Monday, June 30, 2008

NECC 2008 - Monday Session Notes

Digital Literacy in the Elementary Classroom
Janice Friesen, Eanes ISD


Handout is online on NECC Site
References Daniel Pink
Talking about eInstruction
Talking about Alex’s Lemonade Stand Project

Resource
wordweb.info/free - pc only - check it out...very cool!

Photo Story - Kelly Manzano
100 Days of School - What each student brought to the 100 day celebration.
Headset microphones to record text.

Digital Storytelling with Minimal Clicks
Wes Fryer and Others


thinkingmachine.pbwiki.com


teachdigital.pbwiki.com/digitalstoryteling


Ear v. Eye - dialup v. broadband

“Do Curriculum”

Tell a Story with 5 Photos for Educators - Karen Motgomery
(on Flicker) - other group available also but not moderated by an educator so may have questionable content.
5 photos = 5000 word story

Text Century v. Visual Century

Professional Development - VoiceThread with Coffee 2.0
Digital Picture for Name Tent (no directions first)

Moodle Model 5E Lesson
Mark McCall, Charles Ackerman
Bryan ISD, Bryan TX

www.jukeboxedu.com
Teaching in a 1/1 classroom.
Extrovert v. Introvert
(Lab-Based v. Web-Based)

Other from Today:
Blog to Check out: http://learning20.blogspot.com/

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Moving Skyscrapers, Moving Pedagogy


If Dubai can plan a moving skyscraper (thanks to Jim Gates for this link) then we can plan for moving pedagogy. How do we do this? We begin by having discussions that focus on what some might call "out of the box" thinking. In a technology meeting today my team asked me how we would support PowerPoint from school to home if we were moving to Macs, iWork and Open Office. I suggested that we talk about using SlideShare and other Web 2.0 tools with students.

It was a new thought process for them, using the web to present. If we don't start having the discussions, we can't start changing the thinking or moving the pedagogy. A school district near mine has communicated to it's teachers that it is moving to Office 2007 so that they can take advantage of the additional 1500 features available in this new software. WHAT??? I would be willing to be that most people can't even list 50 features that they use now! So, to that I say...let's look at Google Docs. Thinking out of the box...what do you think??!!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Friday, June 13, 2008

Learning to Change, Changing to Learn

A colleague of mine shared this video with me today. It includes perspectives from Cheryl Lemke, Daniel Pink and Chris Dede among others. It is worth taking 5 minutes to watch. As an educator and advocate for 21st century classrooms, we need to keep these kinds of ideas in front of educational leaders and teachers to continue to promote the seamless integration of technology in the teaching and learning process.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

False Sense of Connection

We had an awesome summer thunderstorm near my house this evening. As I sat here and enjoyed watching the unpredictable weather from the comfort of my front porch, I reflected upon the fact that at the moment I was watching, my fun loving golden retriever kept wanting to connect to me, then the cat, then me, then the cat, to get someone to play with her. It reminded me of an old saying, "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" which also made me think, if you're a dog, really, you can't connect with your owner or the cat via twitter on the internet. Some connections really just need physical interaction! It is human (and animal) nature to want to physically connect to one another.

Wes Fryer
and Vicki Davis have both recently blogged about taking time to disconnect and refresh ourselves, connect with our family and stay positive. I wholeheartedly agree that all of these are very important to do. In fact, I think it is important to try to do these things more than once a year. Many of us take one vacation in the summer for about a week. The rest of the year we are connected with our colleagues, friends, family and significant others, via email, twitter, text messages, occasional phone calls (if we feel it's too much to type or text) and, if we're lucky, we meet in person. I am reminded of an initiative in our school district where we are educating the "whole child." As part of that, we were presented with the fact that to thrive, children, actually all humans need 6-8 respectful touches a day. There was no research on how many respectful twitters or emails equated to respectful touches.

Hmmmm....so I'm wondering...text connections without human interactions...do they give us a false sense of connection? As I begin to plan for a one to one initiative for my teachers this summer, I will pause to remember that the goal is not to disconnect but to strengthen connections. I will push myself to go the extra mile and not just send an email, text or twitter, but extend a hand and a friendly smile and hopefully create a human connection. Maybe even give a hug or two to those that have a special place in my heart. I urge you do to the same!