Pennsylvania

TOTALLY AWESOME!

Have you seen the enhanced, revised, expanded, etc. Did You Know/Shift Happens video from Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod? 

If not, you will be amazed.  It is fantastic and even engages the viewer to contribute to a collaborative community through a Did You Know wiki.  The wiki contains a history of the Did You Know / Shift Happens project, sources, implementation ideas, and tons of other valuable information.

Check out Karl’s blog posting about this video’s release as well as Scott’s blog posting.

This is a a video that every educator - from classroom teachers to school superintendents to parents should view.

On a related note, I am headed to Willard Daggett’s Model Schools Conference in Washington D.C.  This video perfectly compliments the WHY portion of Daggett’s call to reform — why change is needed, what needs to be changed, and how change should occur.  In answer to the WHY, Daggett exposes four mega-trends shaping the world: globalization, shifting demographics, technology, and changing values and attitudes.

I will most definitely be blogging from D.C.  So, if you are interested in learning more about Daggett’s research, visit the International Center for Leadership in Education site and check back here over the course of the next few days.

By the way, if you want to weigh in to address WHAT needs to be changed, you can take the National Essential Skills Study.

So, you’re in summer mode . . . the classroom is a hazy memory . . . images of beaches, vacations, and family time drift before your eyes . . . BUT, you still feel the inexorable pull of the computer and collegial dialogue. 

If you are experiencing webinar withdrawal, DEN has put together an ambitious calendar of professional development opportunities to keep you going through the summer months.  Here is the information from the DEN national blog.

You want more webinars?  You got them!

Based
on the feedback we received from our recent survey, you guys really
love them webinars. An unbelievable number of people said that they’d
love to see more online webinars next year covering even more topics.

You want it?  You got it!

Summer Webinar Schedule (for specific dates, see calendar below)

We’re
going to start off our summer webinar schedule with three new series.
The first series is going to help introduce you to the many sites that
Discovery Education has to offer that will help transform your
classroom.  Think Discovery Education is just the company that owns unitedstreaming?
Think again.  From Science Connection to Health Connection, One Place
to  ThinkLink Assessment,  Nutshell Math and the two best streaming
video services on the market, PowerMedia Plus and Discovery Education unitedstreaming.
Every Monday we will highlight a different product.  Learn a little,
ask some questions, and try then try it out for yourself.

Tuesdays are going to feature the best presentations that we have to offer.  From 50 Ways to use unitedstreaming,
to the MegaVCR, to Widgetizing the Builders, Tuesdays we’ll be sharing
webinar versions of presentations you may have missed at conferences,
EdTechConnects you wish you could have attended, and brand new
presentations that will expand your thinking and transform your
classroom.

A new series we’re going to be starting up is Thursday evening
Conversations with the DEN.  Every other Thursday at 8:00pm EST, we’ll
be hosting a live Skypecast.  The topics will include, digital
storytelling, new technologies, integration strategies, current events,
and of course Discovery news!  The first Skypecast will begin on
Thursday, 6/21.  More details to come!

07-08 Webinar Schedule

EdTechConnect
has always been an incredibly successful webinar series.  During the
last school year, we brought you Will Richardson, Doug Johnson, David
Warlick, Joe Brennan, Frank Guttler of the American Film Institute, and
many many more.  Next year we are going to continue the series with
some of the biggest names from the EdTech Community.  By popular
demand, the series will begin two hours later at 7:00pm EST, making it
more convenient for our colleagues on the west coast. 

We closed off the 06-07 school year with two wildly successful
webinars for both teachers and students to share together.  The first
featured a producer from the Planet Earth series, Dr. Penny Allen.  The
second featured Allan Butler, a producer for the Science Channel’s
Space Week, and Ken Reightler, astronaut and VP for Lockheed Martin’s
Space Operations.  Both webinars had record setting attendance numbers,
over 1,000 attendees per webinar.  You told us that you wanted more
webinars with actors and crew from the Discovery networks.  So we are
very proud to bring you Discovery Connection!  The first Wednesday of
every month we will host a webinar featuring names and faces from your
favorite Discovery shows.  The schedule is still being worked out, but
block that time out now.  This is something you’ll want to share with
your students!

