Point A to Point B

Category: Conferences

  • Am I a Dinosaur?

    Attending NECC virtually has been fascinating. Not the same as being there for sure, but reading and watching what I can, I do feel a connection to what happened. There is still a long list of videos/podcasts to catch up on, but I’m brining my official attendance to a close.

    The twitter-skype chat-live blog thing has me thinking a lot about my own personal preferences for learning, and so I wonder…am I a dinosaur?

    When I want to really concentrate on something, I have to focus on it and immerse myself. If its reading, I dont like the tvdinosaur_skeleton.gif on. If its writing, no music in the background. Attending a session with a speaker I want to hear – that’s all I want to hear. If its practicing the piano, then that’s it. OK, maybe one little exception – I like to have a cup of coffee while doing any of those things…

    We talk all the time about how kids multi-task, and reports are coming out that brains are working differently. Are there any kids left who need to focus? Who really should turn off the chat client and log out of the social site to get something done (even if they don’t want to)?

    Am I the new dinosaur? Is the ice age that is going to freeze my bones in perpetuity a huge spout of ones and zeroes that the younger generation can process and manage with the flick of a finger? I consider myself reasonably tech-savvy, but what do we need to do in schools to meet the needs of these kids? Or, are we just letting them be over-stimulated and under-focused when we should still be guiding them in how to train their minds?
    Definitely a Russo’s Rambling…

    And on that note, pointatopointb is going to power-down for a couple of weeks. Its that time of summer when I dig into my hosting site, re-learn how to tweak, align and update all the background stuff, and get ready to launch into the new year. I really like the current design for the site (implemented last year), so probably no new look for the new year, but maybe some tweaks and such as I upgrade the verison of WordPress. See ya soon!

    “Dinosaur Skeleton.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 6 July 2007.

  • Great Questions – Do Anyone’s Tech Standards Adress These?

    Courtesy of Barbara and her Dare to dream – Classroom technology Blog, the following questions appeared on a t-shirt being given out by Nettrekker:

    21 Skills for 21st century learning!

    Can your students….

    Make complex choices?

    Benchmark a process?

    manage a negotiation?

    Communicate clearly?

    Motivate others?

    Connect globally?

    Organize information?

    Cope with change?

    Read a digital map?

    Demonstrate innovativeness?

    Resolve conflict?

    Distinguish fact from opinion?

    Respond to a blog?

    Frame problems and solutions?

    Sell ideas to others/

    Give an effective presentation?

    Set priorities and goals?

    Lead a team?

    Use technology well?

    Learn outside the classroom?

    Work effectively in teams?

    If I look at our district K-12 technology standards (which look much like any other district – word processing skills, spreadsheet basics, presentations, ethics, etc. etc. etc.), just about NONE of the above questions are addressed. And I think it is reasonable (absolutely necessary…) that the above are the skills we should be aiming for. If that is the case, what does it say about the general state of technology “standards?”

    Thanks for the post, Barbara!

  • Another “Jump Out”

    Browsing through the blog postings from NECC, this one-liner shared during Andrew Zolli’s keynote panel discussion jumped out at me: (thanks to Jorge on his Desert Dew blog)

    In the new paradigm, the Principal is now called “The Chief Learner.”

    Pow. Why? It comes down to learning. Great teachers since the beginning of time know that learning is the engaging part, and do whatever they can to engage the kids in it. Technology has provided a veritable magic carpet to expedite the learning. Great teachers saw this instantly and took off with it (regardless of whether or not they were “techies.”

    Unfortunately the principal of today has become “The Chief Moderator,” “The Chief Compromiser,” and/or “The Chief Lawsuit Avoider.” Not because they want to, but because they have had to. When the focus goes away from learning, the system suffers, and that is a lot of why our system struggles.

    The Chief Learner…that’s what we all want our leaders to be.

    On a somewhat connected note, this is why ed-techers love the new stuff – including me. I was not-so-nice in my previous post about twitter, but I now see that the folks there involved in it were LEARNING something new, how to incorporate it, how to utilize it. That is the addicting part of what we as educators do. I believe the key to why we got into the business, whether we knew it or not, is that we love to learn. Technology is great since it provides a never-ending (and often overwhelming) stream of new things to learn.

    Keep it focused on the learning, and from that all the right things will happen.

  • Technology is Still Just a Tool, Right?

    One of the things ed-tech-ers have to watch out for is being swayed by the “cool new tool” syndrome. Interestingly, Twitter, as an example, was all the rage at NECC. Its just a tool, but post after post talked about the tool, rather than the learning.

