital Media in the classroom to transform
your students’ learning, then you might be one of the stars of the May
EdTechConnect!  Keep your eyes open on the blogs for an application to
be a featured speaker for the final EdTechConnect of the 2006-2007
school year.

I already registered for all four webinars.  I hope to see some of you in the chat window with me.

Thanks to Tom Turner for blogging about this.   By the way, Tom also blogs for DEN’s Florida blog.

On March 29, 2007, Education Week came out with its Technology Counts 2007 annual report, the tenth report in the series.  As a supplement, EdWeek has published detailed state reports.

These State Technology Reports are a supplement to the 10th edition of Technology Counts, a joint project of Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. As in previous years, the EPE Research Center has surveyed the states to assess the status of K-12 educational technology across the nation. The state reports assemble key findings from that survey and other sources in a format that allows readers to examine a particular state’s performance on this year’s indicators. For most indicators, national results are also provided as a benchmark against which the state can be measured.

Technology Counts 2007, which explores developments in educational technology over the past decade, tracks data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia in several critical areas of technology policy and practice: access, use, and capacity. The report assigns grades to the states for their performance in those three categories. State grades are not comparable with those in last year’s report because of changes in two access indicators and improvements in the scoring for indicators related to teacher and administrator licensure.

Pennsylvania did not fare so well (especially considering the tremendous resources that the Pennsylvania Department of Education is committing to educational technology with the Classrooms for the Future grant program) . . .

We are equally focused on preparing students for the 21st Century.  To ensure our students are prepared to thrive in an economy where almost every industry requires daily technology use, we must equip them with 21st Century skills through daily exposure to 21st Century tools.  Our goal is digital literacy for every child in Pennsylvania, for it is through education that we will be able to connect economic development in the Commonwealth to a labor force for the Information Age.

In the four primary evaluation areas - access, use, and capacity - PA scored B, D+, B- respectively.  It is the D+ in use that really both concerns and motivates me.  The average state grade in the use category was a C+.

Perhaps, with the coaching/mentoring component included with the Getting to One programs (see the Pathways to Performance report for examples) that score will increase.  The Keystone Technology Integrator initiative is a step in the right direction.

I do believe that learning networks, such as the Keystones and Discovery Educator Network, go a long way in empowering teachers to more effectively integrate engaging technologies into their instruction.  (Thus, leading to a more relevant educational experience for students that will better prepare them for the global economy).  I believe that the collaborative nature of virtual networking we are seeing emerge within and among myriad industries is driving educational systems at all levels to explore Web 2.0 applications and rapidly adapt to the evolving demands of industry.  The future literacies, as detailed in Henry Jenkins’ white paper, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, are:

• Play
• Performance
• Simulation
• Appropriation
• Multitasking
• Distributed Cognition
• Collective Intelligence
• Judgment
• Transmedia Navigation
• Networking
• Negotiation

I think that strides are certainly being made in including some of these new literacies in K-12 education.  DEN educators are certainly advancing the cause and are well-supported by research.

According the Jenkins’ research:

A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these forms of participatory culture, including:

• opportunities for peer-to-peer learning
• a changed attitude towards intellectual property
• the diversification of culture expression
• the development of skills valued in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship.

In an investigation of 21st century literacies, Jenkins’ research is well augmented by the industry research of Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams presented in Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

So, if you get a chance, take stock of your district’s integration strategy and your own classroom use of technology.  Discovery offers so many resources for educators to implement technology in meaningful ways and supports ongoing professional development and collegial support through the Discovery Educator Network.

Katie Leach, a STAR educator and member of our Leadership Council, is going to be presenting at the Pennsylvania Association for Gifted Education (PAGE) annual conference on April 19-21 in Pittsburgh.  The conference is being held at Marriott Pittsburgh City Center.  The theme is "Growing Up Gifted."

If you are interested in attending, you can print out the registration form and conference agenda. 

If you are already planning to attend be sure to stop by Katie’s session, Finding a Student’s Passion and Flying with it Online.  She will be presenting in City Center A during Session D (1:00-2:00 PM) on Saturday, April 21.

Most gifted students could literally be a doctor, lawyer or anything else they aspire to become. Using websites, see how to find a student’s passion, and then journey online to sites for students that will enable them to learn more about their  interests and pursuits.