*phew*  Is that enough for you?  It’s going to be an exciting
summer, followed by an even more exciting school year!  While many of
the specifics are still being scheduled, you can find the summer
schedule below along with registration links for the June and July
webinars.

If you have trouble seeing the schedule, you can also find it here. 

I keep hearing from teachers who are building some amazing affinity networks at NECC.  Lucky for the rest of us, they are also inviting us in through their blogs and wikis. 

• Chris Champion shared his NECCAtlanta wiki where he is keeping all of his notes.
• Kristin Hokanson continues to blog prolifically on her Connected Classroom blog.
• Chris Lehmann, principal of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, is also posting a tremendous amount or resources from NECC on his Practical Theory blog.
• Ken Pruitt is keeping his readers updated through his Conference blog and Kurt Paccio is doing the same on his Tech Ruminations blog. 
• Dozens of other PA teachers are contributing to our shared community through their collaboration on the PANECC2007 wiki.

Of course, don’t forget to check out what the DEN staff is posting on their blogs (links to the right of this page).

Exciting News from CoSN (Consortium for School Networking)

CoSN is pleased to announce the formation of a new state chapter in Pennsylvania. This seventh CoSN chapter was formed through a strategic alliance with the Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology (PAECT).  View Press Release.

Thanks, once again, to Kristin Hokanson, chair of our PA Leadership Council, for sharing her impressions from the NECC sessions she attends.   You can also read all her blog postings on her "The Connected Classroom" blog.

For more front-line NECC coverage, surf over to Ken Pruitt’s Conference blog.  Like Kristin, Ken is blogging about the sessions he attends and is posting accompanying resources.  Ken is also posting vodcasts of some of the sessions. 

Be sure to also check out the PANECC2007 wiki for up-to-the-minute coverage of fellow PA attendees. 

Monday, June 25, 2007

 

Looking for Global Partners

One
of the CFF teachers with whom I worked this past year and I spoke at
the end of the year about his desire to create a "global issues" course
in our HS next year. The vision is to choose some GLOBAL THEMES and
have kids from around the world to have peer-peer "conversations" about
them…So one of my themes for this year’s NECC was to investigate
global opportunities. I signed up for a session today and when I walked
in and saw a room full of iMacs, I KNEW I would not be disappointed This session was done by some apple distinguished educators. Click HERE for the wikispace they have created.

Global Collaborative Resources

    
         

         

    

    

         

    

    

 

MA314 Classroom Innovations Series: Teaching and Learning in a Global Context  [Workshop : Hands-on]
Julene Reed, St. Georges Independent School with Lucy Gray Monday, 6/25/2007, 8:30am–11:30am; OMNI International A Learn how to use technology and online resources to provide structured experiences so students deepen their understanding of the world as they explore environments outside the classroom.

They also had a handout with some great resources for finding global partners and projects.

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

    

    

         

         

Rock Our World	http://www.rockourworld.org
The GLOBE Project	http://globe.gov
Kidlink	http://kidlink.org/english
My Wonderful World	http://mywonderfulworld.org
iEARN	http://iearn.org
ePALS	http://epals.com
Global SchoolNet Foundation	http://glonalschoolnet.org
Gloriad	http://gloriad.org
Think.com	http://think.com
One World Youth Project	http://oneworldyouthproject.org
Jane Goodall Institute	http://www.janegoodall.org
Roots & Shoots	http://rootsandshoots.org
Global Voices	http://globalvoicesonline.org
Global Learning	http://globalawareness.com
Kids World	http://peacecorps.gov/kids
Kids Around the World	http://www.katw.org

