Edina Technology Integration

It's Not About the Tool...And, And, And...

2012-01-31T14:42:00.001-06:00

The title of this post was inspired by a conversation lead by David Jakes this past weekend. I'll write more about that presentation in a future post.

It's Not About the Tool!
This fall, Will Richardson kicked off our district back to school gathering challenging the staff in our district to "Redefine Awesome!" He pointed out that,

"The great thing is.."We now have an easy connection between one's passion to learn and the resources to learn it."

"Unleashing student passion for learning" is one of the cornerstones of our district technology plan, along with "Empowering great teaching! Even the wording speaks more to educational philosophy and pedagogy, rather than "let's get some cool tools!"

To me, the focus of this document, and for that matter the National Educational Technology Plan, which I'm a big fan of, is on LEARNING, not on the tool! The learning is the most important part. If it can be done more efficiently with a pencil, or a portable slate, then use it! It's about the learning!

And...
Earlier this fall, Dean Shareski was struggling with the phrase, "It's not about the technology." He created this slide to prove his point.

As much as I appreciate Dean's idea here, I would not want to subject ANYONE to ME playing a cello! I believe ANY tool, in the hands of a good teacher will have a positive educational impact, just as any tool in the hands of an ineffective educator will not. Dr. Robert Marzano said as much at the 2009 TIES Conference Keynote. Still, Dean's point is that in the hands of a skilled person, the tool IS important! Besides, great teachers deserve great tools for instruction, just as students deserve great tools for learning!

And...
Last November, voters in our district supported our technology plan by passing a referendum that dedicates funds for technology in our district for the next 10 years. Our next task is to define what a 21st Century Classroom will look like. We are working to define the standard tools that every teacher will need. In November/December, we sent out a survey for staff, seeking their input. The survey results indicated that:

Teachers were unsure about some of the tools available to them
Teachers tool preferences varied by grade level
Teachers tool preferences varied by subject area

And...
So on Wednesday of this week, we are inviting staff to come test drive some tools that may or may not become part of that digital classroom at a Technology Fair. Hopefully staff will get some hands on opportunities with specific tools for interaction, communication, creation and presentation to empower their teaching and unleash student's passion for learning. We will also be broadcasting some of the events happening with Digital Learning Day, as a way to showcase how the tools can be used to transform learning here in Edina.

Chromebook Event: About the tool...Notes

2012-01-30T12:20:00.001-06:00

It didn't recognize my camera on the USB, but the memory slot worked!

On January 30, I attended a Google Chromebook event at the University of Minnesota.
The presenters, Jaime Casap and Dana Nguyen talked about the "paradigm shift" that the Chromebook represents. Here are some of my notes. For today's session, I was using a Samsung device. Jaime noted that as new manufacturers start developing Chromebooks, they will continue to have a screen, keyboard, and camera. This device had 2 USB 2.0 ports, a 4-1 memory card slot, and a mini-VGA port. Note: This post is not an endorsement of the product, just my notes on the presentation!

Boot in 8 seconds (They are working on it to be faster!)
8 hour battery
Wi-Fi w/ optional 3G
Everything in the Cloud
Management is easier, as Web based console for users
Automatic Updating
Integrated Security
3 Year extended warranty
After 3 years, schools get new devices, plus get to keep the old...

The Web has come a LONG Way! Not that long ago, the connections we had at work were better than we have at home! (CyberMonday evolved because of that.)
Today, you can "Hangout" with people anywhere, Read eBooks, Learn from watching video, and collaborate on projects.
Today, we don't learn with a manual, we watch Youtube, or ask friends on social networks.
Today, we use devices to create content, not just consume. (Read: Take that, Apple!) Teacher Web creation and collaboration is evident by Web pages, Moodle Courses, Screencasts, assessments, presentations, etc.
The Google folks argue that Budget, Management and Scalability get in the way of devices being ubiquitous. Obviously, if your district is already using Apps for Education, there are certain benefits.

The device was designed to take advantage of how the Web is now.

Web Based Management
Customized from the cloud
Security Built-In (No Malware)
Forever Fresh
Web Based Management
Customized from the cloud
Security Built-In
Forever Fresh

Management Console is built in to the Google Apps for Education Domain Management. When districts purchase Chromebooks, the Chrome OS settings are added to the domain. Different settings can be set up by school/organizations within the domain.

Proxy settings can be set up that work either at school, or can be set up at home. The policies are stored in the cloud as opposed to the device, at the account level. Screens can automatically be locked on idle. The policies can be set as low as 30 minutes to as high as 24 hours.

You can also customize so that certain pages always load on start-up!

Devices must connect to the Web in order to "ping the server" and be updated.

For 1:1 programs, you can set up devices so that only the assigned user can log-in.

The management console has been updated a few times, and is continually being improved based on user input.

Pricing for the Wi-Fi only device with 1 year purchase is $449, with a 3 year subscription it's $20/month. For the management console, there is an additional $5/month cost per device after the first year.

For the Wi-Fi plus 3G, it's $519 for 1 year purchase, or $23/month with the 3 year subscription.

Schools can get a cart and cloud printer with the first 30 you purchase.

After 3 years, what happens to the management console? Google says that they will give a 6 month warning notice when the OS will no longer be supported.

They finished their presentation with a video that showed how one student's experience with the device.

Next, Nguyen showed some features of Chrome, such as enabling "Instant" for faster searching, adding other search engines such as Amazon, Wikipedia and Youtube with shortcuts for searching. On a chromebook, you can highlight text and use a "2 finger click" to search in a new tab!
You can also "Bookmark all tabs" if you want to save tabs that are open.
She flew through a wide variety of great shortcut features, like "Pinning Tabs", the new calculator feature in the "Omnibox."
Finally, she showed us the translate tool, which she claims is now "80% Accurate!" and "20 Things I learned.com"

A question from the audience asked whether 1:1 programs can handle Docs if the student doesn't have Internet access. Casap said that one option is to give students w/o access a 3G device.

We then went into a Hangout with Richland School District in North Carolina, where they will be implementing a 1:1 program with 19,000 Chromebooks! They are going from 200mb to 500 mb bandwidth, and they have 26,000 students. We also talked with Leyden School District, who have implemented Chromebooks and are very pleased with their implementation. Easy, equal access for everyone is essential!
It was a good discussion about "making the device disappear" and other Best practice for a 1:1 initiative. Bryan Weinert, the Technology Director pointed out that since so much is via the Web, and the Chromebook was designed as a Web tool, that it feels like a perfect fit. They are also looking at "OpenClass" as a potential Learning Management System. Right now, 80% of students have Internet access, but they are not providing devices/access for students without.

Casap asked them to discuss the Professional Development issues with Chromebook implementation. The folks in North Carolina focused on blended learning opportunities for staff in cloud based options. Weinert, met with his staff for 30 minutes, showed them how the lock worked on the cart, how to log in and off, and that was about it. Instead, they've focused on Google Apps, Web 2.0 tools and good instructional design for how they can use the tools in the classroom. He did say that the management console is essential to the instructional process. Mainly so they can run the device through district proxies for filtering, manage apps/extentions, and provide a safe environment for their students.

Offline syncing works with Gmail and calendar, but it's currently only view only in Docs.
The "ScratchPad" app can do basic word processing and sync.

Aside from struggling a bit with the trackpad, as an experienced Chrome user, I felt fairly comfortable using the device. A fairly short learning curve. I think it's an interesting model, but I'm not sure some districts would consider $20/month/student "sustainable." Still if you consider that other 1:1 programs purchase devices with a similar lease, they may be close. Perhaps if districts can get their textbook cost down, it might become a viable learning tool.

Parenting in the Digital Age

2012-01-26T15:52:00.001-06:00

Today I was invited to speak to a group of parents about "Parenting in the Digital Age." Principal, Dr. Beth Russell and I had a great conversation about Online Safety, Cyberbullying, and developing a positive digital footprint. The parents asked some great questions, and Dr. Russell provided examples of cases of cyber bullying at South View, and how the administration has handled them.

A Cool Moment in Class!

2012-01-13T15:42:00.001-06:00

Today I received this e-mail from Peter Grimm, one of our Project Lead the Way teachers at South View Middle School:

Mike,
Wanted to share a cool “cloud computing” moment from class. My students are writing scripts for a video they are shooting in my class. A young lady was sick today, and she had all of the work saved in her google docs. Before the cloud, the girls in class would have been sunk, as the sick girl had their rough draft as well. Anyway, From home, she and the other girls in her group who were in class did a conference session on google docs, while using their cell phones on speaker phone. It was kind of cool to watch – they were very productive, and they didn’t lose a work day. They had the google doc on 1 computer and their video footage on another, and they were editing and re-writing, and working virtually. It’s fun when it all works!

Peter

It was a great example of:
a) Teacher Reflection
b) Anytime/Anywhere Learning
c) Student Collaboration
d) Bring Your Own Device
e) Sharing

Grimm noted that for their next project, students will be collaborating with students from across from the country via Google Docs and Skype on a design project.
What a great example of "Redefining Awesome!" It is definitely my #EduWin of the day!

TIES 11: Keynote Gabe Zicherman Gamification

2011-12-19T12:19:00.000-06:00

Gabe Zicherman, the author of the Gamification Blog and books like Gameification by Design was a last minute fill in for Keynote speaker, Jane McGonigal, who was ill and unable to attend TIES 2011.

Zicherman got the audience hooked, with pics of Atari and Oregon trail (Jane has Dysentary!)
In 1987, Carmen San Diego was the most important game.
"Civilization took up about 8,000 hours of my life in grad school!"
A game that teaches something without intending to.
The dominant narative today is divided into "Games/Screens are Evil vs. Games can Fix the World!"
Is it possible both are right?
Who NEEDS the help games can provide? NYT article on kids being too hyper. Zicherman argues that maybe it's the adults!
Doesn't teach kids to be patient and wait, de-habituated to how the real world works!

"Do our kids have ADD or are our schools too slow?"

Students do a lot of reading still, but the modality is different!
Multitasking to the Max -World of Warcraft
6 different activities required to be successful in the game.
Neuroplasticity-Juggling increases grey matter in the brain.
Increasing fluid intelligence.
Exponential increase in learning
Flynn Effect: Rising IQ since 1990-

Chrystalline Intelligence, stable or falling (decreasing)
Fluid Intelligence rising and quickly

Games are wired to produce pleasure. Dopamine is released when we are challenged and achieve.
Kids that are naturally predisposed to unacceptable behavior can be trained to be even worse. This is important for educators to remember.

"Collective change is exponential - Individual change is linear!"

Game designers work with a construct of desire for mastery.

Desire
Incentive
Challenge
Achievement/Reward
Feedback
Mastery

The red text above occurs in social interaction.

Gamification is the process of using game thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage users.

It's NOT about making everything into a game!
He shared the example of Ananth Pai, from Parkview/Centerpoint Elementary, who took his 3rd graders to grade-level by utilizing games. Students said, "It's fun and it's social!"
Decoding JAY-Z with Bing! All 300 pages were placed around New York, and the winner received 2 free tix to every concert for life!
It took 30 days, and the winner hired people to assist! The prize cost him nothing, but it seems like an incredible prize!
Speed Camera Lottery in Sweden. The ticket is based on how much money you make! Everyone who drives at the speed limit is entered in a lottery for the cost that others pay.
Car dashboards for Hybrids-Honda Insight, Nissan Leaf, Toyota Prius, and Ford Fusion have feedback on how ecological you are being. The Leaf even has incorporated Facebook into it!
Ripple and DueProps- Routine tasks get virtual points for jobs well done.Feedback goals & 360 employee engagement. Any time an altruistic reward is introduced, the behavior is messed up. It uses Karma rather than money and is more successful.
iCivics, developed by Sandra Day-O'Connor
Online college courses have games integrated (See Chart)

We have to avoid being all enthusiasm and no substance!

NYT Inflating the Software Report Card. Important to be data-driven. We need to vet in a systemic way.
Bartles Player types 4 core types of players.

Killers- Win/Lose I've got to win, you've got to lose, and I need attention for it! This behavior cannot be stopped! It CAN be redirected.
Achievers- Important to know that not everyone can win! Sometimes we focus too much on them. 10% Everyone likes acheivement, but most don't want to put in the effort.
Socializers- 80% of the population
Explorers-Enjoy the process of discovery

What motivates people to play games?
If we know what motivates students, we will know how to define fun!
Some people might try to "out-collaborate" others.
SAPS model. In order of stickiness and cost. Status access and power are more important than stuff!

Status
Access
Power
Stuff

Our fun future:

Faster Paced
Rewards Everywhere
Collaborative play
More Global

Zicherman thinks that "The Kids Are All Right!" Education has never been an apolitical profession! There has always been conflict about how best to teach, but somehow, we all turn out ok!
His key is that it isn't as important to see how games can affect learning...IT'S US! GO PLAY!!!