If you are planning a presentation and would like to have access to unitedstreaming or other Discovery literature, you can request materials from DEN.  Here are the instructions.

For each order, please submit an event report at www.discoveryeducatornetwork.com/eventreport before placing another order.

1.        Go to http://www.projectworks.com
2.        Type the username: DENMember
3.        Type the password: DEN
4.        Click on “2007 DEN Training Toolbox”
5.        Enter the quantity requested
6.        Click “Add to Cart”
7.        Click “Check Out”
8.        Select “Add a New Address” from the drop down menu and click “Continue”

If you are presenting a conference session or workshop, please e-mail me (cliotech@gmail.com) so that I can share and celebrate that on our state blog.

If you haven’t checked in with Steve Dembo’s Teach42 or Digital Passports blog in the past week, then Twitter might be new to you. Twitter is suddenly all over the news . . .

Mini-blog is the Talk of Silicon Valley - Financial Times (March 26, 2007)

Jonathan Schwartz, chief executive of Sun Microsystems, singled Twitter out at the end of last week as the latest hit from the post-YouTube generation of "viral" internet applications that have the potential to attract massive online audiences.

What is Twitter, and is there any reason I should care? - Guardian Unlimited (March 15, 2007)

True, on first glance it is a baffling and seemingly pointless service - but underneath it proves intriguing, useful and addictive for those who live on the move. One observer called it "the Seinfeld of the internet … a website about nothing". Twitter’s backers have form in this area. One, Nebraskan Ev Williams, was a founder of Blogger.com, the site that kickstarted the huge growth of blogging in the late 1990s. Another, Biz Stone, was involved in the early days of Xanga.com - a MySpace-style affair that is now one of the top 50 sites in the world.

Why is the blogworld atwitter over Twitter? - Spokesman Review (March 26, 2007)

The idea behind Twitter, as its slogan suggests, is for users to answer the question "What are you doing?" by typing messages of 140 characters or less into a browser or mobile text-messaging device.

Twitter: All Trivia, All The Time - Business Week (April 2007 issue)

Twitter taps into a basic need of many Web users: to suck up every last crumb of personalized information, instantly. Steve Rubel, a public-relations exec who can’t seem to stop blogging about Twitter despite protests from some of his readers, points to how Twitter was his first source of news for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby’s conviction. Other Twitter fans boast that they beat the U.S. Geological Survey in relaying news about a recent moderate quake in San Francisco. For some, Twitter reflects the increasing power of word-of-mouth networks to change how news is made and defined and how marketing is distributed.

John Edwards on Twitter Actually Makes Marketing Sense - ClickZ (March 23, 2007)

The last time he used Twitter to send a message, or as we like to say here at ClickZ, "twitted," was a few days ago — March 19th. ("Great event at Benedict College, Columbia SC today. Lots of energy. Headed to Iowa tonight.") I’ll bet he’ll be back soon though.

The Edwards case, however, has me rethinking this. People do care where political candidates are at any given moment. For the campaign to be experimenting with this makes sense. In a way, by displaying the candidate in more of a real-time sense, it feels more casual, and almost seems like it makes him more accessible. It’s all nuanced, feely stuff, but for many people, the feeling we get from a candidate is what drives our opinion of that individual as opposed to the actual issues.

So, what exactly is Twitter? According to Twitter.com/faq:

What is Twitter? Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing. For some friends you might want instant mobile updates—for others, you can just check the web. Invite your friends to Twitter and decide how connected you want you to be.

How does Twitter work? When you send in a mobile text (SMS), Twitter sends it out to your group of friends and posts it to your Twitter page. Your friends might not have phone alerts turned on so they may check your web page instead. Likewise, you receive your friends mobile updates on your phone.

How much does it cost? Twitter is a free service. At some point we may introduce optional, for-pay features or services but basic usage will remain free. Note: with phone alerts turned on, Twitter makes use of texting or SMS so check with your mobile provider to find out if this will cost you extra.

In addition to the SMS features, Twitter also integrates seamlessly with blogs, wikis, and other web authoring platforms that allow embedded media. If you check my blog, you can see my Twitter feed. I just registered for the service yesterday. In addition to the one-user feed you see on my blog, users can also embed a full timeline that includes all a user’s friends as well.