I
know as we sit down to plan in September we will use some of these
resources. If you are interested in becoming a partner in our global
issues course, please let me know…
OH and if you have any ideas
about what ISSUES we should think about…should it be up to the
kids…are the issues we are concerned about in the US even ISSUES in
other areas of the world…the opportunities…

Sunday, June 24, 2007

 

Raising test scores with 21st Century Skills

Wow…the title of this session is every administrator’s DREAM.  How can we do BOTH.
Ian Jukes will
tell you exactly how and if you EVER get a chance to hear him speak, I
would highly recommend it. If you are in charge of curriculum in your
district you absolutely must take a look at the handouts page he has put together.
He
started his session by telling us that his job is not to educate,
irritate…give swift kick in your assumptions and looking at things
from a different point of view. He talked about how educators have an
unconscious mindset for what education should be…and quoted Lou Salza
who said it is "easier to change the course of history than to change a history course…"   TTWADI—that’s
the way we’ve always done it. Pervasive unconscious way we do things
and his societal examples were astounding. Having small children, I
really connected with the analogy he made of parents teaching child how
to walk independently…they continue to try and fail until they
finally get it right. Yet even when they are failing, we encourage them
until they do succeed. Why is it that we know intuitively that we need
to prepare kids for independence and yet we continue to create a
culture of dependence in our schools?

But he didn’t just talk
about the problems. He also gave some solutions. He said we need to
start to plan with the end in mind. According to Dale’s Cone of Learning
we remember only 10% of what we read 20% of what we hear 30 % of what
we see but 90 % of what we do. His idea was to use a 4 D approach:
Design, Define, Develop, Debrief.

Here are some of my notes on the approach:
1.
Define: have you ever given a kid an assignment and gotten back
something TOTALLY different from what you expect: ready fire aim they
need to know exactly what they need to know before they go out to do
it. At the define stage, the kids need to identify what skills they
need to complete task
•    Need to define in performance terms
•
Must know before they begin how that performance is going to be
assessed. Determined in advance. Tell me what you think I just asked
you to do…define it in performance terms
2. Design: Have you ever
done a garden without thinking through it? Providing a step by step
plan in advance—prevents wasted effort and a logical strategy. In the
design stage things look good. Ask kids to come up with a plan in
advance: Might be working in community, parents, internet…doesn’t
matter WHO they learn from as long as they learn it—they have been
raised in a culture of dependency—unconsciously they feel that their
assessment should be from decontextualized source—if you are not going
ot lecture me, how am I going to get help—instead of TELLING them what
to do, I am creating a dialogue—
TWO TYPES OF LEARNING
•    Determine what needs to be done
•    Determine the skills you need to do it

3.
Develop: DO IT—put plan into action. Put paper into action. Kids asked
to create a real life product. This is NOT a linear process—when we
design a project there are always hiccups, always problems. It is
EXACTLY like the writing process—we ask them to apply what they learn
to perform THE END PRODUCT is important, but in order to improve the
product you have to reflect on the process

4. Debrief: Debug
CANEI constant and never ending improvement. Right now focus is on the
product of learning, not the process of learning. In real life the
responsibility of work happens long after the product…to prepare them
for their future (not our comfort zone) need to foster independence and
self reflection: What was learned, how was it learned, what were the
obstacles, what would I do differently. If focus is only on the end
product,
Job is not look smart—shift responsibility of learning from me to them
When kids grad from HS, they shouldn’t need us anymore

We
HAVE to have the opportunity to FAIL in school there is no success
without failure. There is no BIG success without BIG failure….Edison
failed 1,000 times when making light bulbs rather than focusing on each
attempt, he now knew 1000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb.

I
thought the interaction….the how can we do this in OUR schools was
the best part of the session. So let’s hear it, how CAN we do this in
our schools.

In an earlier posting, I mentioned that the imagining of a flexible, interactive, portable, and digital liquid crystal interface in Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk novel, The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, seem to be evolving into a reality with the development of e-paper.