TIES 11: Jennifer Magiera Defining the Digital Classroom

2011-12-13T12:28:00.000-06:00

Chicago teacher, Jennifer Magiera wrote a grant for 1:1 iPads in her 4th and 5th grade classroom said that rather than Automating, you have to demolish what you've been doing in the classroom and start over.
One transformative lesson far outweighs

She focussed this talk on Differentiation and Assessment
Assessment
Who has to do state tests?
District wide
Common Core State Standards
Bubble tests are now on the iPad
Slate routines-RTI with time stamped images of student work
Fluency Snapshots-She uses audio and picture along with Dibles with more evidence. Students can also do self checks.
Google Tools for Formative and Summative Assessment!

Her Website has much of her work. (It includes a "Mood Checkin" so she knows whether their ready to learn!
She has her form set to automatically color code on assessments students complete w/ Google Forms.

Differentiation
How do we have accountability for the kids. She has been able to get the kids to connect with each other to be successful.

Connecting is a way to differentiate! She uses Skype in the Classroom to do this.She does a "Mystery Skype" with other classrooms to ask "20 questions" about their city for Social Studies.
Meta-Math Meetings- Friday sessions where they talk with others about why they got certain questions wrong for students in another class.
KidBlog at the end of science experiments. Asking big questions.
Edmodo- The kids like that it looks like Facebook, and she likes it because she can personalize instruction for the students. She told the story of a student who wouldn't talk, who was brilliant in Math. In Edmodo, within 12 minutes, he had 60 comments that were meaty, and now he has the confidence to participate in face-to-face sessions.
Flipped classroom, videos based on how they did on the exit ticket. She thinks it's like being a "cloned teacher!"
Project Based Learning with Augmented Reality- Johnny Kissco, Chemical and physical weathering of playground equipment. QR codes during
Paperport Notes-PDF Annotation
Differentiated response options
Audio, video, Kinnesthetic, Poplet, screencasting w/ Screenchomp and Showme, ExplainEverything

For Special Education, she has 12 students w/ IEP's in her classroom. She screencasts the assessments and that allows her to individualize.

Apps
She is now using only free apps.
She has them on her "Teach Like it's 2999" blog.

If you have money to burn, eSpark Leanring can assess students to find out the apps they need.

How are YOU going to redefine learning for your students?

TIES 11: Creating Student Centered Mobile Learning Networks using Facebook, Twitter and Cell Phones

2011-12-13T08:38:00.002-06:00

Mike Slowinski, from West De Pere High School in Wisconsin shared how he is integrating social media collaboration in his session on "Creating Student-Centered Mobile Learning Networks Using Facebook, Twitter, and Cell Phones."
He used the analogy of Frutios vs. Fruitloops to demonstrate that students prefer using certain tools, and while "walled garden" type products may look and taste like more popular sites, when push comes to shove, students want to use the tools they're comfortable with.

He started in their district with Facebook

Dual Identitiy (Social-Social vs. Professional-Social)
Professional Account (WDP-FirstnameLastname)
Symbolic Picture
Limited to School Activities

Students were asking questions outside of class all the time. Facebook message/Inbox was used a lot. Students didn't have to put out perceived "dumb questions" in class, and allowed organic questions. Also posted on Wall.

Twitter Integration
Some students may not log in to Professional-Social at home, so a few students felt it was less invasive to follow the teacher on Twitter.
Facebook Twitter App was used to post Tweets to his Teacher Facebook wall.

http://www.freefoto.com/preview/04-19-76/Cell-Phone

Cell Phone integration, so that students were able to receive Twitter updates via their cell phone.
Results:
Less missing work, students engaged, reminders around 5:30 were good prompts.
Facebook Pages/Groups for parents as well. Mike posted video updates, that parents could then view on their wall. They found it more personable, and parents felt that they knew him better come conference time.

He created pages for clubs, and then was able to create events for different activities. This helped with planning.

His West Depere Library page allows him to communicate about new apps or other activities, and students can "like" the page with their social account, as long as their privacy settings are set to Friends Only.
He also reverses the process with Facebook posting to Twitter.

After showing some sample activity pages on multimedia research on an artist and the book "1984" in which he included collaboration with students at Kent State University and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Slowinski showed how he created an LMS workflow for "The Facebook Classroom.
Students used the notes feature to blog, and incorporated pages for the
Slowinski incorporated PollEverywhere for cell phone integration, and kept his cell phone use to texting as opposed to advanced features on Smart Phones, which most students didn't have. Anticipatory set, quick surveys and exit cards were some of the ways he incorporated them.
He embedded a poll on the controversy over "race-based mascots" in a neighboring district and solicited community response on his Website. He also uses Google SMS and ChaCha.
Hashtags on Twitter are another method of incorporating cell phones into the classroom through backchannelling. His Twitter feed is embedded on his Website.
Slowinski identifies the following benefits to his methodology:

Differentiation
Increased student motivation
21st Century Literacy
Collaboration
24/7 classroom

He feels this provides more authentic learning in his classroom.
Doug Johnson noted that Facebook wants everyone to only have one account, and Slowinski acknowledged that he is probably in violation, but feels the benefits outweigh the risks.

TIES 11: I-Imagine Waking Up A Generation To Their Own Greatness-Bernajean Porter

2011-12-12T12:37:00.000-06:00

Bernajean Porter, an internationally known shared her work on Digital Storytelling, shared i-Imagine, a project she has been working for the last few years to work on student engagement with telling their story.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a TRUE leader-John Adams
77% of students report being bored at school.
Only 14% report having "Hope."
She asked, what is the role of IQ in a persons success? 4-8%
EQ-the Emotional Quota, of dreams and aspirations are much more important!
This CAN be instilled in students, but it needs brains on fire and hearts alive!
We need to go to "higher ground" to get at what kids really need.
She gave an example of a kid who was given the assignment of "drawing a city." He chose to use MineCraft to design it instead, and narrated over it.
He gave a virtual tour of the emersive world that he had created for the assignment. What the student created is similar to this

Porter has seen technology get assimilated to do things that used to be done without, and not have an impact. She argues that we need to transform. Tapping into spaces where kids can connect and dream with the world is what needs to happen. 75% of learning is "Informal Learning!"
She thinks that we can serve the kinds of things for our students AND meet the accountability expectations of our politicians.
Educate-Can we be creative enough to use the power of technology to make this happen.

Reggio-Amelia philosophy is at the heart of this.
When technology innitiatives take place, pedagogy, like "students as documenters of their own learning," needs to roll with it! She gave a project going on in Canada right now with young students and iPads as an example of how this should and can happen.
Examples of students finding their passion, w/ technology as the power source.

Breaking the Chain. a literacy program started by a 14 year old girl named Riley Carney. No one told her she couldn't do this!
Blake, who got a grant when he was younger from Mozilla, and developed Firefox. He's 19 right now...
David-Fire marshall in his town.
We want kids to know that they matter no matter what age, or where they are.
(Kids are Heroes!)
New Global Citizens
Citizen Reporting-NOAA
The DNA of Learning from High Tech High in San Diego
Project Tomorrow-Student Voices

When students find their passion, it changes the relationship between all their other studies!
How can we unleash that passion?

I-imagine!
She shared a couple of quotes...

"I cannot do all the good the world needs. But the world needs all the good I can do

-Jana Stanfield

Yong Zhao-"No child has ever asked someone to standardize me!"

Students need Agency for their own learning!
Wake up the believer and dreamer in each student.
If you don't like the story you're standing in, start a new one!
It changes the maker and the destination!
In Sparks, Peter Benson talks about community connections resulting in higher grades, The Hope Survey

Assignment: Future of Me
Create your own future story, showing as many details of possible of what your life will be like.

Vision Videos
Docu-Dramas-As if your younger you has grown up
Neuroplasticity-What do you want to be right about? The brain organizes around the thought you decide to hold.

Reality is what we all agree is possible/not possible

When you buy technology, you're not buying tools, but learning stories.

Future-Past-Present

Imagine it to be real, and then organize towards it.

They are just wrapping up the teachers guide right now. They have created a "scrapbook" , and they found that "holding" the book, made it more meaningful for students.

Personal Passion-students didn't know what it looked like!

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Porter discussed having to follow Jane Goodall at a conference, talking about the passion she had for animals and Africa. There she met Louis Leakey, and the rest is history.....

Brainstorming
Minot, ND-Students activating and learning together on the project.

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She then gave some examples of student work.
One student became a game-creator and built a house big enough to allow his mom to live there so he could support her as a way to "pay her back" for all of her support bringing him up!
Zhou-What if we had "talent-oriented curriculum?"

She left us with a challenge of looking for student passion, and being a sponsor of at least one of those students! She feels that technology can ignite some of that passion, and with our support, kids can make a difference!
Ask kids to be their "wiser self, giving advice to their younger self!"
We have a sacred promise when we become teachers to unleash students passion to take over the world!

TIES 11: Keynote-Joel Rose

2011-12-12T10:21:00.001-06:00

Joel Rose Presenting at TIES11

Joel Rose, the co-founder of School of One.
Started as a summer school program in 2009, moved to after-school and in school in 2010. Last year, 1500 students in 3 schools mostly for math.
He says right now that it is 40% baked. School of One students showed an extra 1/2 to full year of growth.

He taught for 3 years in Houston
Horace Mann trip to Prussia
Today
33% graduate and go on to college,
33% graduate but need remediation
33% drop out

Teachers high turn over
Satisfaction, 40% disheartened
Why is the job so hard? Look at the plate!

Who donates to public education? (Zuckerberg, Walton Family, Gates, )
All of the top donors don't add up to the unpaid hours a week that classroom teachers donate every year!
And it's NOT tax deductable!
The challenge of differentiation....Huge amount of time to personalize assessment.
If we're serious about personalizing learning, we need multiple modalities to view instruction

Live Teacher
Collaboratively
Virtually w/ Live teacher
Individually w/ printed materials and software

In the traditional model, the number of skills at one time, no more than 5. Today, if 1/2 get it and 1/2 fail, the delema is whether to move forward or refresh. The time we waste is astonishing!
If we have multiple modalities in a learning space, we can differentiate more effectively.
This is the concept of School of One.

Students are assessed on learning modality and create playlists for them for a given curriculum.
Because School of One was part of New York Public Schools, publishers responded, and they created banks of lessons. 5,000 for math alone, with tagging
They didn't say to the teachers, we have all this data now, good luck!
They created a learning algorithm, that is similar to an airport scheduling system.
Students take 5 question assessments at the end of each day, and this provides information to determine their schedule for the following day. They color code Green, Yellow or Red (incorporating traffic patterns into the metaphor.)
8 ways to learn, 5 are live, 3 on computer. The algorithm teachers feel gives them good feedback and more information to prescribe learning for the following day. Students appear in their promotional video to be very excited and engaged!

What's different for teachers?

Reduced Administrative Burden
Thoughtful Collaboration-
Specialization- Teachers become experts in very specific mathematical concepts.
Real Time Scheduling- They "know" that every student prescribed a lesson are "ready" for that lesson.
Different Adult-Student Dynamics -Students WANT to move on
Average class size 7-12

Will this mean teachers will lose their jobs?
A resounding NO! U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics says that as industries like law, banking, librarians and accounting have incorporated technology, employment has gone up. (Some librarians may dispute this!)
Data entry, Printing machine operators, file clerks he admits have gone down. What makes the difference? Judgement! Rose said that teachers make over 1,000 decisions during the school day. More than Brain Surgeons! He said that teaching positions will go up 13% by 2018.

If we as a community can move from technology as a tool to an entirely different delivery model!
In summary:
Current model 150 years old
Differentiation hard
119 billion in unpaid hours to do job well
We need to collectivey
Teachers can be the big winners....
Overall, I liked the message. Still not sure about the way they use to go about it...I didn't really see any higher level thinking going on. I didn't see students creating, or presenting. Maybe this happens in the Face-to-Face interactions, but it wasn't evident in Rose's presentation.

Looking Forward to TIES11!

2011-12-08T12:55:00.002-06:00

Next week I'll be in downtown Minneapolis, for the 2011 TIES Conference. I'm really excited this year, because our district will have a large presence at the conference, both attending AND presenting! We were fortunate to have 14 staff get accepted this year, including many from our Teaching and Technology Cohort! I'm proud to see how that group has stepped up and taken a leadership role within the district, as well as outside! It's great to share!