Users can also subscribe via RSS to a user’s feed.

So, what do I think of Twitter? Right now, I think it is pretty cool. I can certainly see educational uses for it. I think it would be a cool way for teachers to track cooperative group work. I could also see it as a neat application for tracking media headlines and comparing what different media outlets are reporting and conjecturing as to why they are selecting certain issues to report. It would also be cool to track multiple perspectives of an activity (i.e. have students record observations with a different focus and, then, make generalizations based on the data). Perhaps, students recording data for a science lab could make their observations on Twitter and link to their partners’ feeds as friends.

I’m interested to see how others might see this used for an educational purpose.

For anyone who has flown lately, you can empathize with the long waits at most airports.  Atlanta, GA, was particularly crowded a few weeks ago.

Yet, I hardly noticed the crowds, lines, etc.  Before I left for my long weekend in Atlanta, I downloaded Discovery Atlas China, Australia, Brazil, and Italy.  I had seen some of the episodes when they aired, but really missed more than I caught.  I have owned my iPod for over a year, yet this was the first time I had ever downloaded videos.  I was so impressed with the quality of the picture and, of course, the films’ content. 

The Discovery Atlas series is far superior to similar programs that have aired over the past few years.  As a social studies teacher, I am tremendously impressed with the holistic perspective addressed by the series creators.  The accompanying resources housed on unitedstreaming as well as those on the wider web are geared for students of all ages (including adults). 

Part of my reason for downloading these episodes was to get myself excited for the eleven-part series, Discovery Atlas Planet Earth, premiering tomorrow, March 25, 2007. 

Matt Monjan posted a wealth of resources on the Implementation Blog to accompany the premier of Planet Earth.  There is an online game, a Google Earth integration, unitedstreaming activities, etc.  In case you missed Matt’s post, I copied it below.  Thanks for all the great resources, Matt.

On March 25, 2007 The Discovery Channel will launch PLANET EARTH,
a first-of-its-kind look at the world’s most magnificent and compelling
locations. The 11-part series includes never-before-seen animal
behaviors, remote regions captured by for the first time, and
unprecedented high definition production techniques.

In conjunction with the premiere of PLANET EARTH, The Nature Conservancy will launch new in-depth web content on www.nature.org,
aimed at educating visitors about the urgent threats facing the places
featured in the program and what they can do to help out.  There will
be mutual links with www.planet-earth.com
to provide active consumers with multiple areas to participate in
environmental activities through fun, interactive and educational
features.

During the U.S. premiere on Sunday, March 25,
viewers can take an online tour that will be synchronized to the show,
test themselves on trivia about the animals and environments seen on
air, chat with other viewers during the show and ask questions of M.
Sanjayan, lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy.

Tying it all together

As unitedstreaming subscribers you have the unique ability to incorporate the Planet Earth interactive links into unitedstreaming assignments, quizzes, and writing prompts.

You can also use the image library, sound files, articles, videos in combination with the Planet Earth educational resources to teach science and conservation concepts.

For example;

• You can download images of endangered species and put them into a photostory, iPhoto, or PowerPoint presentation, or even Google Earth!
• Take Google Earth tour of Planet Earth http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/planet-earth/google-tour/google-tour.html
• Create an interactive Rain Forest Quiz
• Challenge your students to become naturalists by creating their own
  Digital Scrapbook.  Download the attached ppt template and customize it
  for your lesson/class! Download Rainforest.zip
  (This is a Zipped file - be sure to follow prompts when downloading it
  onto your computer.  You will need to unzip all of the attachments
  (videos, images, ppt, and sound file and place them in a folder on your
  computer).
  Finally, you and your class can can participate in a live
  chat with series producers on Monday, March 26, the day after PLANET
  EARTH premieres, to learn more about the producer’s filming experiences
  - check out www.planet-earth.com for more information!

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

On my way to work this morning, I was somewhat distracted (yes, I’ll admit it) thinking about what I would be presenting for a gathering of all the secondary social studies teachers in my district.  With three high schools and five middle schools, that group is fairly intimidating.

I had framed my presentation as engaging digital natives in the study of social studies.  I knew that I was going to address the learning profile of digital natives, the new literacies, and Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc.) - all topics that I have presented on numerous occasions to diverse audiences.