I found another striking connection between Stephenson’s postmodernist writings and reality contained within another Stephenson novel, Snow Crash.  The action in this 1992 novel is set in two planes of existence: the "real" world and a "metaverse" that is so intrinsically connected to reality that physical human viruses (snow crash) can be transmitted to human systems via binary code in the metaverse. 

According to the Wikipedia entry on Snow Crash:

The Metaverse, a phrase coined by Stephenson as a successor to the Internet, constitutes Stephenson’s vision of how a virtual reality-based Internet might evolve in the near future. Although there are public-access Metaverse terminals in Reality, using them carries a social stigma among Metaverse denizens, in part because of the poor visual representations of themselves via low-quality avatars. In the Metaverse, status is a function of two things: access to restricted environments such as the Black Sun, an exclusive Metaverse club, and technical acumen, which is often demonstrated by the sophistication of one’s avatar.

For those of you have spent some time exploring or interacting with Second Life or MMOs, you will find amazing similarities between the metaverse detailed in Snow Crash and the evolving virtual worlds or today.  The one element of Stephenson’s vision of a metaverse that is missing from contemporary virtual worlds is a common programming protocol/language connecting all the various worlds.  Right now, Second Life and other massively multiplayer online games all run on proprietary client and server software.  They are, in effect, like myriad individual planets, each with different composition elements, existing within an infinite solar system.  Even though there is intelligent and highly evolved life on each of these planets, the inhabitants have not conceived of a way to travel among the various planets.

Enter Multiverse, a visionary tech company created by some of the programmers who made Netscape a reality that seeks to create a common protocol for virtual worlds and games.  The Economist ran an article on June 7, 2007, that outlined the goal of Multiverse Networks.

What happened on the internet, of course, was that the web came along and provided common, open standards for both client and server software, doing away with proprietary online services and bringing together previously separate communities as CompuServe, AOL and the rest adopted the web’s open standards. Now a firm called Multiverse Network hopes to do the same for MMOs. It has created MMO client and server software based on open standards, and a way to move between virtual worlds built on its platform, just like following a link from one web page to another. And it has made its software available for free download by anyone who wants to build and host a virtual world.

According to the information provided on the Multiverse site:

•      Multiverse lets you to build an MMOG or virtual world for less money      and in less time than ever before.    
•      Multiverse technology is scalable, extensible, and highly customizable,     enabling you to build your world with its own unique look and feel, gameplay, and mechanics.    
•      Our active developer community     is creating a wide variety of worlds.    
• Make money through subscriptions, item sales, and/or advertising,      and pay us only 10%      of your gross revenue.    
•      Download our client, server, tools, starter assets, and sample worlds for free and start building your world today!    

Why are investors, programmers, educators, and tons of other organizations so interested in Multiverse and its competitors?  In part because Second Life and some of the larger MMOs have reached what The Economist termed as a critical mass of users.  In other words, people can start making "real" money and conducting "real" business in virtual worlds.

And, of particular interest for all of us, people are LEARNING through interactions in virtual worlds.

If you are a DEN Second Lifer, be sure to check out Steve Dembo’s blog posting about the DEN group in SL.

For more information about Multiverse and this evolutionary leap, check out these two articles:

• Online Gaming’s Netscape Moment - The Economist (June 7, 2007)
• Venture Capital: Fueling Fantasies - The Wall Street Journal (June 18, 2007)

Seriously, Neal Stephenson is a really interesting author to add to your summer reading list . . .

I just started to read Interface - co-authored by Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George - in anticipation of the 2008 presidential election . . . hmm, science fiction or reality?

There’s no way William A. Cozzano can lose the upcoming presidential election. He’s a likable midwestern governor with one insidious advantage—an advantage provided by a shadowy group of backers. A biochip implanted in his head hardwires him to a computerized polling system. The mood of the electorate is channeled directly into his brain. Forget issues. Forget policy. Cozzano is more than the perfect candidate. He’s a special effect.