When I attend a conference, I try to strike a balance between:

Attending sessions (Ones that "sound good" and Speakers I'm interested in learning from)
Networking with colleagues face-to-face (As opposed to Virtually Here)
Visiting the vendor area to explore trends

Here are some of the highlights and sessions that I'm looking forward to.
This year's strands include:

Personal learning and digital-age learning experiences
Personal growth and leadership practice for educators
Personal responsibility and digital-age citizenship
Technical support and infrastructure

Monday:

8:00
Flipped Classroom Community of Interest with Jason Just
I taught with Jason and his wife in Lakeville, and he has been working towards flipped instruction for quite some time. His work was recently featured in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Using Google Docs and Moodle to Teach Collaboratively
Our district uses both, and it's always good to learn how others are incorporating to compare notes!
Leslie Fischer-Cell Phones in the Classroom
Leslie will share tips for harnessing tools for learning that exist in students pockets!

9:00 Keynote: Joel Rose-School of One Founder

Mr. Rose will be speaking on Designing the New Classroom, though I am not sure that it's the type of classroom I would like to work in, or send my children to. While I like the concept of personalizing learning, the methods the School of One employ to provide this seem to "depersonalize" learning. I'll try to keep an open mind!

10:40
Claude Sigmund in the 21st Century Classroom!

Troy Cherry from TIES has helped to put together a 21st Century Classroom demonstration room at the conference, and we are fortunate to have Claude and some of his students there to model learning in that space by "Interconnecting Primary Documents in Social Studies! I hope all of our contingent has a chance to stop by to see this learning space at some point during the conference to gather ideas on the essential instructional and learning tools in a 21st Century classroom.

Karen Cator: Transforming American Education, Learning Powered by Technology
Karen is the Director of Educational Technology for the U.S. Department of Education, and developed the National Educational Technology Plan. Personally, I think it should be our National Education Plan! (Note: Cator may not be there, but this session will still take place and the information is important!)

11:40
Claude and students continued...
Bernajean Porter-I-imagine: Waking Up a Generation for Their Own Greatness
Bernajean is a internationally renowned leader in Educational Technology and Digital Storytelling. Learn how students can create multimedia docudramas tied to their own life goals.
Hilary Goldmann- The Election, Policy and You: How You Can Affect Change
Hilary Goldmann, ISTE's Director of Government Affairs will share the importance of advocacy with our governmental leaders. Even if you are unable to attend the session, stop by the ETAN booth at the conference and let your voice be heard!
Project Based Learning for Global Competence
Strategies for including 21st Century Skills and Project based learning to increase global literacy

2:20
Christian Long-Design Thinking: An Agile Teaching and Learning Methodology

I first was introduced to Christian when he was still in the classroom, and followed two of the most interesting learning projects I have ever seen, the Alice Project and the TED Project. Now, Christian works for Cannon Design and is an international leader in designing learning spaces.

Tuesday

8:00
Laurie Toll and Lisa Koch- Creating Digital Science Stories
Laurie and Lisa from Weaver Lake Elementary in Osseo have been pioneers not only in science instruction, but also implementation of Bring Your Own Devices. In this session they will share methods of incorporating that methodology using Digital Stories.

9:00
Keynote: Jane McGonigal: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How they Can Change the World
McGonigal's TED Talk and book, has catapulted her to the forefront of the "gamification" movement. TIES has really stepped up the last few years with getting top-notch keynote speakers, and McGonigal is no exception!

10:40 Lot's of good sessions here!
Bring Your Own Device Community of Interest
Osseo's Dawn Nelson will lead this session exploring best practice.
Flipped Professional Development
Stillwater's Wayne Feller and Kristin Daniels have done some innovative things flipping their PD. In this session they will share their methodology and resources.
Going Ga Ga for Googlios: Google Based ePortfolios
Jen Hegna and her team from Byron, MN will be sharing some of their work on the integration of electronic portfolios at the High School Level.
Images Before Words
Ben Friesen shares how to leverage images and media to engage your students.
Chris Dede- Transforming Education for the 21st Century
Harvard Professor Chris Dede has been a leader in educational technology for many years, and I am a big fan. Here he shares how schools utilize tools to improve our teaching, assessment and links between schools and communities.

11:45
Mark Garrison's 50 Sites in 50 Minutes
Get there early! This one is always a crowd pleaser, and showcases some great tools for learning!
Data-Driven Personalized Learning Through iCivics and Gamified Learning
Minnesota Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, along with teacher Ananth Pai will showcase how this site, developed by former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor has engaged students in Minnesota.

1:20
Are Open-Source Flexbooks in Your Future?
Anoka staff share their implementation of an electronic text-book for Probability and Statistics.
Gaming in Classrooms: The Possibilities and Realities
This should be a fascinating panel discussion featuring Chris Dede, Jane McGonigal and Bernajean Porter.

Increasing Student Access with Personal Owned Devices
Tim Wilson, Chief Technology Officer in Osseo Public Schools will share

2:25
Student Created Common Craft Videos

Teachers from St. Michael-Albertville will share the process that goes into this fun, engaging assignment.
Doug Johnson-Using Personal Devices to Motivate Rather Than Distract
Doug Johnson is one of my favorite presenters and bloggers! Here, he shares some simple rules that help you make the most of these devices that are increasingly common in the classroom.

Whew! There are MANY OTHER great sessions, these are just a few of the highlights. The conference planning tool can be found here, and the Wiki with presenter materials can be found here.

Now off to finish my presentation on PD for Blended Instruction (Tuesday December 13, 2011 1:20pm - 2:10pm @ Greenway F/G)!! See you there! ;-)

The Power of a Hashtag! #EduWin

2011-12-06T15:26:00.002-06:00

Last summer in Philadelphia I had the opportunity to attend Edubloggercon 2011, an "un-conference" where participants can suggest topics for discussion, and then anyone interested can attend and participate in the sharing/learning.

That's me in the middle!

After the lunch break, the following session, proposed by Scott Meech, caught my eye:

Why isn't education on the front page of the news?
Posted By smeech

With as much discussion taking place online about education, why isn't it on the front page? Let's talk about strategies to push this important discussion to the forefront in a positive and meaningful way.

Just like Scott, I too had been frustrated by the education bashing that seemed to permeate the media landscape. I was glad to hear that I wasn't alone!

During the session, he shared some of the work that he and other educators have been doing at EdReach.us, a site devoted to sharing what is working in education.

As we were talking, Meech brought up the idea that all kinds of really great things are happening in schools, but as singular stories, they don't seem significant for the media to have an interest. If there were some way for us to aggregate them, we might be able to create interest.

Now realize, we were at a technology conference, and we had just all witnessed the amazing impact of social media during the Arab Spring. The idea of adding a "Hashtag" to tweets, videos, blog posts seemed like a no-brainer!

Tagging posts with searchable words like #egypt, #syria or #tunisia can allow aggregation of data with powerful results. To the left, is a screencast I made of my Twitter feed showing the tag #egypt on February 1st. The amount of information was staggering, and this was AFTER they had started blocking the Internet! Click play to see what I mean!

So as we were talking, I sent out the following tweet:

Brendan Murphy, a math educator from Illinois and grad school colleague tweeted back with "What about #eduwin?"

I shared that with the group, and there seemed to be consensus that it made sense, as there could be more than one meaning to the term!

Candace Shively, an educator from Pennsylvania, and a fellow participant in the session wrote a great post reflecting on the session and the aftermath. In it, she included practical suggestions for when and how to use the tag to share the great things you are doing in your classroom! From her post....

Here is how it works:
Every time you see a change in a student because of something that clicked, write about it in a tweet or a blog post, hashtagged #eduwin.
Every time you see another teacher do something that works, share it, hashtagged #eduwin.
Every time you see a tweet from another educator about the way students are LEARNING, retweet it or share it on Facebook, hashtagged #eduwin.
When you’re having a bad day, set up a Twitter search or do one on Google (when they get Real Time working again), looking for items hashtagged #eduwin.
When you hear people griping about the state of education today, share a story you saw hashtagged #eduwin.
When your class does projects, shoot some video and upload the clips of kids talking about what they did to YouTube, hashtagged #eduwin (cute kids or kittens can’t hurt…)
When a parent volunteer wants to be helpful, ask him/her to take some pictures of the good things going on in your class (maybe from the back or close-ups of hands so there is no concern about identifiable pictures) and share them on Flickr or Facebook, hashtagged #eduwin.
When your kids make glogs, Voicethreads, or other online projects that shout powerful evidence of learning, add the hashtag #eduwin to the very best examples (and resist the urge to put the hashtag on ones that could be appreciated without context)
When you give awards to your students, us the title EDUWIN on the awards.
When that one non-reader finally recognizes the sight words, clap and say “EDUWIN!”
Collaborate every day with teacher colleagues on the digital storytelling of EDUWIN

Now, Meech and the folks at EdReach.us have taken it a step further! They've created a site for all of us to share out our stories of #EduWins.They have created, Whatisyoureduwin.com, a site where you can quickly and easily share your stories!

I think this is a great positive way to share the good things that are happening.

I hope you'll join the movement, and start a trend!

Robert Stephens visits South View Middle School

2011-11-18T12:54:00.003-06:00

On Thursday, November 17, Geek Squad Founder, and Best Buy Chief Technology Officer, Robert Stephens spoke to students and staff at South View Middle School. He was extremely engaging and listened to the students in our Smart Bar student support program as much as they listened to him. Here are some of the highlights of what he shared.

"Go Wireless" Bring Your Own Device Initiative

2011-11-10T11:12:00.001-06:00

This year has seen an expansion of our "Go Wireless" Bring Your Own Device initiative. Currently 325 students, over 12% of the student population have gone through training and are certified to bring their devices at the middle level. This is the equivalent of over 10 computer labs coming to school each day! The training sessions cover:

History of the program
Frequently Asked Questions
Expectations and Liability
Purchasing Options
What students CAN use the devices for
Acceptable Use and Consequences for missuse
How to connect to the wireless network
A short survey
A short Question and Answer session

At the end of the training, parents and students sign an agreement, and the students receive a sticker indicating that they are "wireless certified."
Students like the ability to access course content, take notes and stay organized on their own device, and report being able to get to work faster, than if they have to log in on a district owned computer. A survey of students last year found that 91% felt that having access to their own device improved their learning.

Go Wireless : Bring Your Own Device Initiative on Prezi

The program is optional, and staff will continue to check out carts or labs when working on projects. In addition, netbooks have been purchased at each secondary school for students to access during the day, and media center hours have been extended for students needing access to course content online. A Website has been created to assist staff with the use of carts and BYO devices that is accessible from the Edina Technology Resources for Teachers site.
Suggestions for teachers interested in incorporating the devices into their instruction include:

Tutorial Designer-Have students use Screencastomatic.com to create a tutorial for solving problems or completing processes.
Designate student note-takers/Scribes on a Google Doc (Scribe of the day!) Then have them share with you to post on Moodle or your Google Site.
Researchers-When questions come up during the period, designate a researcher of the day to look it up. You can also do this with classroom computers.
Collaboration Coordinators to connect with others around the world studying the same topic, or with experts.
Curriculum Review Podcast-Students could use Aviary in Edina Apps to record short podcasts as study guides on a topic
Organize an exit card: Students could create questions for the class on a Google form that then can be used as an exit card for students to complete before they leave, or when they are at home. Alan November via the book, Curriculum 21.

While studying the Federalist papers, Valley View Middle School Government Teacher, Scott Stadem found that rather than having students attempt to read the rather dry original documents, having access to online resources via personal devices greatly enhanced students understanding of the concepts. Some used laptops, some used iOS devices and some used mobile phones to access the information and create graphic organizers. This freed him up to roam around the room and assist struggling learners. Other staff like the fact that the responsibility for troubleshooting has been taken off their plate, since for the most part, students know their own device.

6th grade Language Arts Teacher, Jonathan Moore stated:

So far this year, students in my Language Arts classes with their own devices have shared rough drafts with me in real time, before they have even left my room; submitted assignments ahead of schedule - because they could, and also completed and submitted work from the online portion of my class. Why is this great? It's supported top-down, students are very engaged, work efficiency is increased, and collaboration goes up.

Our next training sessions for students will be November 21, 1 p.m. in the Valley View Theater, and 7 p.m. in the South View Theater.

Flipping Your Classroom Without Making Your Students Dizzy!

2011-10-10T21:00:00.003-05:00

Some rights reserved by JB London

There has been a lot of press both locally and nationally,and punditry pro and con lately around "flipping" instruction. "Flipping" is when you create video of your lecture or a demonstration that you would normally do in class, and then post the video for students to watch as homework at home. Proponents point out that this then allows the teacher to either complete activities that normally would be done as homework in class with the support of the teacher, or it allows for hands on activities to take place in the classroom with facilitation from the teacher.
Teachers may create their own videos, or rely on prepackaged video from publishing companies or others. Some believe that Sal Khan, creator of the "Khan Academy," is their favorite teacher, and some question the accolades. This past summer, Scott McLeod convened an expert panel to debate the issue. For those thinking of flipping, or flipping well, it is well worth an hour of your time! In this post, I'll review some of the origins of the flip, discuss best practices, and share two examples of how our Edina teachers are incorporating "flipping" into their instruction.

