Imagine walking into the space above to learn. That is what I had the opportunity to do at Word11 in Toronto this weekend. Word11 was an event for bloggers to get together to learn and share about the purpose and business of blogging. The space is the Center [...]]]>

Work area at CSI Annex

Imagine walking into the space above to learn. That is what I had the opportunity to do at Word11 in Toronto this weekend. Word11 was an event for bloggers to get together to learn and share about the purpose and business of blogging. The space is the Center for Social Innovation (CSI) Annex, one of two (soon to be three) properties run by the CSI.

Center for Social Innovation, you wonder? It is a community workspace. From their site, the CSI intends to:

“… catalyze social innovation in Toronto and around the world.”

Regarding the space, CSI states:

“Shared space forms the bedrock of our model. Being physically together is what sets the conditions for new relationships, new projects and unexpected outcomes.”

Shared working spaces are popping up all over the world. Check out the article, Collaborate, Create, Co-work, from the August 2011 issue of Go magazine. The article highlights co-working spaces in the U.S. including Sandbox Suites (San Francisco), Coop (Chicago), and WeWork (New York City).

Bloggers at Word11 were a collaborative group by nature, and the energy coming from the interactions was awesome . I had the opportunity to speak with a diverse array of people and found all the conversations rewarding. I definitely put myself in the casual blogger category, and the stream “developing the casual blogger” had many great talks. It was great to interact with such talented professionals and entrepreneurs.

It is no surprise that that the CSI Annex was the location chosen for the event. It got me to thinking about what if school spaces were designed like this? What could happen if students were able to cross-pollinate their ideas in collaborative setups, instead of like this:

Now I am not saying that every classroom is like this – that is simply not true. However, by and large, the design of schools built more that 30 years ago (which is most schools) have inherent space issues (aka walls) that inhibit the flexible, dynamic setup seen in co-working environments.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills just recently released a new publication and video titled Above and Beyond. The idea is to foster thinking about what they call the 4 Cs of 21st century learning: communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. Here is the publication:  4 Cs Poster

And here is the video:

I know where I really want to work and learn, and I think our students want (need) such spaces as well. Thank you, Word11, for organizing such a great event in such a great space!

Image credit: BYU Observation Classroom from Cherice on Flickr

Design Team Day on Prezi

On Friday the district held a staff development day where we split up by curriculum area K-12. The focus for the day was on design questions from Robert Marzano’s The Art & Science of Teaching. Facilitators for each curriculum area were formed [...]]]>

On Friday the district held a staff development day where we split up by curriculum area K-12. The focus for the day was on design questions from Robert Marzano’s The Art & Science of Teaching. Facilitators for each curriculum area were formed into what were called design teams, and included content teachers, administrators, and a technology facilitator. I was the technology facilitator for the Health and IDEAS team.

In our district, health education at the elementary level is done through the IDEAS program. The IDEAS teachers are gifted and talented certified teachers who provide level one gifted programming services to every student in the school. Elementary students have IDEAS class once every five days from kindergarten through fourth grade. At the middle school level, students have health class for 20 weeks in eighth grade. At the high school level, students can take the required 20 week class during any year.

One of the biggest successes is that it was first time all the health teachers K-12 had the opportunity to work together for a full day! Just the fact that they could have professional dialogue with all level colleagues was awesome. They really enjoyed the time to work and share together.

One of the biggest challenges health teachers have is that many times the content they teach is about things students should not do (tobacco, alcohol, etc.) and true assessment can be difficult. While a student can have all the knowledge about why smoking is bad and get a good grade on a health test, it is whether or not they choose to smoke when outside of school that is the true reflection of their skills. One form of feedback we discussed is the Search Institute Survey administered every other year by the Town of Amherst in partnership with district schools. It is an anonymous survey given to 8th, 10th and 12th grade students about their supports and behaviors related to the 40 Developmental Assets. Results for the Town of Amherst (not just the Williamsville district) can be found on the Town website. Individual schools have results for their buildings.

We spent part of the morning defining and refining learning goals and had work time for each level (elementary, middle and high) to have dialogue on topics of their choosing. We also allowed time for working with technology tools of their choice. All of the documents we shared went through district Google Docs accounts in a shared folder. We used Prezi for the main presentation points during the day (see presentation embedded above), and also show examples from Xtranormal and Animoto.

I have the good fortune to see the health curriculum through not only this dialogue day, but also through our district curriculum council. The health teachers presented their overall curriculum recently, and to me there are two overriding themes to all the units health teachers do:

• goal setting
• decision making

These themes are found throughout every unit, at every level. Whether it is an elementary student thinking about food choices, or a high school student thinking about relationships, these themes are essential to those conversations.

Part of the afternoon was spent focusing on providing effective feedback. As many health teachers are also coaches, we used the coaching analogy to talk about how effective feedback in the classroom should be like effective feedback on the playing field.