Headline - Half of Americans barely use new technology!

According to a May 11, 2007, article in The Economist, Luddites in Cyberspace:

They are the first on the block with the latest gizmo. They think nothing of paying $750 for a Nokia N95—that ultimate of go-anywhere, cell-cum-everything accoutrements. They upload digital content to social networks like YouTube, MySpace and Flickr. They write blogs at home, use wikis at work and gorge on one-segment telly on their mobiles when not talking or texting. They are the Early Adopters—the 8% of consumers who cheerfully pay through the nose for the bragging rights of having the latest and greatest of gadgets.

 

Their opposites are just as easy to spot. The Laggards and Luddites are slow or reluctant to embrace new technology because they can’t afford it, aren’t interested in it, or actually fear and loathe it. As a group, they are apparently much bigger than previously imagined. In a comprehensive study of how consumers use technology, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported earlier this week that a surprising 49% of adult Americans fall into this category.

Talk about a digital divide!  While much of the new technology - the two-way collaborative technology that is transforming industry and, to a more gradual degree, education - that hundreds of educators and ed tech leaders have been blogging and podcasting about for years appears to be on its way to becoming truly ubiquitous, perhaps that is more wistful and selective thinking on the part of tech heads across the globe.   I would wager that very few readers of this blog would argue that Web 2.0 has not transformed education.

The recent introduction of a range of digital tools and services that let people express themselves online and participate in the “commons of cyberspace” is being heralded as the next phase of the information society. The digirati have labelled this new form of online interactivity as Web 2.0—to distinguish it from the one-way browsing, searching and shopping metaphor of the original internet. Yet, despite the implications for society in general and family life in particular, little is known about who uses Web 2.0’s new social networks and how.

I still maintain that while Web 2.0 and portable technologies are certainly not ubiquitous at this point I do believe that they are by their very nature transformative.  Our students by and large fall into that 8% category of Early Adopters.  The expectation of their digital lives is elaborate and finely tuned.  They expect more out of a Internet session than their parents or teachers.  They also give much more of themselves to those sessions as contributers of original media content.  They are truly creators of content and "perform" for an online audience of millions.  They are the consumers who lament over the disconnect between their "real" lives and their educational experiences.  They are the digital natives who drive the research of organizations like the International Center for Leadership in Education.

To learn more about that data gathered in the Pew Internet & American Life Project report, A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users, check out the report.  If nothing else, it will at least help to explain why ed tech leaders seem to be fighting an uphill battle.

I know that many of you have already seen Karl Fisch’s "Did You Know - Shift Happens" presentation.  One of the items contained in that presentation is the assertion that e-paper will become cheaper than traditional paper.

I ran across an article, Paper Chase, in the Economist on June 15 that elaborates upon the technology that is driving the development of e-paper.

Just imagine the possibilities . . . a newspaper that is constantly updating via RSS-type feeds, portable Pageflakes/Netvibes style personalized data streams, interactivity . . . no more lugging the laptop, projector, etc. to make your sales pitch or present at a conference . . .

While this might sound a bit like the "paper" Neal Stephenson wrote about in The Diamond Age or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, it is becoming much more of a reality than a figment  of the nanotech imaginings of a cyberpunk science fiction author.

Paper Chase heralds a new e-paper project being launched by Sony that might make even the iPhone seem outmoded.   According to the article:

Sony’s latest announcement promises to bring e-paper even closer to everyday use. This time the device appears to be a home-grown development. Unlike the electrophoretic displays used in E-Ink’s products, which rely on charged particles being physically moved by an electric field, Sony’s new imaging device uses an organic electroluminescence display (OLED). Such displays emit light in response to an electric current or field being passing through them.

 

OLEDs generally use a glass substrate, or backing material. But Sony has found a way of forming the organic transistors for switching the pixels on and off on a flexible plastic substrate. The 2.5-inch prototype is little thicker than a sheet of actual paper and weighs about the same without its associated electronics.