My district coordinator sent out a e-mail earlier this week reminding teachers that they were going to "to hear presentations from two distinguished speakers.  Both will answer your questions as well."

I am one of two speakers.  The other is Dr. Terry Madonna, director of Politics and Public Affairs and the Keystone Poll at Franklin and Marshall College.  Dr. Madonna is well-known.  I hear him on my way to work sometimes as his is frequently consulted by media outlets like NPR.  Thus, no one would question that the title of "distinguished" be conferred upon Dr. Madonna.

I, however, would not consider myself distinguished.   Actually, I now feel a sense of anxiety.  I don’t know if it is rational or not (perhaps, I should wait until I see how my presentation is received before I make that determination). 

For better or for worse, I have spent countless hours in the wake of that e-mail restructuring my presentation.  I decided to change the focus to digital citizenship and have my other components reinforce that larger topic.  I added to my resources information on the ways that Second Life, MySpace, and YouTube are being used as integral components in Campaign 2008.  I am using digital citizenship as a vehicle to engage the social studies teachers in a dialogue about the implications for this new political medium in 21st century classrooms.  I believe that one of the major goals of social studies education is to encourage responsible citizenship.  To that end, it is, therefore, incumbent upon us to address the new media outlets in our courses.  Blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking . . . these are the modes by which many voters will make their political decisions.  Certainly, they will have some measure of influence on this and future elections.

Doug Johnson’s EdTechConnect webinar got me thinking.  He referenced a posting from Vicki Davis:

A hammer can kill someone but it can also build a house.

A nail can be driven through a hand but it can also hold the roof over your head.

A fist can hit but a fist can also be clasped in your hand in love.

We do not outlaw hammers, nails, or fists — we teach people to use them properly.

My anxiety with this presentation centers around my fear that teachers will simply not be at all receptive to the message that we must begin to incorporate technology into our instruction before we become totally irrelevant in the world of our digital native students.  Too many politicians, educators, parents, etc. believe that we must shelter our students from all the evils that can find them online.  Or, at least, we should do so in our schools. 

I have no idea how my message is going to be received.  As any ed-techie knows, we seem to be in a minority when it comes to embracing new technologies - or, rather, any technologies.  There exists a sense of evangelical missionizing with regard to ed tech. 

Back to my morning commute. . . I was listening to NPR Morning Edition.  Renee Montange was interviewing a Georgetown senior, James Kotecki, who has taken it upon himself to be an online-campaign-video critic.  He reviews the new videos posted on the YouTube You Choose ‘08 channel and has even affected changes to the way that Congressman Dennis Kucinich frames his YouTube postings.  The interview also addressed the emergence and impact of a viral video featuring a "Big Brother" Hillary Clinton directing listeners back to Barack Obama’s web site.  By the way, the creator of that video has been fired from his job, but he did manage to create a political firestorm and his video will continue to be, in true viral fashion, circulated online for years to come.

Just prior to the Kotecki interview, Ms. Montange interviewed Ken Rudin and Ron Elving, the hosts of the NPR podcast, It’s All Politics.  They were asked why the current controversy surrounding the firing of federal prosecutors was the battlefield du jour.  Their response was the bloggers had kept the story alive and in the public eye for years. 

So, bloggers and amateur directors are not just being influenced by the new media, they are actual impacting politics directly. . . they are the actors, not just the audience.

Interesting . . . so, as I head off to my presentation (reflecting upon the morning news), I feel a little more confident that my message will provoke dialogue and ongoing reflection.

Wow . . . Doug Johnson’s EdTechConnect webinar wrapped up about a half-hour ago. 

I have to say, as one who has been researching the educational applications of Web 2.0 extensively, Doug was awesome!  As is always the case with the EdTechConnect webinar series, I learned not only from Doug, but, also, from my fellow attendees.  My favorite contribution from the chat was - TeacherTube, a moderated educational version of YouTube.

In case you missed the webinar, you can visit Doug’s blog to access the list of links that accompanied his presentation.

Doug discussed the implications of the participatory nature of the semantic web and how politicians, parents, teachers, and educational systems are processing the immense potential of this engaging environment.  He referenced several excellent research studies that are also included on his list of links.

He quoted a provocative posting from Vicki Davis‘ Cool Cat Teacher Blog that I found particularly relevant to the ongoing debate over the efficacy of social networking in American classrooms:

This is proof that it is not the tools that are inherently good or evil but rather the use of the tools.