Origins
The idea for flipping originated with two Colorado Science teachers, Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann who who created video lectures in multiple formats for their students as homework, allowing for more hands-on activities in class. Originally called "Educational Vodcasting," Sams and Bergmann saw tremendous growth in student achievement and found students were more self-directed in this new pedagogical model. Rather than spending class-time, passively listening to lectures and taking notes, students were able to listen to and view the lectures at home, pause, rewind, and take notes on the important details. They work hard to provide multiple ways for students to view the content, whether it be posted directly online, downloadable as a podcast to view on their portable device, or burned to CD and DVD for students to take home. They now maintain a social network for educators interested in flipping their instruction.

Fisch-Flip
Karl Fisch, who along with Scott McLeod created the "Did You Know...Shift Happens" video, and it's iterations, started flipping his math instruction when he returned to the classroom a few years ago. Daniel Pink, impressed by this pedagogical shift, coined the new technique the "Fisch Flip" in this article in September of 2010.
Fisch has a blog for his classes, and posts the videos along with resources there. Quoting from the Pink article, Fisch says:

“When you do a standard lecture in class, and then the students go home to do the problems, some of them are lost. They spend a whole lot of time being frustrated and, even worse, doing it wrong,” Fisch told me.
“The idea behind the videos was to flip it. The students can watch it outside of class, pause it, replay it, view it several times, even mute me if they want,” says Fisch, who emphasizes that he didn’t come up with the idea, nor is he the only teacher in the country giving it a try. “That allows us to work on what we used to do as homework when I’m they’re to help students and they’re there to help each other.”

Fisch argues that flipping allows for teachers to meet the demands of today's "mile wide" curriculum, that whether we like it or not, students are expected to know. He also notes that there are certain algorithms that are beneficial for students to master, and having the video resource available makes it easier to do so.

Sal Kahn
Sal Kahn is a former "hedge fund analyst" and M.I.T. graduate, who after tutoring his cousin and others in math for a few years, started posting his video explanations online. After 3 years of building up his Youtube channel, his site became so popular that he quit his job to devote all of his energies to developing the "Khan Academy." Khan now has over 2,600 videos and 207 practice excersizes created to assist students with learning everything from Algebra to Organic Chemistry and Finance. With funding from Bill Gates, and popular Ted talks, Khan has positioned himself as a force in educational reform. In the video below, he answers some of his critics and shares his vision.

Pros
I see Khan's videos as being a place to get a quick overview of a concept, much like Wikipedia. When preparing students at the knowledge level to learn a process and regurgitate the information, the videos are pretty good. My son's Algebra teacher actually prescribed some of the lessons from Khan Academy over the summer to help him with concepts that didn't come as easily during the school year. Along with the video, several sample problems were included to assure "mastery." I think that if used as an additional resource for students and parents, they can have a place. Who a student learns a concept from should be less important than whether they indeed learned it.
Cons
Critics of Khan point out that if the sole purpose of education is to prepare students to succeed on standardized tests, then they work pretty well. It's when we get to the higher level thinking of analysis and creation that we see a problem with Khan's pedagogy. Frank Noschese, a Physics teacher from New York points out on his blog that, "if we shift the purpose of education from consuming knowledge and stating answers to creating knowledge and exploring solutions, the fallacy of Khan Academy “reinventing education” is blatently apparent."

In addition to this, like Wikipedia, Khan's methodology and pedagogy has not been fully vetted. In fact, while viewing a video this summer, my son discovered an error in the presentation. Perhaps Khan IS developing higher level skills! Personally, I see much greater benefit to incorporating some of the ideas espoused by Dan Meyer in math instruction rather than a daily dose of Khan.

What we've done here in Edina:

Valley View Middle School 9th Grade math teacher, Mark Carlson, has been flipping his instruction for the last 3 years. Carlson, and his teaching partner, Kim Griffiths, began using Jing to record explanations of a given unit, and upload the video to Blip.tv. They then embedded the video into their Moodle Courses for Advanced Algebra and Geometry. They have since switched to using Camtasia for recording the videos and uploading them to Youtube, as it has improved the production value, and helped avoid questionable content on Blip! This past year, they have taken it one step further, by embedding the video in formative assessments within their Moodle course! Students are able to refer to the video while attempting to answer the questions in the Moodle Quiz. Carlson and Griffiths then get feedback on student understanding so that they can a) see who watched the videos and b) inform their instruction for the next class.
Below is a sample:

Valley View 8th grade Math Teacher, Christopher Hoffman uses a slightly different approach. He to records his video lessons, but using Screencastomatic.com also includes a view of him going through the activity with his Webcam. He feels it gives the student a feeling of "sitting in the front row of class" and provides a more personal touch. Hoffman doesn't flip all of his lessons, but does include the videos of each section for students to refer to at home. Parents appreciate having a resource to view the new methodologies and terminology for how to complete the math problems since they were in school.
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Final Thoughts
I agree with Karl Fisch that there IS a place for flipping instruction in today's educational landscape. One thing that Carlson, Griffiths and Hoffman all have in common is that they've put in a tremendous amount of work and effort to produce the videos in a high quality, and blend them into their instruction effectively. As a parent, I like having access to what my children see in class so that my outdated terminology doesn't confuse the issue if I'm trying to help with homework or study for a test. Here are a few tips to help keep your students from getting frustrated, or "dizzy!"

As with any "blended instruction," it is important to make sure that all students have access to the resource. This is an advantage to being able to post to Youtube, embed on a Website, and even post to an iTunes podcast. Even then, some students may need the videos burned to a DVD in order to view it. We have also increased the before and after school hours of our Media Centers so that students can access online work. By providing multiple methods of access, students should be able to view the content, no matter what device they have access to.
Time to complete the out of class work. Even in an affluent community like Edina, some families may only have 1 family computer for 2 or 3 children to access for homework. If all of those children are in the secondary schools, that may mean all needing access to video, Moodle discussions, and the creation of content. When assigning videos as homework, be sure to give the students a couple of days to complete the assignment.
Model good note-taking methods. Rather than say, "watch this video and take notes on it," it is important to specify the expectation. Our district encourages the Cornell note-taking method for students.
Vary Instructional methods and materials. Not every student will be an auditory or visual learner. By varying in-class activities, as well as outside of class activities, you can help keep your students actively engaged.
Limit the length of the videos. Remember when Youtube used to limit uploads to less than 10 minutes? Part of the reason was that attention spans are limited! Screencastomatic has a 15 minute limit, which I think is the maximum length you should need.

These are a few of the tips I have for those interested in adding flipped instruction to your pedagogical repertoire. What other thoughts or ideas do you have?

Guest Post:: Web Rant from an Old Geek

2011-10-07T15:22:00.001-05:00

Today's offering is a guest post, by South View Middle School Art teacher, John Kraus. John and I have participated on a couple of Communities of Practice over the years, and today, when he sent out this as an e-mail to staff, I asked if he wouldn't mind if I shared it with a wider audience. John graciously agreed! You can learn more about his Web presence here, and/or view his blog here or follow him on Twitter.

It has been a couple of weeks since I have wasted your time and filled school server space with an email rant.

What is the purpose of having a website for every class and teacher?

Why do it, how does it work, who cares?

Do I need to learn to do it myself – shouldn’t I be trained?

I think if you are a professional in our society you need a good Web presence.

To create an effective Web presence you must know your target audience for all the different Web tools – I think Webpages are not really just for students – we have Moodle for them. And parents can always access Moodle with their child. So the target audience may not really be Parents or students at all since they have access to inside information via SchoolView and Moodle. If all you have is a link to your Moodle page you are not really putting your best foot forward online. Especially if once the person goes to the Moodle page they can’t see it without a key.

A Website is partly for visitors to the Edina District site on-line. Families who move into the district and wonder about our staff and course offerings. Other schools and teachers who would like to know what is going on in the Edina Schools. Former students who look in on their old school. Etc.

You may say it is not your job to educate people who go to the site if they are not connected to a current student. But as a professional it is best that you control some of the flow of information about you online. For some of you the only place you are online is at places like ratemyteachers.com (the school Internet will not allow you to go there – we do not want our students all getting easy access to site like this… right?) As an individual I think the district is offering, and expecting, me to use Google Sites as a place for me to present myself to the public in a professional way.

At the opening workshop this year Will Richardson spoke how every teacher should be “searchable”, or was it “Googlable”, in a positive way. Go ahead search for John C Kraus see what you came up with. Below is the link:

http://www.google.com/search?q=John+C+Kraus&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
You might see this!

Let me know if you have any ideas how I can improve on my Web presence.

I know many of you are thinking that you can’t do “one more thing”. I get that – I have better things to do too. But If you plan on being in the profession for a few more years (and even I will stick around for a few years or so) - and want to be seen in a positive way - it can’t hurt to spend some time controlling the main source that most people use to get their information about things – including you. You want to be viewed as being someone who is on top of things. Having a positive online profile is part of doing just that these days.

Search for yourself – if you can not easily find something you want people to see – then chances are your web presence could use some updating.

And remember - Edina Public Schools is a brand. I think the district would like people to go to our website and gain a little insight in what is going on at our school/classes. No one can do a better job of putting information about you online – it really is something that would be better if you did it yourself. I know some of you will say you are not trained to do this. But considering how much we expect students to do online I would suggest you seek out the help you need. Lets face it if we expect our students to work online we should be proficient at it as well.

If any of you would like help with a webpage there are people who are on staff that can work with you. I know our Webmaster is swamped, If you want just some simple things you can even come to me – I am far from being an expert but I may be able to help. I know all of you know some geek you can go to for help.

Before coming to Edina I did some training sessions for staff on how to use an old program called “Hypercard” (this was over 20 years ago). At one of my workshops a veteran staff member was having trouble because they kept trying to put the disc in backwards “I thought the silver part was the handle” was her response. But she got the hang of it eventually. We all have things we needed to learn over the years to keep up with the kids. And for most of these things we needed to learn it on our own. And there are some things I spent hours learning only to see it quickly became obsolete as a new, better, way took over. No one uses Hypercard anymore – too bad since I was really good with that program.

For me, some of the new technology I have had to figure out over the years, with very little training, has been not just computers but: VCRs, DVDs, Copy Machines, Digital Cameras, Phone Systems, Webtools. How I long for the days when I used 16mm film, large posters and mimeographs. I did not need to use all this tech stuff back then. If I wanted to contact a parent I could mail them a letter (wait a week or so for a reply) or keep calling them till they answered (there was no leaving messages since few homes had that technology back then). And I could not call from my room since it did not have a phone.

This week I have been trying to figure out SchoolView. It is perhaps the tenth grading program I have used over the years – I hope it will be my last, but I am not counting on it. At home I got my first HDTV this week. Now if I can only figure out how to use it effectively. Why can’t I just plug in my new TV and adjust the “rabbit ears” doing that worked fine in the old days.

Have a great weekend.

-Kraus

What I like about Bring Your Own Device!

2011-09-12T15:15:00.001-05:00

Today I was walking down the hall between our middle school and high school and came upon this scene:

Here's what I like about this picture as it relates to our Bring Your Own Device initiative:

The student in the middle is using her personal device on our network (You can tell by the bumper sticker on the front, and the fact that it's a Mac in a PC district!) This meets our goal of personalizing student learning.
They are working in the middle of the hall way (Anytime/Anywhere learning outside the walls of the classroom).
They were all collaborating on the document she was working on (Enhancing 21st Century Skills).

Redefining "Awesome!"

2011-09-08T17:10:00.007-05:00

On August 29, noted education author and speaker, Will Richardson spoke to our staff at the district kick-off event.

His talk, "Learning In A Networked World: For Our Students and Ourselves," is one I have seen a few times, but his message was new to staff here in Edina. Prior to his talk, our Superintendent, Dr. Ric Dressen, shared many of the positive things that have been happening in Edina. Our district has been recognized by many National and International organizations for excellence in education. Our district administers more AP exams than any district in a 5 state area, and graduates saved over $2 million in tuition costs through their success on those tests. The word of the day was: AWESOME!

After a brief story about how his children learned how to use a program via Skype from an 11 year old in Scotland, Richardson asked a question of the audience:

How do we define learning?

Richardson shared this definition from Seymour Sarason:

The great thing is.."We now have an easy connection between one's passion to learn and the resources to learn it."

Soon there will be 2 billion people connected on the Internet. This represents 2 billion predators, or...

The next day, at our high school professional development training, several staff commented on that slide.