  Don’t expect such a clever innovation to be wasted on something as prosaic as a portable reader for e-books. Apple’s multimedia iPhone may be the gadget du jour, but Sony may trump it with an all-singing-and-dancing gizmo, built around a foldable display for downloading television, which can run for days without recharging.

It is really fascinating to watch how science fiction becomes reality . . . more on Neal Stephenson and his cyberpunk writings translated into modern technology to come.

For those of you are like me - not lucky enough to be attending NECC in Atlanta - here are some updates from Kristin Hokanson.  She posted the following on her "The Connected Classroom" blog on Saturday.

Kristin also referenced the EduBloggerCon wiki.  Check it out if you have not already stumbled across it in your online travels. 

Edubloggercon07

So I made it to Atlanta…my luggage unfortunately
I just HAD to get to Edublogger proconference and I am SO GLAD I did.  Will Richardson, Steve Dembo, Jeff Utecht, Chris Craft, almost my entire blogroll in the same room.

I got to attend 2 sessions this afternoon:  Roundtable forums…open discussions…tough topics

Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis talking about what makes a successful international project…
Chris Lehman examining what we need to change about the "structures" of school 2.0…

Am furiously typing notes and PROMISE to get them up in less time than I last blogged.
Until then… check out the schedule on the wiki to see what you are missing

Boy I have missed this

What makes an effective international project?

What makes an effective international project?
This
was the topic of the first session I attended this afternoon at the
EdubloggerCon. I was really excited for this one as I had contact with
both Vicki Davis (who skyped into my PETE& C session this February)
and Julie Lindsay (who commented on our Latin American Wiki

Vicki Davis  is a 10th grade introduction to computer science teacher in rural Westwood GA
At
Vicki’s school…Curriculum is research / knowledge based –genuine
assessment—she has given up 250 question exams in favor of project
based learning.

Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay connected through
k-12 Online Conference last year. Vicki ran online teacher wiki
workshop. She talked about having her students read The World is Flat
CQ + EQ > IQ
That’s “Curiosity Quotient” plus “Passion Quotient” is greater than “Intelligent Quotient.”

After
the conference, Julie emailed Vicki to say “I am on the other side of
this flat world…let’s connect our classrooms and talk about it…” and
that was how it all began. They wanted to make the project wikicentric.
Looked at tools–how they would link classes together, what would be
the best tools. Structured the project so that there was ongoing and
regular communication throughout. Individual and shared
work–assessment would be based on the shared work, but still
They were experiencing the trends and writing about the trends at the same time.

The next step was the Horizon Project
Studied
what college education is going to look like in the next 3-5 years. 5
classrooms, 55 students, whole new level of complexity in
communications. ie kids need to respond to emails when they are sent.
They established a project manager to manage the teams.
If we
continue to allow our students to be ethnocentric–thinking that US is
the center of the universe, we need to teach them to collaborate and
build bridges with these students in other areas of the world

These
students : in their classrooms: know how to tackle problems—won state
literary competitions, the students were achieving new goals—I was
really impressed with how much these students had achieved.
The discussion then moved
What defines an effective international project?
Consistency with both sides
Widen world for rural students
Make administrators aware of trends
Rethink stereotypes & communication: gaming
Must be part of curriculum: cultural awareness… NEED to be aware of it, see world through one another’s eyes

I
thought it was interesting that Vicki commented that —while classroom
is homogeneous IN the classroom= diverse because of the partners she
has created
The attendees were  a very diverse group and came up with amazing ideas

• GenYes
• Have to have hooks…
• Clearly defined objectives and assessements

Discipline:
if you don’t have discipline in your classroom, you have no business
being involved in a global collaborative project
And this was just session 1….