• A hammer can kill someone but it can also build a house.
• A nail can be driven through a hand but it can also hold the roof over your head.
• A fist can hit but a fist can also be clasped in your hand in love.

We do not outlaw hammers, nails, or fists — we teach people to use them properly.

So should we do with blogs, wikis, podcasts, skype, and any other tool that becomes available for use in the human experience!

I have a Diigo group, Engaging Digital Natives, devoted to Web 2.0 applications, many of which are not currently accessible in most school districts due to restrictive security policies.  On the one hand, it is very frustrating that educational systems seem to be lagging so far behind industry.  On the other hand, it is incumbent upon all educators to create as safe an environment as possible for our students.  Striking that delicate balance between information freedom and our in loco parentis responsibilities is a perpetual challenge.

If you want to learn more about Web 2.0 applications, visit Steve Dembo’s DEN Digital Passports blog.

I think it would be great to get a discussion going here to collaborate on our successes with some of the most engaging technologies available online. 

What Web 2.0 applications have you been using with your students?   Please comment and share your experiences - the challenges, frustrations, and triumphs.

Just in case you haven’t visited the DEN National blog recently and haven’t checked your e-mail . . .

DEN has announced the three locations of the much anticipated summer institutes. 

• 
  Discovery Headquarters, Silver Spring, MD
  June 18-22
• Bahamas Cruise, leaving from Port Canaveral, FL
  July 14-19
• University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
  August 6-10

I had the opportunity to attend the Northeast Regional Institute in Valley Forge, PA, last summer.  I walked away totally energized, which, as most teachers know, is tough to manage over the lazy months of summer.  I was so inspired by the amazing educators with whom I shared the [rainy] experience that I totally reinvented my professional practice this school year.   I left Valley Forge empowered to tackle podcasting, blogs, and wikis. 

So, if you are a STAR who wants to share an invigorating week with inspiring educators from across the country this summer, visit the DEN National Blog to learn how to apply.

The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) officially launched a new networking service for educators on March 9, 2007.  According to a recent eSchoolNews article the Open Educational Resources Commons is:

A new online resource gives teachers and students
free access to more than 8,000 digital learning materials. Educators
and students can add tags,
ratings, reviews, and comments to help others quickly find what they’re
looking for. The site’s mission is to provide a single point of access
through which educators, students, and all other types of learners can
search for, browse, evaluate, and discuss these free learning materials.

Why did ISKME undertake this project?  According to ISKME president, Lisa Petrides

"OER Commons brings the
open-content movement into the classroom. It offers new ways for
instructors and students to engage with teaching and learning materials
and share what they know . . . When people share their knowledge on OER Commons, they pass along their best thinking to others around the globe."

I see the popularity of open-source knowledge, exemplified by the MIT OpenCourseWare materials, as the primary reason that over 10,000 individuals had visited ORE Commons before its official launch date. The notion of intellectual freedom and digital democracy is evolving in the age of the contribution and collaboration culture of Web 2.0.

I decided to surf over to the ORE Commons to see what I could find about the 1920s, the unit I just started teaching.  I immediately located several dozen resources in the form of essays, presentations, syllabi, online games, etc.  All of the resources I found would only be usable in a secondary classroom, which was exactly what I was seeking.  Many of the resources are supplemental to university and college courses.

While I find the excitement that has obviously been generated by this launch intriguing, I don’t view it as groundbreaking.  The DEN has been doing this, very well I might add, for over a year.  The Educator Resources accessible through the Discovery Educator Network site boasts hundreds of classroom activities, presentations, applications, games, etc.  DENers with STAR status can access those classroom resources and contribute their own resources.

If you haven’t visited the Educator Resources in a while you should really take a look at all the new resources that have been added in the past few months.  As a social studies teacher, I am thrilled to see our 419 resources.  Actually, I need to start uploading some more of my favorite lesson activities . . . I want social studies to catch up to science (672 resources).  Come on social studies teachers — upload away!

Seriously, I challenge all of you to share your favorite lessons, activities, presentations, ideas, etc. through the DEN Educator Resources service.  The more we share, the more we innovate and the more we innovate, the more relevant our instruction is to our students.