They understand that "It's not 1985" but they were uncomfortable thinking about connecting students to these "potential" teachers. I reminded them that Richardson didn't say that there were 2 Billion teachers. The key word is "potential!" I think one of our new roles as educators is to assist students in connecting with the good content AND good teachers who can assist students in the learning process. I've used this video in the past to illustrate this idea of "connectivism."

So how do we redefine "Awesome?"

At the evening talk with parents, Richardson mentioned the inquiry based approach used by the Science Leadership Academy of Philadelphia as an example of a school that is being successful at this.

Then yesterday, during a Twitter conversation, Richardson referenced this school:

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp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the morning session, I was asked to &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Last week, while visiting Valley View Middle school, I learned about Peter Kivimaki, a 7th grader there. Last year, he and fellow student Caroline Harmening started helping with the daily announcements. Over the summer, Peter was bored, and decided to create a Daily Announcement Website. So he logged in to Edina Apps, and collaborating with Caroline, did just that. He initially thought maybe the site would contain the text of each announcement, but then wondered about adding the audio. With the help of principal, Shawn Dudley, they learned how to record the announcements using a Web based tool called AudioBoo. Now each day, they use Audio Boo to record the announcements, and embed them on the building Website! Awesome!

I think this story illustrates a student following his passion, collaborating with others, and having a truly authentic learning experience to redefine "awesome" here in Edina. I would venture to guess this is an example of what Richardson is talking about.

So, how do YOU redefine "AWESOME?!"

Unleashing Student Passion for Learning...

2011-08-26T09:54:00.000-05:00

Last spring, our district developed our 2015 Technology Plan. Using our district mission statement as a foundation, we identified 4 goals in the plan:

Unleash student's passion to be lifelong learners
Empower and enhance excellent teaching
Engage families in a partnership for education
Demonstrate excellence in service, operation, and productivity

On Monday, we will have our yearly district kick-off event, and the tech plan will be one of the key components. I will have a small roll in the morning session, sharing an "Aha!" moment from my experience as an educator.

We will also showcase members of our Edina Teaching and Technology Cohort, a group of 25 educators who spent the last year in a job embedded, professional development experience where they earned a Teaching and Technology Certificate from Hamline University. Cohort members will conduct poster sessions, showcasing how they transformed their instruction this past year. I'm proud to have had the opportunity to work with this amazing group of educators, who did some amazing things, AND are willing to share!

The day will culminate with two talks by Will Richardson, who describes himself as:

" parent, educator, speaker, author, 10-year blogger at Weblogg-ed ... I'm trying to answer the question "What happens to schools and classrooms and learning in a 2.0 world?"

He'll speak to staff in the afternoon, and then will conduct a free talk for parents and community members in the evening. I've had the pleasure of hearing Will speak at conferences many times, and 2 years ago, I had the opportunity to work with Will and his partner, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach in a Powerful Learning Practice Cohort. His passion for student learning will be evident, and he will challenge us as educators to harness the power of technology to enhance our classroom practices to unleash that passion in students.

I'm excited to work in a district that understands that:
a) It's about the learning and
b) The role technology can play in making that happen!

Here's to a great school year!!

ISTE 2011: Chris Lehmann's Closing Keynote

2011-08-08T14:37:00.001-05:00

I had to leave the ISTE conference early due to transportation issues, so I finally got a chance to hear this amazing talk, from Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia today.
I've had the pleasure of knowing Chris for the last 3 years, and I consider him one of my heros!
Many of the ideas Chris brings out in this talk are the reasons I am a teacher, and why I have been passionately involved in educational technology for the last 23 years.
Someone else commented that all you need to know about the talk, and Chris's philosophy can be summed up in the first 7 minutes of the video...you'll see why!!

So what do you think? Are these ideas worth spreading? How do we make that happen?

ISTE 2011: The Global Learning Imperative

2011-06-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

The Global Learning Imperative: How do we, as teachers, help empower our students to take their learning experience global?

Alan November moderated this session, featuring Kathy Cassidy from Prairie South Schools in Saskatchewan, Michelle Anderson, Principal in Deer Creek Schools in Oklahoma, and Larisa Shelkin, Founder of the Global Technology and Engineering Consortium in Boston.

November started by a story about asking "What is the most important 21st Century skill?" to the CEO of the biggest bank in the world. The banker said, "empathy," because we need people who can evaluate the dynamics of a big project from the perspective of others. The worst people at this are Americans.
He asked some West Point teachers the same question, "Patreaus had asked his staff to read, 3 Cups of Tea. The mission had changed from win the war to win the peace. Empathy is a critical skill in this endeavor.

Michael Wesch, said empathy as well.

Blocking social media that allows students to interact with students around the world is counter intuitive to making students successful in the global economy!! Many schools network policy is completely opposed to their mission statement!

Kathy Cassidy teaches first grade, and her students have their OWN blog. Initially she started it to give her students an audience. They start blogging the first week of school.
She has a new principal this year, what if they make you shut this down? She would miss the connections with the world, with the experts who comment, share and contribute to the learning of her students. It would tie my hands!
She is connected with a school in Brisbane, Australia and Kinderkids in New Hampshire. The kids think of them as classrooms next door. They actually know more about what's going on in those classrooms than the physical ones next door!
November talked about the essentialness of allowing our students to make these connections!

Larissa has lived all over the world, working as a field engineer, and now helps her students connect with lab partners in other parts of the world. She saw a gap in how we are currently educating our students and the need to develop a global workforce. Every student will work and live in a global society. They need the skills to do this. The students work on wind turbine designs and also work with professional mentors in high tech companies who provide problems for the students to solve. They use modeling software and to work on this project and they now have other companies lined up. They also incorporate "global diversity knowledge" and "intercultural communication!" Her two students shared their experience as well.
The problem they are working on to make a wind turbine as efficient as possible is very open-ended. Their lab partner in England
They have 4 desktop computers for student use with Skype windows up for small group communication, as well as a large screen set up with another computer to see the large group. 5 Skype windows open at the same time for group work. This is similar to what Tim Berndt, our Project Lead the Way teacher at Edina High School has done this year with some of his classes!

Students are the same age (12 and 13), but the students in England are a bit farther along with their STEM work, thus they are the mentors for the student, and thus they are the "go to" people for asking the questions. The students feel more comfortable asking the student expert rather than their own teacher. The students felt going back to a traditional model, would be BORING!
November shared that as soon as students are bored, their achievement level goes down. (Someone actually did an expensive research study on this!)
The real time modeling incorporates principles that involve many disciplines.

Michelle Anderson received an e-mail from a teacher in England who ended up on her school Website, because they were studying "Tornado Alley." This led to a collaborative project using Skype into the 5th grade classroom in her school. Many of her students had first hand experience with the devastation of tornadoes. Ultimately, this lead to the teacher coming to Oklahoma to visit!
November wondered if colleges preparing administrators were incorporating the global perspective? For Anderson, collaboration and making connections is part of her DNA. She starts with one class and when others inquire about it, she brings them in as well. They have a culture where, "all of us is smarter than one of us!" She's found funding through grants to travel to Europe to visit the schools they collaborate with.
November asked about leaving the school and having faith that things will be ok. Anderson noted, "Let's be honest, the secretaries can run the school!" "In some ways, I'm the most insignificant person in the building!"
It's obvious that her modeling and leading by example has created this empowered culture!

Cassidy shared how the student blogs become the online digital portfolio of her student work. She includes video and pictures of her students to give parents a window into the classroom on her own blog. She explains to parents why and what will be happening. The kids post their AudioBoo reading fluency, Video in the Common Craft style, along with pictures of their art work right on the blog, and video showing how they would use manipulatives to solve math problems. Students and parents also comment on other student blogs.

November noted that she probably knows far more about her students since she has started doing this. She said by all means!

Parents who may have been leery at the beginning of the year, comment on how wonderful the experience has been. November asked the audience how many school districts have policies preventing this type of opportunity, and many hands went up!

The students from the Global Engineering and Technology Consortium shared their presentation that includes video of their collaborative efforts.

GTEC on Prezi

What's interesting here is that the teacher in England teaches STEM to the students at GTEC, and the teacher here teaches the students in England about global diversity. The videos in the Prezi also show the students collaborating via Skype.
Moving forward in the next 5 years, Leslie is working on creating a Global Learning Consortium. This might be a great opportunity for further collaboration with our district's Project Lead the Way classrooms.

November asked, "how would superintendents get their district involved with this type of collaboration?" Anderson shared that every grade level in her school has collaborative projects going on with a specific country. She hopes to have continued teacher exchanges to further build relationships. She finds that when teachers meet face to face, it is easier to make curricular connections.

November closed by inviting us to challenge students to find schools in England that are studying the American Revolution. He noted that to actually find the schools, you need add this to your search:
site: sch uk
His point is that we have not taught kids how to be competent at getting connected. These mechanics are essential!

ISTE 2011 Keynote John Medina: Brain Rules

2011-06-27T00:21:00.001-05:00

The session began with ISTE President, Holly Jobe, sharing her vision, including authenticity, and student centered learning. I was impressed with her philosophy, and her background with the Pennsylvania Classrooms for the Future program. I think ISTE has made a great choice in leadership!

This year's keynote was John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, and author of Brain Rules. I first heard of Dr. Medina a few years ago through Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen Website, then I bought the book.I blogged about his ideas about multi-tasking, here.
Medina talked much faster than I could take notes on (Still not used to typing on the iPad), so I will share the Twitter feed here of the keynote for important quotes that were shared:

How does formal neuroscience apply to Ed tech or education in general?
He says we don't know!
Still, certain mythologies have evolved:

We only use 10% of our brain's capacity
There are people who are Left brain dominant and others who are Right Brain dominant
Women from Venus, Men from mars

Wiring Considerations!
See exact same things and have two completely different reactions.
We know very little about how the brain works, but we have uncovered the...
Evolutionary performance envelope! Our Brains evolved to do 5 things:

Solve problems
Survival
Live Outdoors
Pay attention to meteorological events
Complete tasks while on the move

Thus, we have designed a space for learning directly opposed to what the brain was designed to do!

We need to intellectually start over!
The focus of his talk was Brain Rule #4 Every brain is wired differently
Part 1: A question that made me mad and how I tried to answer it
Q: Teacher training is the single most important factor...Is there adiagnostic rule to weed out good teachers?
Medina on learning
You need a data base and the ability to improvise on it.
He gave a great example of fluid intelligence

Growth of the database is cummulative
Future learning depends on past acquisition
If comprehension not engaged, there is diminished capacity. His example was college kids having to take HS Algebra because of gaps in their learning.

What might a good teacher look like?
Ready knowledge of the gaps in learning- is it measurable

Part 2: Theory of mind, social prejudices
The ability to peer inside someones head and understand rewards and punishments
The abiliy to understand that people have different rewards and punishments what is obvious to you is obvious to you!
If you understand this, you can know when students are bewildered or happy. This may be a great predictor of pre-service teacher success.

Questions from the audience included:
What are the implications to teaching to the test?
Medina said that most kids can spot when the teacher is doing this.
Emotional stability of the home is the biggest predictor of academic success
Executive function increases the most when guided aerobic workouts occurred daily! We should be handing out school uniforms to every kid, and they should be...gym uniforms!
-Has technology changed kids brains? Yes!
Is Google making us stupid? Yes it will change you but the long term effects... WE DON'T KNOW!
Blue light into your eyes cyiptochrome, changes sleep. That is all we know!

Right now, the blue light is hitting my eyes as I type this. I'll leave my final thoughts for another post...

UPDATE: ISTE has posted the full video here on Youtube!

Edubloggercon Session 2: The Flipped Classroom- the Full Picture

2011-06-26T06:47:00.001-05:00

Jackie Gerstein suggested this topic because she believes that the teacher is no logger the
"only expert" in the room. She has a great presentation on this here. It's worth the time to view!

Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture

View more presentations from Jackie Gerstein

She feels that students can find these videos to get the information from experts rather from the teacher, who may or may not be an expert.
Here are some notes from the conversation:

An AP History teacher shared that he assigned lectures on Monday's and had small group discussions in a blended format over the next two days. Teachers without good discussion skills benefit from smaller discussion groups, and as we found in Edina, students can go deeper into topics of interest.
This teacher starts the year lecturing and showing them how to take notes and get information from the lecture.He requires the students to show their notes in order to participate in the small group discussion. This has proved to be a great incentive for most students.

Gerstein and Scott McLeod argued that teachers need to light the fire in students during class time, by engaging them actively. It is hard for that to happen in the traditional classroom setting.

There was some push back in the audience- video is an old model, passive and students are not building their own knowledge. What are you doing with that video to engage and inspire students?

Back channeling during the video is one option.
Having students produce the videos might be an option, but Gerstein noted that kids sometimes don't get the content as well from other students. Still this might be an assessment strategy.

