Blogs for KIDS

Over the last 3 weeks the tech coordinator and I have been helping grades 3-5 create blogs. We are hoping that these blogs will stay with them throughout their school career. It will be a great place to showcase work and watch progress. The kids are excited to start their web presence even though they are viewed by invite only. I now have the potential of tracking 180 blogs!
Sent in my paper for 1B on Saturday night so I could go wall climbing on Sunday. It seems like the fun is just beginning with the last assessment. It should be interesting and hopefully relative to what I do in the library. Our library is lucky to have absolutely no competitors. We are the only game in town. Our smallish library can be filled with over 60 kids in the morning before school starts. It is a cool (AV) place to meet friends, read and connect. I am interested in doing a survey with parents. I haven't finish reading the Welch article but will over the week end.
I see that online learning has so much potential. I wish that students would collaborate more and think less about assessment. Not sure how to help this happen?? Any suggestions?

Hong Kong Tech Conference Ends: Notes and Reflections

Just ended to 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong. It has been a whirlwind time with lots of new information to share and look back at.

Here is a brief overview of what I did and what I learned...

The conference opened with a keynote by Wesley Fryer:

His blog is called Moving at the Speed of Creativity: Wes talked about the use of digital storytelling and shared the site Celebrate Oklahoma. Wes says that digital storytelling "empowers learners to become digital witnesses, archives local oral history and shares that history safely on the global stage of the Internet." This is a project that I would love to do with students at JIS. It would be great to do one a year for each student and if teachers and students learned how they could do it themselves. Daniel Pink talks about the importance of storytelling and how students need to learn have storytelling in the curriculum. Wes would like to see all teachers digital video certified so they can create with media and use it in the classroom. Another resource mentioned was LoTi Connection. He put us on a Chatzy sharing site right away and the audience was able to respond and engage during his workshop. You could even ask questions in this way in a classroom.

LoTi forms strategic academic partnerships with school systems who share a common vision for 21st Century teaching, learning, and leadership.

He also shared a blog called Learning is messy by Brian Crosby. He also mentioned two books that sounded very interesting, not that I have time to read with my uni work...

OVERSOLD & UNDERUSED by Dr. Larry Cuban

THE BOOK OF LEARNING AND FORGETTING by Frank Smith

Saturday the conference opened up with another Keynote by Bruce Dixion who is the guru of 1:1 computing and has a site called Anytime Anywhere Learning. "The goal of the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation (AALF) is to ensure that all children have access to unlimited opportunities to learn anytime and anywhere and that they have the tools that make this possible." At this site you can find research and resources for 1:1 and 21 steps to 21st Century Learning, plus more. Bruce talked about transforming learning environments and how it must be done by us. We need to build a better understanding of the "art of the possible". Rethinking online textbook and how they need to be more. We are the adventurers to create change to the unwise, and though we are small numbers we need to be loud in voice to show what is possible. Invite parents, teachers, and administrators to create blogs. 

The first workshop that I went to was by Chris Smith who created Shambles.net This website is designed to support the international school communities (teachers, support staff, administrators, students and families) in 17 countries in South East Asia. If you look at his PLN (Personal Learning Network) he has some great 2.0 tools to check out. To get there click on the small marker that says Chris's PLN/PLE under his signature. There is lots of great information on this site. 

Tool: screenr An easy way to create screencast. See the video for instant instructions.

A quote that saw in this classroom..."We are all writers...unique and accomplished in our own individual ways? See yourself as a writer?" Isn't this a great part of blogs, is seeing yourself as a writer!

Workshop 2: Introduction to Educational Podcasting (Wes Fryer)

He uses Audacity a free, open source software that allows you to edit audio and combine it together with visuals. It seems like it would be easy to use from the demonstration he gave. The hardware that you need for this Wes calls a digital backpack. Digital Backpack suggestions are:

1. Sony MVC-FD200 Digital Still Camera

2. Olympus WS-110 Digital Recorder

3. Plantronics Audio 650 USB Headset

4. 2GB USB Flashdrive

5. 2 GB Digital Camera Digital Memory Stick

6. Backpack to carry this equipment

You can vary to type of equipment as you may have different but similar equipment at your school.

Here were some suggestions that I wrote down, but they may not make sense till you use the program:

Export as a wave

Set bit rates at 32 if you include music

Use date for filing

Podcast with photos: open up podcast on itunes and add....get information to add 1b3 tag (?) browse and embed photo.

See samples Mills Murfee Podcasts

Radio WillowWeb This site has instructions for teachers who what to podcast.