I have to say for me this was one of the most stressful days to prepare for personally since I was not that familiar with the health curriculum or the teachers involved. That being said, it is not the role of any one person to be the expert at everything. This day was about collegial dialogue, where everyone has something to contribute. The other facilitators I worked with were awesome. We had many meetings where we discussed and planned how the day should go. Once the staff development day got rolling and we were working together, it was great. Overall I think it  went very well. Feedback indicated that participants were happy, and they provided ideas on how we will structure the next day we are together, which is scheduled to be at the end of August. I feel much more comfortable about the next time we are together now that we have some momentum!

I’ll finish with a great Animoto video created by Tricia DeSantis (Assistant Principal at East HS) on learning goals – note the awesome soundtrack!

What [...]]]> This week is shaping up to be very adult-learner centered. I’ll jump to the end of the week when next Saturday begins NYSCATE’s Annual Conference in Rochester, NY. NYSCATE always puts together a great program that combines visionary leaders, enriching presentations and hands-on training. This year the program looks to do that again.

What has my attention, though, are two virtual conferences happening earlier this week, though. On Wednesday November 17th, Tech & Learning is orgainizng Virtual Tech Forum. This is an online version of the popular Tech Forums that have appeared around the country for almost a decade. The lineup for the virtual event includes Chris Lehman, Howie DiBlasi, David Jakes, David Warlick and many more. The event is free (sponsored by Tech & Learning, of course), and all you have to do is register on their site.

Hmmm…top experts presenting online…no need to travel…much less expensive (as in free)…makes you start to wonder about f2f conferences…which brings me to the other virtual conference this week…

Running all week (Nov. 15-19) is the Global Education Conference, organized by Steve Hargadon and Lucy Gray. This conference casts a wide and impressive net about making learning global. Keynote speakers (63 of them!) are from well respected global groups such as iEARN and ePals, among many others. As of today, there are 397 sessions over the 5 days. All of the Global Education Conference is taking place free, online, using Elluminate (Elluminate being the sponsor).

Hmmm…free…online…conferences. What does this mean for the expensive (but still worthwhile) face-to-face conferences? It makes it harder to justify the time and money involved when there is starting to be a wide array of such events just a few keystrokes away. If we are in fact trying to promote global connection with technology, then it seems to make good sense that we gather that way also. Virtual events are by no means free – there are still speakers to be paid (maybe), bandwith to support (definitely), but their value to a wider audience is certainly excellent.

Change is in the air for how conferences will happen in the future…

Erie 1 BOCES hosted the 5th Annual Riding the Digital Wave Conference at the Harlem Rd. Education Campus. Below is my under-5-minute wrap up of my experience. Click to play, and mouse over the lower right corner of the video to find the full-screen button.

Here is the result:

I think it’s [...]]]> So for a new twist, I’ve taken the notes from the sessions I attended on Monday at NYSCATE (from scraps of paper, my iPod touch, etc.) and dumped them into Wordle to see if there are any over-arching ideas I heard (or more likely, focused on).

Here is the result:

I think it’s too soon to really process this, but I like how it makes one think.

The sessions I attended on Monday were:
Rod Serling Video Festival (nyscate08d13)
10 Standards-Based Formative Feedback Techniques for Your Classroom (briefly) (nyscate08d07)
Prensky Keynote
Where Teachers Learn, Where Teachers Teach (nyscate08e03)
Knezak Keynote
Leader to Leader (nyscate08f10)

I’ve had a great time at NYSCATE so far, in the hands-on workshops that precede the regular conference. I spent two rewarding days [...]]]> With credit to Spencer Johnson and his book, Who Moved My Cheese?, who moved my tools? The tools I’m referring to are the software tools that we rely on every day.

I’ve had a great time at NYSCATE so far, in the hands-on workshops that precede the regular conference. I spent two rewarding days with David Jakes – first in the workshop titiled, Creating Immersive Learning Environments with Mixed Media, followed by, Cartography on the Cutting Edge. David is a terrific educator who knows how to harness the value of technology while still focusing on the core learning literacies that are timeless.

In Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat, the world changed while we were not looking in terms of the global economy. Similarly, while we are busy using Word, PowerPoint, and every other installed program on our computers, the game has changed in that all of the software has moved to the web. There are many names for this – cloud computing, software as a service, browser-ware, etc. The bottom line is that the computer you type on is the vehicle that gets you to the software and content – all located on the web.

We spent two days talking about and beginning to build powerful environments for students and teachers – and all the tools are web-based (see list here from David’s site). There are pros and cons to this, but the fact is that web-based tools allow for RSS feeds, html code that is embedable, and a multitute of uses and a re-uses. The internet connection and browser become the only necessary resources to communicate, collaborate, and be productive. In this light, is it a suprise that Google jumped into the browser market with Chrome?

The web is the new slate on which we will be drawing our future – literally – how will we harness it and make it what we want it to be?

Image courtesy of JcMaco on Flickr.