Cooking Robots?

So if there are cooking robots now, what comes next?

I found the most interesting part of this NY Times article the ethnographic study that the woman did to understand what kind of behavior a hot dog vendor would exhibit and then worked to program the robot to replicate it. I wonder if hot dog vendors in Pittsburgh act the same as those in Philadelphia.

Makes me a little confident that it will be a long, long time before robots can even assist teachers! :)

With or Without Technology

I am teaching an online course for UMass Boston on Computers, Technology and Education. It is part of a strand of courses teachers can take to receive a certificate in Instructional Technology for Educators.

For their first blog post, I gave them the following prompt: What is the role of technology in education: the role of the teacher and the role of the student - in relation to this topic.

Today at our local Technology Directors meeting we discussed the challenges of taking "technology" out of the equation for professional development, in other words, embed it, integrate it. It is very hard to do, many people, curriculum folks, districts are just not ready to work towards true integration of technology as a tool.

As an experiment, I took their blog posts and imported them into wordle. With and without the word technology. Here is what came up. What do you conclude from this?

Sit in a Different Chair Today

So the new Apple iPad was introduced today and there were a lot of disappointed folks out there twittering and blogging and writing crude comments. As I discussed it's possibilities with some of my colleagues, they too were disappointed. Everyone was looking for the computing Utopia and they feel like Apple fell short. I would say, as a few other writers have, David Pogue and Dan Katt, to name two that I have seen, that Apple is again thinking outside of the box.

I heard, no USB drive. I said, hmmmm, been using my iDisk and cloud computing since 2002, what do I need USB for? I heard, no camera. I said, hmmmm, I have two cell phones both with cameras that can upload to the web, which I could then use to download to iPad. I heard it can't print. I said, hmmmmm, the world is going green, costs for printing is up and encouragement for LESS printing is also up. I don't print my google docs, do you?

Hmmmmm....I challenge all of you naysayers to tell me, really, what can't it do that you want it to do? I bet you don't even know because you haven't even tried it yet. For those of you around long enough to remember when Apple came out with a computer without a floppy drive, think about that and then think about the iPad.

I am not saying it is a perfect device. When I get one I will probably see some challenges, however, I will either figure out a different way to do what I need to, or I won't do it. I would encourage you to sit in a different chair today, maybe you'll get a different view. And maybe, someday, you'll be reading my blog on your iPad! : )

Discussion Starter...

Wow, I just learned about this tool from our CFF Coach - Wolfram/Alpha! This type of tool has the power to show educators just what Web 2.0 is all about.

It should also challenge them to think about what they are teaching their students. Here is a link to the screen cast that explains the website possibilities.

A computational knowledge engine....Think about the "what if" questions it can answer for students. I challenge you to discuss with one other person the potential that this type of tool has to change teaching and learning in the 21st century.

On Changing the Discussion

I named my blog for a reason...changing the discussion...I have believed for years that we need to be talking about teaching and learning and NOT technology. Today in my school district, we had our CFF Flip the Switch event. It was amazing, the students showcased great projects, big and small, the teachers shared the successes and challenges of the CFF program, the board members listened and watched and thought and the discussion changed....

The teachers actually said, with no prompting, no scripting, it's not about the technology, it's about our teaching. At the end of the panel I had to speak up and honestly got very choked up as I shared my thanks with them. Thanks for taking the risk and for showing me that if you have a vision, if you work hard with the right team and leaders to support that vision, if you put technology in their hands, and give them a tech support staff and sustain a coach, the discussion will change...

I came to education to make a difference, to be an advocate for technology for teachers, sometimes it is hard to see from where I sit now that I am making a difference, today our CFF teachers and CFF coach showed me that I do. Sometimes we have to stop what we are doing and take time to celebrate all that we have done. We all make a difference. I would not have been able to move things forward so quickly here without the support of my upper administration and my tech team. They say it takes a villiage to raise a child. I also think it takes a "village" to change the discussion. Thank to all of my mentors, colleagues, friends, supporters, challengers, my "village" for being a part of changing the discussion.

ps - Check out our MS on NBC 10!

New Technology Learnings 09-10

This is a wordle of what my Technology Learning Commitment Team celebrated today at our final meeting for the year. What Good stuff!

Change is messy. Many in my district were resistant to the change in technology this year. Mac to PC, stationary to Mobile, static to dynamic, flood gates were opened, some felt naked. We had a number of struggles this year but our teachers and technology support specialists all celebrated today. We discussed three pieces of the Horizon Report 2009 K-12 Edition

1. Technologies to Watch
2. Key Trends
3. Critical Challenges

We shared our ideas about the following questions on our TinyChat;

• What practices should we be changing (if any) in our classrooms?
• How important is assessment in these classrooms?
• How do we make progress in the short term?
• How do we make progress in the long term?

(Thank you Kyle Peck who posed similar questions at the 1-1 Conference at PSU this year.)

We did not come up with any perfect answers but we did find that we had learned a lot and we are excited about more technology, changing teaching practices AND not forgetting to balance technology use with teaching to read, write and play in the mud!

School on a Bus

A colleague of mine sent me this article from the NYT over the weekend that talks about buses in Arkansas being wired for Internet so students can learn on their long commutes to school.

Harnessing idle time for learning, what a great idea!