TOOLS:

Gcast is a quick and easy way to create a podcast. 

drop.io is free...Use drop.io to privately share your files and collaborate in real time by web, email, phone, mobile, and more. Create each drop in two clicks and share what you want, how you want, with whom you want.

google moderator is a tool that allows distributed communities to submit and vote on questions for talks, presentations and events.

Keynote: Our 21st Century Challenge: Robyn Treyvaud

This was about our need to help develop responsible, ethical, and resilient digizens. Now that young people are both consumers and creators we as a teachers have a responsibility to address students with issues of privacy, friendship, community. How is the web changing the definitions of these words. Technology is an enabler for entertainment and friendship, but needs to enhance friendship not replace them. Parents and teachers need to help students develop a moral compass meaning, what they choose to do when no one is watching. 

We watched a very powerful video called Cyberbullying: A whole-school community issue. It was from digizens.org. and is for grade 6-12. 

See her site: Cyber SafeWord

Also see: 10 Privacy Setting Every Facebook User Should Know

Forum on Gaming

This was a panel of teachers who support gaming for learning. The realization that gaming is a big part of children's lives today. Not only are they playing games but they are creating games. Some games that were suggested:

Scratch designed by MIT

Atmosfear a 3D game on DVD, I think you can get it from amazon.

Club Penguin by Disney

The McDonald's Game

Electrocity You are the mayor of a city and you have to get energy.

Palestine a 3D world and you are a reporter. You have to buy this game. Check it out at Serious Games Interactive

Harnessing Digital Content for the Library and Learning

Katy Day and Beth Gourley
A big thanks to Katy and Beth for doing a workshop for librarians!

Introduced to tool:  wallwisher which is like a post it wall and comments can be moved around and grouped.

Found this site while I was looking at other sites. Really has nothing to do with this workshop. Howstuffworks.com

Check out Book Glutton

How do you like the idea of reading material on a screen? Not reading but screening. 

For information and the power-point of this workshop see http://sites.google.com/site/digitalgist

Keynote: “Education 3.0: A Framework for Change in Teaching and Assessing 21st Century Skill” by Andrew Thompson 

He says that we will be 18 million teachers short by 2015! We need to re-imagine what our students will need. 

3R's are:

Responsive communities-for preparing kids for the economy today?

Relevant to learners-How? Access to education anytime, anywhere for thieir wholle lives. How to apply knowledge: needs to move from acquisition, to deepening, to creation.

Results orientated

Change paradigm by reform agenda, 21st Century skills, Infrastructure, pedagogy and practice.

21st Century Skills are creativity, curiosity, metacognition, communication, collaboration (sharing work, knowledge, and expertise), Core subjects are important, comparability (transportable skills), complex problem solvers.

critical thinking

"Online access to content is allowing us to be answer rich but question poor."

Webolution is to move from passive information to participation to collaboration and creation.

The integration of data collection and use will change what we know about students and how we engage them in learning at an individual and system level.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Good is our ability to change, the bad is we can't improve what we can't measure, the ugly is that we have assessment all wrong and we have to get out of the 1980's. 

How do we measure competency using e-portfolios: novice to expert grading. Who should it be that is judging.
I found Wes Fyer's comments on this keynote and it is very detailed. I have included here I see Wes is a critical thinker and you will see the questions he had for Andrew. Wes is also a great note taker!

You Brought the Box: Kathleen Ferenz

Look at the space on the Library of Congress for teachers.

An idea without a plan, is just an idea. Comprehensive plan needs vision, goals, financing, infrastructure, community, communication, and pedagogy (this is where you target your PD. We need to articulate a vision of continuous learning. 

See calisphere for primary resources. 

Off to HONG KONG

This last Friday and Saturday, I was in a whole school workshop for PLCs (Professional Learning Communities). This is an initiative that our school has adopted this year and we had the first PD in August. It is very difficult to do whole school PD and meet the needs of all teachers. The downfall of PLC is with the specialist teachers, especially in the arts. PLCs do not address this issue enough and I guess they feel that it just not that important because if classroom teachers us it the data will show increased learning.

With this big push, I encouraged my group 23 to examine PLCs in our ppt. project. I thought it would be benefical to me and they seemed to like to idea of moving in this direction. I have been very lucky in my studies that what I am doing always seems to be relevant.

Last year at this time I went to the 21st Century Learning Conference in Shanghai will I was doing ETL501 Information Environment. I learned so much that my husband actually calls me a techie now! I am going again but this year it is in Hong Kong and once again I will be there for my birthday.