I asked whether using outside experts or the teacher's own voice providing the lecture. Gerstein believes we need to have the option of having both the teacher's voice and the option of other experts.
McLeod noted that if we are about student learning, then we need to pre-assess, and offer choice!

Gerstein said the key to all of this is to get the information into the hands of students and let them make sense of it!

Edubloggercon Session 1: How do High performing districts make the shift?

2011-06-25T22:07:00.000-05:00

At the first conversation of Edubloggercon, I lead a discussion on the topic of high performing districts and what motivation they have for making "the shift" toward a more student-centered, tech infused model. Scott Mcleod pointed out before the session that in many ways, it's harder for these districts to change, when the current model seems to be working for them.
In many ways, it takes a "leap of faith" for a district like Edina to focus on higher level, student-centered learning, or project-based learning without having an implementation dip. In fact, to many, that dip CAN'T happen.
The constant increase in Adequate Yearly Progress requirements, also put strain on districts.

Someone mentioned that this MAY be an opportune time for change, because of Common Core Standards going into effect. In Minnesota, the new Language Arts standards are an open door...an increased emphasis on non-fiction along with digital reading and writing mean opportunities for LA AND Science and Social Studies.
Unfortunately, someone will ask, "Can you guarantee our scores won't drop?" (There ARE no guarantees!)
New assessments are being written, more skill based rather than content. Maybe that will help!

Jeff Kessler, a student at Science Leadership Academy here in Philadelphia attended the session, and shared that SLA just implemented Standards Based Assessment, 50% project, 50% knowledge based assessment.
Some 21st Century skills/standards could be embedded in multiple courses.
Easy grade Pro is the grade book they are using. Faculty and students are given the opportunity to crowd-source feature requests for a new system they are building.
Standards Based Assessment and PBL may be a way to get at this.
Optional homework for formative math, along with group work.
Students spent 5 days researching NASA data for benchmark.
Doug Johnson asked about our District Tech Plan, and what technology purchases would come of it. He noted that in Mankato, an Interactive White Board in each classroom showed the public that the classroom is different than what it used to be, which has been a good thing.

Another model is a 1 hour lunch for student help in Lusby, MD. This also allows for more collaboration time with other teachers.
We also talked about, "Why do students take AP courses?"
Answeres ranged from:

Colleges!
Status
Prestige
It's an expected credential.

Dual enrollment might be a better option for students, as they actually earn the college credit directly from the college.
Kesler noted that SLA students can take classes at Penn and Drexel!
While our discussion did not yield a big, "Aha!" We did come away with some possible solutions worth exploring.
Then tonight, Joe Bire's shared a link to this article. We are not alone!
I think some of the ideas Christopher Dede shares here are important!

ISTE 2011

2011-06-25T09:00:00.002-05:00

After an arduous 16 hour train trip, via Washington, I've made it to Philadelphia for ISTE 2011!

I am excited for the learning that will be taking place over the next few days, starting today with Edubloggercon. Edubloggercon is an "unconference," where people submit ideas for conversation and sessions are created. It's an informal time to discuss "big" ideas. This year, I submitted a topic relevant to our district,

"How do high performing districts maintain excellence and meet mandates while exploring shifts in learning?"

Over the course of the next few days, I'll be sharing here some of my learning and take-aways, including my presentation on our "1:1 Laptop Learning Journey," which is the title of my poster session on Monday.

Here's a nice photo of all of today's participants, via Peggy George.

iPads vs. Netbooks the Final Answer?

2011-06-08T22:36:00.000-05:00

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This school year, I've had the pleasure of working Molly Schroeder leading a group of 29 staff through a Teaching and Technology Cohort through Hamline University. We are currently studying assessment, and one of the course outcomes is to assess what technology staff would select for their classroom. I posed to them this question:

Would a laptop/netbook or ipad be a better tool for student use?

I broke the participants up into groups and had them research the topic, giving them suggestions here and here of places that had chosen either option. To evaluate the project, I asked them to use this rubric, developed by Doug Johnson for Large Scale Technology Adoption. They were asked to come to a consensus, and then present their findings.

I found it interesting at the time, that some participants followed the rubric religiously, while others seemed to follow their gut feelings! Here was one of the presentations that is representative of the overall impressions:

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I realized while viewing the presentations that the participants did exactly as I asked them to.

I did NOT model good a good problem based lesson, because I gave them an out! I decided the next day to ask again, but this time create a scenario where they had to make a firmer choice:

Good Morning!
On Tuesday during class, I tweeted out that groups in the cohort were presenting on whether a netbook or iPad would be a better tool for student learning. Several people, including Scott McLeod replied that they were interested in the results:

Well, after watching the presentations, and looking through the peer review, I found it hard for me to answer! Many of you indicated that while viewing presentations, you had been influenced by the arguments.
I also realized that I should have phrased the problem in a way that required a clear decision:
You are a member of your building technology committee. Your district will be going to a 1:1 learning environment next year, where each student will have a device. You have narrowed it down to iPads vs. netbooks. Using the Johnson Rubric for Large Scale Implementation, which device will your committee choose?
This would have required a more definitive solution from each group.

To answer this once and for all, I would like you to complete this short form today. I will compile the results and share them with you tomorrow. I will also be getting your group's peer feedback to you later today.

Thanks,
Mike

If you count what people voted for at the end, the result of the class poll was:

iPad - 13 Netbook - 8

Two people actually cancelled each other out when they picked the opposite of what their numbers told them!

Criteria	iPad	Netbook
Simplicity	17.190	14.524
Convenience	17.286	16.143
Reliability	16.571	14.048
Usefulness	14.857	16.762
Affordability	13.333	15.190
Total Score Average	79.237	76.190

So based on the vote and the numbers, this group would choose an iPad as the best tool for student learning.

While this exercise was hypothetical, the rubric provides good, quantitative criteria to consider when looking at classroom technology.

iPad vs. Netbook images from Jared Earle and Bela Hausmann

April Key Instructional Contacts Meeting-iTunes U, Integration, IWB Pedagogy

2011-04-19T12:47:00.000-05:00

April 18th was the TIES Key Instructional Contact meeting. Here are my raw notes and thoughts from the meeting.
The official agenda and notes are here.

Podcasting & iTunes U in Minnesota

Christine Dufour from the Minnesota Department of Education started off the meeting discussing how the University of Minnesota is using iTunes U. She is looking for school districts with content that could be utilized on the site. Districts must sign a contract initially, then they can put up content into an album. Once that content is up there, it can be organized by subject and grade level.

Students are comfortable using iPods and mp3s
There is a shift to mobility
Minnesota iTunes U can leverage all districts.

Launched in December, there have been 15,000 downloads. By contrast, in their first 9 months, Ohio has had 1 million downloads!

The content can be both staff and student produced, preferrably in the 2-5 minute range, and it must be free. You can include photos, videos, pdf files for lesson plans, assessments, etc.

Mike Dronen from Stillwater suggested that this would be a great opportunity for teachers to share their work on integration as well.

I think this is a great option for sharing out content, and hopefully this meeting will gather momentum for districts to start utilizing this option.

Integration Best Practice

Cara Hagen led a discussion of Technology Integration Best Practice Resources

A Range of Use by Cheryl Lemke (PDF)
Grappling’s Technology & Learning Spectrum by Bernajean Porter (PDF)
Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy by Richard C. Overbaugh & Lynn Schultz, Old Dominion University
Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloom’s Digitally by
Bloomin’ Google by Kathy Schrock
A Model Of The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy For Learning, Teaching, And Assessing Adapted from: Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. by Rex Heer (aka Thursday Xu in Second Life).

Lemke's document has a great graph on ease of use and pedagogy.

Grappling's Technology and Leaning Spectrum shows uses that starts with Tech literacy, moves to Adapting uses, and Transforming Uses. At times, each is a good level to be at, but ultimately, we want to take teaching to a new level with the transformative uses.

Problems and/or issues include time, money and accountability. Shawn Beaverson brought up the assumptions about student access and abilities. He noted that we change or limit our practice based on assumptions. How do we determine what the actual access is? Roger Bovee felt that computers are not the issue at home, it's Internet access. Perhaps "checking out" 4G devices could be checked out, though filtering issues might need to be addressed.

Marla Davenport asked about what happens when students bring in mobile devices in their classroom? Who's responsible for troubleshooting, supporting?

We then broke up into groups to explore issues involving assessment, student helpdesk support, professional development/staff assessment, student access-equity and filtering. See the notes for more info.

Interactive White Board Pedagogy

Many issues with integration also apply to Interactive White Boards. Cara is doing a book study this summer on IWB called, "Interactive Whiteboard Revolution: Teaching with IWB's" by Chris Betcher and Mal Lee.

Often pedagogy with IWB's ends up being the teacher at the front of the room, however there are many student-centered options.

How are we going to combine technologies, support and standardization?

Many staff say they are comfortable with the presentation tool aspect, but the awareness and comfort in creating lessons, including students is often underutilized.

If districts have limited funds, should districts install IWB's or improve infrastructure so that students can bring their own devices, or use other tools to present such as an iPad?

Philosophically, if we are trying to create students who are learners, does it make sense to put them in front of an IWB or in front of a personal device? Dawn Nelson suggested giving students the devices, teaching them how to use them responsibly as a learning tool.

Wayne Everything we have today is going to change...What's happening with how we are training students to learn, think critically. Cara added that it's more important with how students interact with the technology, curriculum, and most importantly, with each other.

Dave Eisenmann from Minnetonka said that SMART Boards in their classrooms were a game changer, because it forced teachers to use and interact with technology. They were a wise choice 8 years ago, today, he's not so sure...perhaps it's the iPad and online tools like Schoology.

Cara pointed out that you have to meet every learner where they are and take them where they need to be. For some teachers, that might be with a SMART board, as an iPad may be too much. In any event, whatever tool they are using, teachers need the support to take them further.

Schoology Notes

Jonathan Hume from Schoology came to share information about their social networking/ Learning Management System

Global Education Network
Teachers sharing content with each other-Joining Personal Learning Communities
Now will have Google Single Sign-on integration
Gives students real-time access to academic content
Parents have real-time info related to their kids
Updates, flexibility of when it's open
Access codes unique for each course
Single Sign-on
Administration allows for separate roles for users with specific permissions
Ties in to unique ID's for students and parents.
User Profiles can be set to District, school, class etc.
Custom domains and branding
Feed for each course in the news ala Facebook
Course outline set up in the main section similar to Moodle
Forums can be filtered by user to view their interaction.
Assessments can be done online
Assignments created automatically get posted in the gradebook. Can be unchecked.
Gradebook can be integrated between systems.
Course Analytics can be viewed quickly and easily at the course and activity level.

Mark Garrison from White Bear Lake talked about how they are using it in his district. People like the layout, since it's so Facebook-like. Recent activity shows what students were working on. The built in calendar is right there, with links to every assignment for every kid that a parent has.

White Bear is using it for:

Teacher Websites
Digital Extension of the Physical Classroom
Staff Development
Technology Integration
Great communication tool with the ability to get an e-mail or text messages for assignments, messages, etc.
Social Media
Truly integrated technology
Ease of use for staff and students
24/7 access
Allows for innovation-Link for ideas to improve it. They are always evolving and changing.
Groups-Mark showed a nice example of students working on a homeless project
Media-currently internal, but they are working on allowing public viewing of images. Tagging of photos just like FB.
Students can see their feed from each class rather than having to go to each site individually.
"If you think making content available and communicating with parents is too much, what are you doing in the classroom?"

The shared library allows ranking of materials for use.

They are looking at Standards based assessment integration, assessment reporting, and classroom analytics in the future.

Students might be interested in extracting some or all of their learning from the system at some point for their digital portfolio. Schoology is looking at allowing for this.

Gone Google Billboard

2011-04-01T19:22:00.018-06:00

Photo courtesy of Nathaniel Lindley

My colleague, Molly Schroeder recently entered our district in a contest for a billboard featuring our use of Google Apps for Education. Well, we were selected as one of the 10 world-wide winners of the "Gone Google Campaign contest", and now, drivers along Interstate 494 in Richfield can view the sign!

On Thursday, Molly appeared on Channel 9 in the Twin Cities and was interviewed regarding the billboard contest and our use of Google Apps for enhancing student learning:

Edina Public Schools Have Gone Google: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

Molly did a great job discussing the ways that students are using the tools for communication, collaboration, and creating meaning for their learning, and the fact that "the secret to student success is great teaching." She also made an important point regarding the number of colleges and universities that have embraced these tools, and how our use of these tools is helping prepare our students for their future. Currently, Brown, Northwestern, Arizona State, USC, the University of Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Temple and Notre Dame are among the schools using Google Apps.

We currently have 6775 users using our Apps for Education site. As you can see by the following graphs, the use over the last 6 months continues to increase:

The graph on the left shows the number and type of document being used by students and teachers. The graph on the right, shows how more and more users are collaborating on the documents that are created.