    At NECC there were folks live blogging, twittering, and skype-chatting all at the same time during sessions. Just how many layers of concurrent communication are necessary? Does this really lend itself to higher order thinking, or just spread-too-thin thinking? Those involved (all great people whom I immensely respect and read regularly) are reporting that this is a fascinating new layer. I’m not sold at all, but I was not there, either.

    Published work should involve some layer of personal contribution – formats that are essentially live transcripts are nice, but do they provide enough information to prove worthy?

  • Virtual Attendance Still Requires Planning Ahead

    In my virtual attendance of NECC, the first thing I have learned is that to keep on top of the flood of information coming out of NECC via blogs, etc., you have to have to know what is going on so you can key into those sessions. Since I was not attending, I did not spend the time with the NECC Conference Planner tool as I have in the past. I would typically spend a few weeks visiting and revisiting the schedule to tweak what I wanted to see (with 2 or 3 backups). I did none of that this year, and now skimming all the posts is rather daunting, trying to grab out what seems important.

    My reaction during the conference is that I’m not a fan of live-blogging. Essentially you get note-taking, which is not bad compared to the alternative, but I look to blogging to have some sort of summary, or point of view, not just a chronological telling of events. I think the best part of blogging happens in the days (weeks) after an event, when things are fresh, and people have some time to reflect a bit.

    That being said, one of the great things that happened this year, thanks to Steve Hargadon, is that every session has a unique tag. So, by searching using that tag, one can hopefully review the conference schedule in hindsight, and get the feedback which has the reflection time in it.

  • The Constructivist Consortium

    Just reading all the blogging coming out of NECC is a time-consuming task. One post that just jumped out at me to look into comes courtesy of Slyvia Martinez’s Generation YES blog.

    The Constructivist Consortium hosted a daylong Constructivist Celebration at NECC, as part of their launch. Gen YES is a major sponsor along with a few other groups. What caught my attention is that the day was hosted by Gary Stager (founder of the CC) and Peter Reynolds (from FableVision another sponsor of the CC). Their mission is empowering learners – learning is the center of everything, and that rocks. Any group led by Gary and Peter is tops in my book – I’ve seen them both in action. The CC looks like something to watch out for – and I plan to keep a close eye on what they do and how we can make it happen here at Heim.

    As a side note, I’ve been following the work of Generation YES for a few years now. We’ve never taken the plunge to use their curriculum/materials, but based on reading Sylvia’s blog, I have a renewed spark to see what they have to offer.

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  • Getting Busy in Atlanta

    The RSS feeds are starting to hum with activity in Atlanta, and NECC really has not started yet. Today was the EduBlogger Con, a 1 day pre-conference involving many of the big names in blogging. The picture posts in Flickr are also starting to flow in. One that jumped out at me, and is really just a scene shot in Atlanta, is outstanding. Taken by David Warlick, I think this photo could be a fantastic open-ended discussion or writing starter. Check it out here.

    Oh, and Jeff Dolce from Orchard Park was spotted at EduBlogger Con, too!

  • NECC 2007

    The National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) is about to launch in Atlanta thisnecc-atlanta.gif weekend. I was almost able to pull off attending this year – but various reasons are preventing me. I’m severely bummed, as the last time I went was in Philadelphia in 2005, but I’m going to capitalize on this by seeing just how much one can get from virtual attendance – keeping up with the conference goings-on with blogs, videocasts, podcasts, etc.

    One of the things I’m going to try for the first time is David Warlick’s conference tracking website, Hitchikr. It is designed to be a place to virutally attend a conference for those who cannot physically be there. Along with that, there are a series of blog tools available at the NECC website that should provide plenty of opportunity to keep up.

    I’m less than optimistic about virtual attendance vs. in-person, but I’m very open to having my mind changed!

    Image citation:
    “iste atlanta.” International Society for Technology in Education. 19 June 2007. www.iste.org.

  • ETC 2007

    Last week I attended the second Buffalo State College Educational Technology Conference, held at Erie 1 BOCES. The conference is organized and run by students in the master’s degree program in educational computing at Buff State. It was a fabulous day, offering a wide range of sessions covering many current trends in educational technology. Here is a summary of what I attended:

    * Tim Magner Keynote: This is the second time I’ve heard him speak, the first being last November at NYSCATE. His focus both times is on the new global workforce and economy, and what educational technology can/should do to help change the direction and focus of education. He spent much less time on the School2.0 project here at ETC, compared to NYSCATE. I found his presentation much more captivating at NYSCATE as well.