NO AC and Traffic

33 degrees C and my air conditioning is not working. I am in traffic and that is an understatement in Jakarta. I often wonder if there is anywhere in the world where the traffic is worse. If there is, I don’t ever want to live there. It is particularly bad at this time of day due to Ramadan and everyone wanting to get home for Buka Puasa (break fast) at 6pm.

Now that I am mostly done with my self assessment criteria for collaboration and communication, I would like to publish it on rubistar. This is a great site to find rubric in all areas of education. All the rubrics published are by teachers. I encourage all ET504 students to publish their criteria if it is a rubric.

I also encourage you to share you powerpoint on slideshare. This is another great sharing site for slide shows and even though teachers may not use your ppt. they may use parts of or use it as a model. This is the best part of sharing, we no longer have to re-invent the wheel. Maybe CSU doesn’t want to see all the examples of student work available but information sharing is the wave of the future and may help others. I would love to know what others think about this idea?

Assignment 1a Done and Gone: Where is the Champagne?

The BIG day has come...our collaborative Assignment 1a has been sent and is done. I sadly said a good bye to Helen, Melanie and Rachel today. Skype will be a great tool when we can actually share a glass on champagne on line! I know we won't be talking as much as we have over the last month but I hope to be able to mine their skills during my work at CSU. I have gained deep respect for them all and know that they can help me as a learner.

It was a journey that ended in what I felt was an excellent product. Our power point is clear, creative and the best part is that I learned a great deal. I know that the final power point was nothing in comparison to the process. Our collaborative skills grew as we moved from a congenial group 23 to a collaborative team 23. Our team was able to trust each other, manage cognitive conflict, and hold one another accountability. We were all able to set aside our individual needs and focus on what was best for the team.

I felt that I had a large impact on the team. I was able to move us out of our chaos state and refocus our direction and energy. This was definitely a creative process that evolved from my reading. Once the idea was there, I had this incredible fear that one of the team members would not agree to move in this direction. I was relieved the next day when I got the go ahead for moving forward. I can imagine that this could be a real conflict when one member has a creative revelation and someone in the group disagrees. I guess that is where compromise come in to play.

This project was a simulation of authentic learning. I hope that I can create similar types of learning opportunities for my students to be able to move through a process and learn as much as I have. Thank you all!

Assignment 1a done and gone: Where's the Champagn

The BIG day has come...our collaborative Assignment 1a has been sent and is done. I sadly said a good bye to Helen, Melanie and Rachel today. I know we won't be talking as much as we have over the last month but I hope to be able to mine their skills during my work at CSU. It was a journey that ended in what I felt was an excellent product. Our power point is clear, creative and the best part is that I learned a great deal creating this project. I know that the power point was nothing in comparison to the process. Our collaborative skills grew as we moved from a congenial group 23 to a collaborative team 23. Our team was able to trust each other, manage cognitive conflict, and hold on another accountability. We were all able to set aside our indivdual needs and focus on what was best for the team.
I individually felt that I had a large impact on the team. I was able to move us out of our chaos state and refocus our direct and energy. This we definitely a creative process that evolved from my reading.

Resolving Conflict Through Listening by H. Mackay

Before I write my notes of this article I want to share part of a letter I wrote to my principal last year...

A word about cognitive conflict...Garmstom says that meetings must be safe but not necessarily comfortable. When a groups meeting is always comfortable, the group is probably not talking about the right thing. Cognitive conflict-disagreements among group members about substantive issues like goals, values, decisions, and increase commitment, cohesiveness, empathy, and understanding. Cognitive conflict occurs as teams examine, compare, and reconcile these differences.

Adaptive schools are communities and require conflict to sort out the best practices for student learning.

I think we feel safe at PEL and there is a high level of trust, but it often seems that we don’t want to move in the direction of conflict. Dan definitely gives the message that we need to be “nice”. This is collegiality not collaboration.

What is conflict? Definitions vary, but here is one I like...

Conflict is just energy in the system, nothing more, nothing less. People bring meaning to conflict. The ways they do so is influenced by personal history, cultural norms, family patterns, and practices of the group within which they work.

Garmston goes on to say that conflict is necessary in order to have community. Conflict forges new life forms. Canyons, beaches, and mountains are created from conflicting energies. Because human conflict is uncomfortable, groups often seek to avoid it. when they do so, they live in a state of community building that Scott Peck calls pseudocommunity. This is a stage of extensive politeness. Being comfortable is the goal. Members of pseudocommunities ignore or make light of problems, withholding their true feelings. At Peck’s fourth stage, groups realize true community. Here, people are open, lucid, vulnerable, and creative. They bond together across their differences for common good and conflict does exist here. We at PEL must be some where between these two stages.