There are many districts around the country who have moved to Google Apps for Education, and with Molly's leadership we have developed a very successful implementation. She has been a leader in our district, and as a member of the first group of "Google Certified Teachers," she has taken that experience and expanded it, here and around the world. Congratulations!

New Commenting Feature in VoiceThread

2011-03-30T13:54:00.003-06:00

Not only is this enhancement good for teachers delivering content, but for students to demonstrate what they know. You can learn more about it on the VoiceThread Blog.

Example of Using Edina Apps to Enhance Student Learning

2011-03-04T12:57:00.020-06:00

Last year I collaborated with, Jennifer Buckley, 7th grade Language Arts teacher at South View Middle School, on a project for students that focused on Apathy. In the project, students read several stories that had apathy as a theme, then were asked to look for examples of apathy in the world around them. They created groups, developed solutions to the problems, invited stakeholders to watch them present, then used different Web 2.0 tools to present their solutions in the school theater to an authentic audience.

This year, she started the project by having students gather in groups to brainstorm synonyms, antonyms, and similes for apathy, then use the Advanced search on Flickr to find images that represented their simile with Creative Commons sharing rights and enter all on a Google Form.

Jennifer and I were talking about the project prior to this and she was commenting that she didn't care for the Google Presentation tool for the final projects, because it was limited in what it could do. I pointed out that one advantage, is that it forces students to focus on the content rather than the "bells and whistles", and that's what I liked about it. Later in the day, she sent me a link to the "Group Presentation" developed by the different classes. Here is what she and the students came up with:

When Jennifer shared the presentation with me, she included a note that said, "I guess Google Presentation is ok." To me, the simile and images helped promote higher level thinking among her students, and I think this is a great example of how our Apps for Education can be a powerful collaboration and presentation tool when focusing on the content and good design!

I'll try to share some of the student projects later in the unit.

Bring Your Own Technology Initiative

2011-02-23T06:32:00.008-06:00

February 22 at Valley View Middle School, I held the last orientation meeting for the"Go Wireless" Bring Your Own Technology Initiative for this school year.

We currently have around 130 students, about 10% of the population bringing their own technology to school at Valley View. On March 1st, we will hold a similar student/parent orientation at South View Middle School.
At each training session, I ask students about their hopes on how the laptop will enhance their learning. You can see their comments in the image on the right.

While 130 devices in a school of 1300 may not seem like much, our Director of Media and Technology Services, Steve Buettner pointed out that it represents 4 computer labs coming to school each day!

It's rewarding to see all of the students connect to the network right away and have access to the survey and other resources they now have access to in the classroom. Our district tech staff continues to improve the infrastructure to make the use of personal technology possible.

Edina Public Schools featured in Converge Magazine

Last fall, our district was featured with several others in an article on the Bring Your Own Technology model in Converge Magazine. Many districts are seeing the advantages of students bringing their own technology as a way to sustain programs. The "Bring Your Own" model has been in place now at Edina High School for the last three years. With the additional netbook carts we have purchased at each building, we hope to allow for greater access to information and tools for students to create authentic artifacts of their learning.

Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century

2011-02-22T14:20:00.000-06:00

On Friday, February 18^th, Twin Cities Public Television aired a program

entitled, Digital Media: New Learners of the
21^st Century .

From the tpt Website: “Targeted at parents, teachers and anyone concerned with education in America, this documentary takes viewers to the front lines of an education revolution. "Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century" examines how mobile devices and digital media practices can empower young people to direct their own learning. Documenting five success stories both inside and out of the classroom, the program demonstrates how digital media, games, smart phones and the Internet are fundamentally transforming the way young people communicate, collaborate, participate and learn in the 21st century.”

Several staff and parents watched the program, and chatted about it here.

You may view the program in it's entirety below:

Watch the full episode. See more Digital Media - New Learners Of The 21st Century.

Please take a look at the video and take a moment to provide us feedback on the form below. You may also look at additional video and Web resources we have collected on our Engaged and Inspired Learning Website, for additional information. Thank you!

Join Us Tonight!

2011-02-18T10:07:00.007-06:00

Here is a note we sent out this week to parents, teachers and students. I'm looking forward to the conversation!

Edina Parents, Teachers
and Students,

On Friday, February
18^th, Twin Cities Public Television will be airing a program
entitled, Digital Media: New Learners of the
21^st Century at 8:30 p.m. (The program will also are on
tpt 2.3 at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 19)

From the tpt Website: “Targeted at parents, teachers and
anyone concerned with education in America, this documentary takes viewers to
the front lines of an education revolution. "Digital Media: New Learners of the
21st Century" examines how mobile devices and digital media practices can
empower young people to direct their own learning. Documenting five success
stories both inside
and out of the classroom, the program demonstrates how digital media, games,
smart phones and the Internet are fundamentally transforming the way young
people communicate, collaborate, participate and learn in the 21st
century. 56 minutes long”

We would like to invite you to watch the program and to engage in a “Virtual Viewing Party!” During the show, you can either join our live chat on Today’s Meet at:

http://todaysmeet.com/edinavvp

You can also follow the #edinae&i hashtag on Twitter and share your thoughts as you watch the
program.

Either while viewing the Digital Media: New Learners for the 21st Century video, or after the program, please take a moment to provide us feedback. You may also look at the video and Web resources we have collected to spur thoughts or discussion. Thank you!

The Choice Is Yours Laptop Program

2011-02-11T15:04:00.006-06:00

Families who are members of The Choice Is Yours program in Edina are provided with a laptop computer and Internet access. Mary Manderfeld, Assistant Director of Administrative Services who administers the program notes:

One of the barriers the Choice is Yours (CIY) students and families may face in
Edina Public Schools is access to computers and the Internet. Each year Edina
High School and Middle Schools are increasing their use of technology within the
classroom setting. Many classes are placing their entire syllabus with all
homework assignments online. The academic registration process at Edina High
School is completely online at this point. Families and students need to have
Internet access in order to register in a timely fashion for classes the
following year. By having a computer, families are also able to log in to theirs
student’s academic information to see grades, missing assignments and other
vital academic requirements. Families and students who do not have a computer or
access to the internet at home are placed at an immediate disadvantaged to peers
who have access to this information. Edina Schools is happy to assist our
families by providing computers and internet access to lessen the digital
divide.
The computers are paid for out of the Integration funds received
from the State of Minnesota

Sara Swenson, Media Specialist at Edina High School asked a few of the students what impact the program has had on their learning. Here are their responses.

Edina Engaged and Inspired Learning Summit

2011-01-26T08:28:00.018-06:00

January 26th, Educators in Edina met for an "Engaged and Inspired Student Summit" with the purpose of:

To create the ‘Edina definition’ for ‘21st Century Skills’ AND
Ask staff to identify where such skills are currently in place within our students’ learning experiences AND
Share a common understanding for use in communication and curriculum/instructional design AND
Consider what technology has to do with it

Dr. Dressen started off our discussion today, asking us to cross out 21st Century skills on our packet and replace it with 22nd. Students in our classroom will be living in the 22nd century, and our discussion today needs to reflect that.

He noted that learning is no longer linear, and we need to embrace that fact.

Dr. Jenni Norlin-Weaver then led us in a discussion, where each of us had a piece of art, and we were asked to identify how it might be used in the classroom.

We then viewed the following RSA Animate video, on Sir Ken Robinson's ideas.

Dr. Bruce Locklear, Edina High School Principal, then shared some of Tony Wagner's work.

Looking outside the windshield. Sometimes you feel like the bug. "Everyone" is an expert on education, because we all went to school. Sometimes we feel like we're hanging on for dear life. Everything is changing, and we are on a fixed income. Change is sometimes "taboo." Instead, we talk about "reform" or "best practice."

Last Friday, while working with the teachers at EHS on equity, five students of color came to speak to the group. 5 years ago, they would not have been at EHS, they would have been in an alternative program. The essence of what Sir Ken is saying, is that we need to personalize learning for each student. For 85%, they know how to "play the game" of school. What about the other 15%? By personalizing learning, and making all students feel a part of the community, we will reach that group. When you hear about 5 students who have had success, it gives you the energy to get up off the windshield and try again!

He then lead us through some of Tony Wagner's work.
We have an 19th Century Curriculum
20th Century Buildings and Organizations
21st Century Students

Dagget-"The world our kids are going to live in is changing four times faster than our schools."

In the last 50 years, our economy has transformed, and routine cognitive and routine manual labor has decreased, whereas non-routine interactive, non-routine analytic has skyrocketed.

What are the 21st Century Skills? Expert Thinking, Complex Communication are the new skills students need. How have are classrooms changed to address these skills?

Examples

Elementary classrooms-Instead of the teacher standing in front of the room, "talk with your elbow partner"
Edina Apps-Students can collaborate on documents
More group work-How do we evaluate that work? How do we prepare them for that?
Highlands elementary uses a lot of Johnson and Johnson's collaborative learning strategies
Band and Athletic teams support these skills
Need to differentiate and look at collaboration at different developmental levels.

State Standards lack attention in several key areas:

HS English Standards and courses emphasize literature (Though the refresh and core standards are changing.)
Reading material students will encounter in college or on the job is informational.
Ability to work in teams is not in the curriculum.

Creative work is the key in developed countries.

Top 5 new hire skills

Communication
Honesty
Teamwork skills
Interpersonal skills
Strong work ethic

How do we align learning to purpose and relevance.

Wagner believes we are doing students a great injustice by putting them in AP courses to take information in, spit it out and fill in a bubble.

Locklear finished with a look at some questions brought up by Bernie Trilling in his TIES Keynote.

Here are the slides from this morning:

Further resources for the day can be found on the Edina Engaged and Inspired Students Website.

Teaching and Technology Cohort Takes Off

2011-01-18T14:02:00.017-06:00

This fall, 29 teachers from Edina embarked on a Teaching and Technology Certificate program through Hamline University.
Funded through a grant from the Edina Education Fund, the teachers started the program in a course called, Creating Community for All Learners. Through the course, they worked to form their own community, gained understanding of the importance of sharing, and how technology can be used to connect and collaborate. We created a hashtag on Twitter (#edinatt), and invited participants to share with one another.

The course was delivered in a "blended" format of face to face and online, and the participants described their learning experience as:

One of the activities involved creating their own metaphor for educational technology. The examples cohort members came up with ranged from a steamroller, an 8th grade boy and running a marathon to a rainbow, rain on a farmers field and a tapestry!

A definite highlight was the final face to face session, where groups created a community building activity and "taught" it to the rest of the class. The groups created lesson plans for these activities that can be found here. Some of the activities involve Webcams, and Technology tools such as:

The final assignment involved a plan for how they would create community in their classroom. They can be found in the portfolios on our public Website.

After a break, the cohort will pick up again January 25th with a class on Integrating Technology. This experience is providing staff with a 21st Century learning experience that will provide them with skills to enhance their instruction with technology.

How To Learn? From Mistakes

2010-12-15T13:50:00.007-06:00

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Educon 2.1 Conference at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. One of the highlights for me was the chance to tour the school and sit in on classrooms to learn some of the pedagogy that makes SLA so unique. One of the classrooms I visited, was Diana Laufenberg's Government Class. Students were sharing their stories from public meetings they had attended and were sharing their learning.

Last month, Laufenberg presented at the TEDxMidAtlantic Conference. In the talk, she shares the story of learning from the perspective of her grandmother, father, herself, and now her students. In her grandmother's world, school was where you had to go to "get the information." She points out that today, that is no longer the case. By asking students questions, allowing them to make mistakes, asking them what they can do with the information, we can offer a richer learning experience. She challenges us to provide experiential learning opportunities, to empower student voice and embrace failure in the learning process. The video is about 10 minutes long, and gives a great message of how schools can change to reflect the information world we live in.

TIES 2010 Keynote: Bernie Trilling-21st-Century Skills: Learning For Life in Our Times

2010-12-07T08:23:00.019-06:00

Bernie Trilling, co-author of 21st Century Skills, Learning for Life in Our Times, spoke in the Tuesday TIES 2010 Keynote. He started by thanking TIES, and remembering "Oregon Trail," which you can still get on your iPhone!
His focus today is on 21st Century Learning and the current progress on it.
This is an interesting time for education right now.
A tale of Two Cities...The best of times and the worst of times!
What is really going on in Education right now:

1 Foot in the Industrial Age model-An old boat that looks a little rusty
Drop out rates are high because the kids are "over-bored!"
1 Foot in the "iBoat!"
The boats are moving apart from each other
At some point we need to make a decision on where we are headed.
This is the case all over the world

How do we get through this transition?

Churchill said, "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing...After they have tried everything else!""

The critical question: What do students need to learn to be successful in the 21st Century?