    * Digital Video for School News Shows & Class Projects: This presentation was by Amherst Middle School technology teacher Rob Zdrojewski. He presented his excellent AmherstTechTV new show, and also the student projects they do. The core of their program is a product called Visual Communicator. I learned of Rob’s program a couple of years ago when I started looking into news programs for our school. We made a visit to Amherst Middle back then, and have modeled our program after theirs. It was exciting to see the new studio they built – WOW!. I was also extemely excited to learn that the program is being updated and released soon under its new owner, Adobe (beta available now).

    * Technology ‘Cast’ing Call: Continuing in my belief that video is one of the keys to great learning, this presentation by Nicole Giambra from Alden covered an array of topics, revolving around getting kids involved in video.

    * Online Literature Circles: English teacher Angela Gnann from Niagara Wheatfield did an outstanding presentation on an outstanding project – online literature circles. She, along with the Technology Director and a professor from Canisius, took an “analog” literature circle concept and brought it online. Students in the 9th and 10th grade participated in online lit. circles, and had college educaiton students in the circle as well. The interactions were much greater and meaningful due to the wider circle. Students used images to convey their ideas, and also created digital video quilts to synthesize their learning. POWERFUL, and a true representation of how learning can happen in ways not possible without the technology.

    * An Introduction to Second Life: Second Life is getting huge in certain circles, including higher education. I have read a bit about this 3D virtual world, but this was my first time seeing a demo, and talking about the possible educational implications. Some of the big names in educational technology, Will Richardson, David Warlick and Kathy Schrock, are currently investigating second life. As a matter of fact, I just saw at Kathy’s blog that she is presenting in-world at Second Life about K-12 uses. ISTE just published an article on it as well. The presenter, Heather Glogowski from Buffalo State, talked about Buff State’s current initiative to setup a virtual library in Second Life for students to use. From the conversation in the room, Second Life is definitely a bleeding-edge concept for schools – it will take a bit of time for things to develop before successful integration in schools can happen. For me, this was the tipping point to go get an account and try it out.

    Overall, I found this to be a rewarding, brain-filling day. Kudos to the students at Buff State who were in charge of the conference, and their advisor, John Thompson.

    Check out the Edcuational Computing @ Buffalo State College webpage for more info on their program.

  • Ride the Digital Wave 2007

    I attended the Erie 1 BOCES Ride the Digital Wave Conferene on Staff Development Day, March 30th.

    The sessions I attended were as follows, along with some commentary and interesting pieces:

    • Keynote by Dr. Ron Owsten, York Universtiy, Toronto. Dr. Owston spoke about how we need to rethink learning in the context that the students know more and are using technology tools in vastly different ways than the teachers. His thinking is right in line with many of the current leaders in Ed Tech – he referenced Marc Prensky many times in relation to how gaming can be used to capture the minds of students. I did not pick up new information in this session, but definitely reaffirmed where we need to be going in schools. The one quote that resonated with me from Dr. Owens was “We all need to be continuous learners.”
    • Session 1: NOVEL Databases – this presentation was on a state initiative to provide access to a multitude of databases for all New York State Libraries, public or school. I was not familiar with this project in particular, but after digging a bit, our school librarians alreaday have a link to it in WITS. There are a lot of interesting things here, but with the myriad of other sources we have available, I’m not sure how much we would use this one.
    • Session 2: Digital Video – Classroom Applications – this session alone was worth the price of admission. The presenter, Chad Skudlarek from Randolph, is a self-proclaimed tech-nothing 3 years ago. He was introduced to how video could be incorporated in the curriculum and how it totally transformed the engagement level of his students. He only does 2 video projects a year (which is plenty), but they are awesome. They even post the work on YouTube for the world to see/comment. However the final product is shared, I truly feel this is where we need to move learning – video engages students like nothing else, and they want to “do the content” to a high level. You need to keep the goal in mind, but this is a powerful medium. The videos from Randolph are on pig dissection, and as such can be unpleasant to watch, so I won’t link to them here. If you are interestd in seeing them, let me know.
    • Session 3: Free Online Resources for K-12 Teachers – presented by Val Rinow from WNYRIC. For me this was mostly known sites (NYSED VLS, Thinkbright Video, Pics4Learning, Kidsclick!, NetSmartz). One new one, though that jumped out was Internet 4 Classrooms. Here I found some web resources for LOTE, including interactive websites that could be good w/a SMART Board/Airliner.

    Overall I found this to be a very good day (oh, and lunch was good as always – BOCES does a nice job in this dept.). The sessions helped reaffirm, reflect and inform my daily practice.

     

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