Conflict isn’t always bad, in fact it can enhance loving relationships by clearing the air. You can tell that I believe in conflict and think of it as the creative process. I agree that pressures build up and it is one small thing that triggers a reaction and you kick the dog! The very first strategy that the author talks about is paraphrasing. This is a great way to clarify understanding. Understanding takes the intensity out of the conflict and we can agree to disagree. I have seen paraphrasing working wonders with parents who are unhappy. If you paraphrase they feel heard and that is 90% of the problem solved right away! Try it!

Communication: process and problems by William Savage

I was just listening to a podcast called THIS AMERICAN LIFE. This particular podcast was called GOT YOU PEGGED. The idea is that you can be talking to someone in your own language, own country, own town and you can still have no idea what they are talking about. Communication is all about perceptions and these are all different in each person (this article calls this interpretation). Just like we can be looking at the same piece of art and see totally different things.

In this article I love the idea that a principal or leader needs to have a communication flow that is both downward and upward. It is the upward flow that has to be encouraged. I feel myself very comfortable communicating upward. I don’t always believe that my principal and are communicate easily with each other, but we are both willing listeners and work towards understanding.

The process of filtering communication can be important. There are often items that I feel as a teacher are not important for me to know though they are important. Finances for example have been difficult for our school due to taxes. This doesn’t affect my teaching and I would rather have others take care of it. Unless it becomes an issue that we all have to gather around and discuss, I often welcome some filtering.

Rumors? So I have to confess here that I am the wife of an administrator. Everyone assumes that I know all that is going on when in fact my husband and I talk very little about school. I am usually the last to find out about gossip. I find that our principal deals with rumors head on. He states what the rumor is he has heard and address it candidly to stop the wildfire spread. Communication has become such an important issue in our school that we now have a communications person. That is their job. We are a big school 2500 students and we need a person who handles the mass media and creates an image of the school with visual media.

Group 23----TEAM 23

I am ready to collaborate with others internationally. It has been a great experience and my learning has been tripled by the 3 women I worked with. I have felt very honored to be working with group 23. They are people who have many traits of leadership. I am just now getting down to the second part of my assignment and wondering why I can't have them help me. We all have our strengths and I just know that one of them can write a critically evaluative annotated bibliography, while I would be great at the reflective practice.

Beck and Yeager's (reading 6) differentiate between a group and a team in their article called Making Teams Work: An Underused Window of Opportunity. A group is a number of people who may be heading in the same direction but they have different goals and missions, where a team shares goals and works together towards them. Our group 23 is now disbanded and will now be known as TEAM 23! We went through the different stages of Beck and Yeager's development from forming, focusing, performing, and leveling. At Jakarta International School we call this forming, norming, storming and performing to re-forming. I am sure this has been stolen from someone but I am not sure who and I added re-forming. I would have to say that TEAM 23 didn't norm formally, but we had our norms.

OUR NORMS: Communicate and being in touch was very important. Meeting times were sacred. Sharing responsibilities a must. Do what you say. Work with each others strengths. I would say there are more but those are ones that come to me quickly.

I have come to believe after all the reading I have been doing that all teachers that learn and share their knowledge to improve student learning are leaders.

Here is a great website known as the Teacher Leaders Network... http://www.teacherleaders.org/

Marathon Session Revisited

Meet with group 23 for another marathon session, Aug.31,2009. I had a bit of a brainstorm with the presentation. I was reading an article the night before by Burdenuk and realized that a real goal for TL could be to help break down the classroom walls of isolation and encourage collaboration. From the breaking down wall I went to opening doors to teacher networks. I found that this idea fit in brilliantly with our presentation. We just need to tweak some slides a bit and we could use the metaphor of opening doors as a visual. I was so excited about the idea that I wanted to tell the group right away, but by that time it was late in Australia and I knew I would have to wait till the next day. I wrote them all and email about the idea and crossed my fingers. Everyone ended up on board and felt the same way I did, that this idea brought cohesion to the presentation. We went through the slides, yet another time. It isn’t exactly my vision but with the collaboration of our group it must actually be better. It is easier for me to say yes to something I don’t exactly agree now that the big picture is clear. I need to work on the action research flow chart and get that looking just right. I now believe we would get the money funding needed for creating our article for educational leadership. We are close to finished. Deep breathe!