We
talked about PROJECT BASED LEARNING and how defined curriculum is
putting a damper on initiatives—how can we work these initiatives into
the existing curriculum.
On a final note…the comment was made…
For a democracy our school system looks very communistic…
Your thoughts?

We teach KIDS not CONTENT

This
is the philosophy of Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia.
I had the opportunity to hear Chris Lehman speak about what fundamental
changes need to happen in schools based on the trends of web 2.0. In an
open forum, the following points were made:

We finally have the
tools to realize Dewey’s dream=they are available…do we all have them…?
If so, what are the top 2-3 structures that need to change?
These are the words / ideas of the many fantastic minds in the room…These are my notes…thoughts from around the room

•
Time: Change how we use our time: Streamline paperwork, give teachers
time to adopt new things. Cant do it on top of already packed curriculum
•    Use data differently
o    What we collect
o    The way we collect
o    The way we use

•    Planning has to change:  can’t just start a blog—expectations won’t be met
•    Need more models of that kind of planning. 5 point lesson plan doesn’t fit school2.0
•
Teacher attitudes not only about the structure of the day, but the
structure of the year: Jump into school year rowing as fast as you can
without the pre-preparation—paid teacher time during summer, end of
year, mid year. ONLINE CAN BE HUGE WITH THIS…C Lehman met with teachers
1 ½ hours in back yard then online in moodle—weekly chats, live talk
then threads etc…When we break down the walls of the schools, need to
think who we can invite in: F Institute Wed pm… every week have time to
meet and plan—be creative with common planning time

•    Vision of Principal:  Help learning
•    CURRICULUM: Spiral Curriculum needs to be ocneected UBD curriculum planning tool
•    GRADING:  Stop using grades and grade books as weapons against children:  learning and starting and stopping
•    Location: physical location?  Does it need to happen in building—What about the layout—want starbucks layout
•    Role of teacher / student:  Break down the wall between students and teachers—parent expectations & student expectation

HOW…
Start in kindergarten
Squarely on our shoulders teachers being willing to learn from students
Tell the kids that we don’t have all the answers
Starts with vision
Can we create a school that is different for each student—end user experience—if you get out of
1:1 laptop initiative so kids have equity home / school

Part of school 2.0 is we teach KIDS before we teach subjects
How do you evaluate teacher performance?  Admin in every class every day…no evaluation of lesson plans  Goals based assessment
Not using evaluation as weapons
Teacher learning must = student learning
George Lucas site…Sherman oaks elementary school…time is built in every day to review what you learn
Connect
with the parents: Schools have been black boxes for years if you enter
a students id # in moodle, you get a list of HW, can see website,
announcements,
If you make your school transparent, parents will get
involved 63 % of kids on free and reduced lunch—95 % have computer
access…when told parents progress reports are ONLY available online
they came flooding for tech help…
In SLA don’t make p.report
available through tech as they want the teachers to come in the more we
can do when use the tools: we track attendance on line, hw,
The more we can teach….
More we can get the UPPER ADMIN to blog & put themselves out there…
Leaderstalk.org

What
is the WORST consequence of your BEST idea…what will happen if you let
kids blog? what if we don’t disable ichat? You tell me…

I came across this posting on Will Richardson’s blog and thought that the PA DEN definitely boasts some all-STARs who would qualify.

This request comes from Jim Daly of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, though the award is being co-sponsored by Yahoo! Teachers:

The 2007 Mashup “Totally Wired Teacher Award” will honor a trailblazing teacher who has successfully pioneered the innovative and educational use of   social media (blogs, wikis, social networking, photo/video sharing) in the classroom.  The award-winner likely had to overcome challenges from parents and administrators in order to use the technology, but because they understand how students use social media outside of school, they persevered with their initiative and worked collaboratively with students, ultimately sharing their insight and knowledge with the larger teaching community.

If you have anyone in mind, send their names, titles, etc. and a paragraph or two as to why they are deserving to jdaly@edutopia.org. The sooner the better. Thanks!