The Rear View Mirror
Unfortunately, we have a "rear view mirror" syndrome. We were all in school.. this prevents us from moving forward! We need to toss out the rear view mirror and focus on the future!

The Future:
It Ain't what it used to be!-Berra
The best way to predict the future is to invent it! -Kay
Why do we need 21st century learning?
What do students now need?
How do we get there?
Trilling then lead us through "The four question exercise"
1. In 20 Years, when the child leaves formal education, what will the world be like?
Audience Response:

Like the Jetsons!
Independent/Personalized Learning
Paperless
Increased Computer Capability
Overcrowded and too warm
Work from home, anytime, anyplace
Digital Natives in control
Disparity between haves and have nots!
Learning is entertaining
More communication, less boundaries, more connected!
Quality of life based on access to technology

2. What skills will your child need to be successful in the world you just painted?

Ability to learn and adapt independently
Not always a "right" answer
Culturally aware AND Globally responsible!
REALLY good communication skills
Growth minded!-Willing to believe that they can and should continue to learn!
Keeping up with the technology
Synthesize and evaluate information
The easy way is not always the right, moral or ethical way!
Finding Balance-Mind, body and spirit
Collaboration
Connection with the natural world!
Flexibility
Open minded
Know how to "brand" themselves!

3. In your own life, what were the conditions that supported your peak learning experiences?

Enthusiastic/passionate teachers, content and students
Supportive parents
Choice
Learning more important than behavior
Not driven by grades-Importance of topic is valued
Taking responsibility for own learning
Connection and empowerment to rest of the world
Travel, people skills
Involved positive risk-taking
Part of a learning community

Trilling: We have created a blueprint for learning!
What would learning look like if it was designed around these
Which skill is most important? Trilling says, "LEARNING! The profession of being an adult in the 21st Century!"

Trilling reminded us of home media technology in 1975 to today. He also notes that students are different today from how they were then as well.
Tapscott study:

Personalized Learning
Speedy access to online research, writing, sharing, project tools
Social Tools
High School Survey of Student Engagement from Indiana:
65% of students are bored every day
82% Material not interesting
Not relevant
No Teacher interaction

The world IS flat!, but workers need 21st Century Skills to compete! Are students ready to work?
NO!
Businesses want: Oral skills, teaming, project management-AMA 2010 Critical Skills Survey
The Future World of Work-Routine work done by people or machines going to the lowest bidder. Creative work is where it's at!
He then showed the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Framework. If you look at the framework, almost all were mentioned in the audience response above!
He calls this the 7 "C's"

Content Understanding
Critical Thinking
Cross Cultural Understanding
Collaboration
Communication
Computing Skills
Career and Civic Learning and Self-Reliance

3R's x 7C's =21st Century Learning
How do we do this?
Trilling then showed a clip from Dan Meyer's TEDxNYED talk:

"Every student is intuitively involved." There is no answer in the back of the book! Trilling says that like Dan Meyer, We need to "Be Less Helpful!"
When we "learn about learning" we know that we need context, caring, construction, competence, and community.
He then shared a "Deeper Learning" School Network whose schools use a project-based approach that introduces an authentic essential question to start the learning process. This network includes Edvisions Schools, which includes the Minnesota New Country Day School.
Trilling talked about the importance of the Essential Question in the Project Based Learning process.
He closed his talk with a wonderful story about a school in California that for 18 years has been working on a project that started with a simple question...

And then we read the pledge...(Thanks to @recessduty for the picture)

Photo Credit

TIES 2010: Exceptional Teachers

2010-12-07T08:06:00.006-06:00

At the TIES 2010 conference, Mark Walace and Kathleen "KC" West were honored as Exceptional Educators for modeling best practices and engaging students in learning! Congratulations!

ISTE 2010: ABC's of Advocacy with Hilary Goldmann

2010-12-06T13:56:00.002-06:00

Hillary Goldmann, Director of Government Affairs with ISTE presented on Educational Technology Advocacy issues. The session was attended by Technology Directors, teachers, educational consultants, administrators interested in advocating for curricular and funding needs.

State Level
Carol McFarland, a Minnesota State Representative from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, came to share her thoughts on educational advocacy issues at the state level. Before she became a legislator, she was a parent volunteer and school board member. She reminded us that democrat or republican, you can not pigeon hole legislators, as they are all individuals. It is important to talk to both parties. Education is NOT about partisanship. She is on the Education Policy committee, and believes that there needs to be better alignment between K-12 and post secondary. What are issues regarding collaborating. Currently, cities, counties and townships do not have to go to the voters regarding expenditures. Schools do. This needs to change.
Tell your story, to ANYBODY and EVERYBODY! Engage your legislators, not just your local legislators. Contact committee members, but don't stop there! If you have individually done your work telling your story, when bills get to the floor, all will have heard it!
Build coalitions! How many know that the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce has Education as a high priority! The problem is we speak different languages. They want a return on investment, and a strong work force. The battle scars of political elections make it difficult for people to get together to work on issues, but work together they must!
Letters are more effective than e-mails, since people took the time to write, rather than copy and paste an e-mail. This is significant! Make appointments to talk with legislators. It is more effective to write a short, sweet letter to tell your story. Robo-e-mails are less effective. Sometimes students are the best advocates, but make it genuine, not prepped! "Bills are a start of a conversation!" It may not pass, but it gets the conversation going! The Minnesota Department of Education has been cut so much that it is hard for them to advocate. Many omnibus bills are voted on whether bills have more good than bad. Approach legislators with opportunities and solutions rather than just telling them to fix it. Tell your story! She shared how her granddaughter's 3rd grade teacher has received grants to integrate technology into his curriculum. Ananth Pai, the teacher happened to walk by as she spoke. He said, the best thing you can do is invite people to your classroom! TPT did an interview on what he is doing as well!
Hillary pointed out that when teachers scrape and hunt for funding, it causes a difficult issue when trying to move something to scale. As advocates, this makes things tricky, because not every teacher can do that, and there are only so many grants to go around.
Just Show Up!
Jennifer Bergland, Director of Government Affairs for the Texas Computing Education Association Skyped in, to share how she started and what she does.
Legislation happens from those who show up! So show up! Instead of being intimidated by the process, remember that you are the expert that has information that can help legislators. The more you know them, the more they seek out you! Sign up for ETAN or other resources that push information to you!

She majored in Political Science, but she went into education because she loved kids. She worked as a Social Studies teacher, Technology Director and now the TCEA. She felt that her organizations were not doing enough to advocate for Ed Tech Funding. 7 years ago, she received funding for a Middle Level 1:1 initiative. As that project evolved, she realized the need to advocate at the state level for funding.
She worked with Tech Companies, the Texas School Board Association, and teachers organizations. She worked on a bill to allow districts to use textbook funds in a flexible way, so that they only have to buy classroom sets rather than one for each student, so that remaining funds can be used to purchase digital materials and equipment.

Advocating with Members of Congress

Joe Campbell, a member of Senator Amy Klobuchar's office who works on educational policy issues came to talk about what Senate offices are like and how they operate. They have 17 staff in the Minneapolis office, 25 in the Washington office, along with regional offices for out state.

At each office, there are staff who work on specific issues.
Senator Klobuchar reads every response from her office that goes to 5 or more people.
When engaging with a legislator, it is a strategic decision. If it is something that affects a small fraction, you may want to choose a smaller pool to meet with, where if it affects more people, you may want to contact more people.
To schedule a meeting, a member of the staff are always available. Be flexible.

Assume that staff know nothing, but that the member of congress knows everything. Use that time to get into the meat and potatoes. We are the experts! Senator Klobuchar will usually ask questions. Keep it simple, and stick with the agenda. Staff will stay after to discuss further! Be ready to share "the ask!"
It's important to make the effort. The more information legislators have, the better decisions they can make!
Another option is to talk with staff about issues and ask them to write "Dear Colleague" letters to advocate with other legislators to advocate and share stories that way.

Next we had a chance to share our stories and needs in EdTech Funding, and concerns over NCLB reauthorization. I had a chance to share my views on making the National Educational Technology Plan play a more important role in Educational policy.

Campbell stated that Senator Klobuchar is a strong advocate for investing in our national infrastructure, expanding access. Session participant, Josh Sumption, from Marshall, Minnesota discussed the issues in South West Minnesota, where at school there is great access, but at home they are still dial-up. The "school-to-home" option is a good one, but Hillary pointed out that it should happen, but not at the expense of E2T2 funding!

If you have an issue you would like to discuss with a representative from outside your district, right now, you are limited, because on the Web sites, you need to be a member of that district to contact. Campbell said that you should simply state, "I'm not from your district, but have an issue I would like to discuss with you. What is the best method?" Senator Klobuchar has also participated in video conferences from her office. She also stops in every county, every year. Given that Klobuchar is on the Commerce Committee, she may not have as much to say about ESEA reauthorization, but she will play a huge role in broadband infrastructure! Senator Franken is on the Education Committee, and will have an influence on ESEA re-authorization.

We closed the session discussing what we can do moving forward. For those that send an EdTech Advisory Network letter, Hillary would like us to send the response that we get, so that she can track responses. There are more resources on the conference Wiki if you would like more information.

TIES 2010 Keynote: Sir Ken Robinson

2010-12-06T08:14:00.012-06:00

The Keynote Speaker at this year's TIES Conference was Sir Ken Robinson. I had seen his TED Talks and was really excited to see him present.

He spoke today on The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything!

Winnepeg is the coldest place on earth! He talked about taking a cold shower in Winnepeg. "California doesn't do cold water!" Winnepeg does!

Not sure he's happy to be hear in Minnesota!

He talked about a recent trip to Las Vegas to renew his vows. Las Vegas doesn't have a reason to be there. Some do have a reason, natural harbor, water way. There is no advantage to the location of Las Vegas. The reason it's there is that it represents the most powerful capacity that we humans have! It is unique to human culture. The power of immagination! This is unique to human beings. To conjure up the possibilities. Entering the hearts and minds of others, visit the future, etc. Though it is impossible to predict the future.

J.K. Gallbraith-The primary purpose of economic forcasting is to make astrology look reasonable.

The power of immagination has underpinned everything that has sprung up in our history. It's failure has helped create our greatest mistakes as well. There are forces at work now, unleashed by our immaginations that make the some tremendous challenges. This may be the most tumultuous century in history.

Taken as an aggregate there are several forces that are making things

We are living in a period of revolution.

If we are to collectively meet this revolution, we need to think differently about ourselves.

Too many adults underestimate their talents. Many don't enjoy the things they do. Others really DO like what they do, however the majority do not. This is another type of "Climate Crisis." The crisis of human resources. We currently have a 40% drop-out rate. They don't feel it's about them. And their right! All of the remedial programs to bring people back to education are based on personalized instruction. If they had that to begin with, they wouldn't drop out!

Like in every profession, there are good teachers and bad teachers. The bad teachers should do something else! The systemic issue is that it is enherrently blind to the needs of individuals.

The Correction System is the fastest growing system in the U.S. California spending on the correctional system will soon be greater than what is spent on education. The costs of "mopping up the damage" of drop-outs is to high. We must have different strategies.

It has to begin with talent and ability. Go "back to basics!" Talent of ever teacher and student in the system!

In the 1950's if you had a record player, phone and TV, that was the extent of consumer electronics. His 8 great-grandparents were all born within 2 miles of each other. "I just think people bumped into each other on the street and said, 'You'll do!'"

Contrast that with today!

Digital technology has mostly happened in the last 10 years. Todays iPhone has more computing power than all the computing power on earth in 1950. 10 years ago, Google was a novelty! No Wikipedia, Facebook, Youtube, etc. When he was working in the 1970's on his Ph. D., he would spend 3 hrs. in the Library to scour the shelves to find 6 authentic references. That was a good day! Today, 100 pages of great stuff can be Googled on your cell phone, and if it takes more than 15 seconds, you get irritated!

Our children have grown up with this stuff, and they take it for granted! It is true, however, that the gadgets we are using now, will be antiquated very soon!

He told the story of a conversation with an Apple Engineer who said, "the most powerful computers in the world today have the computing power of the brain of a cricket!" Computers are inert calculators. Within 10 years, they'll have the capacity of a 6 month old child. At that point, computers will be able to learn, re-writing their own operating systems.

Kurzweil-in the 2020's will have OS that will be close to the human brain. How will it feel when you sit down at a device and it is as smart as you are?!

"We are reaching a point where information systems will simulate human conciousness."

No one knows for sure what the world will look like in 5 years.

Education is still getting used to the idea of how technology can be utilized in the classroom. There is an opportunity of collective conciousness that is unpresidented. We need to get on with it, because culturally, we're no where near keeping up with technological changes. For most of human history, there have been 1 billion people. Now there are 7 billion, and by mid-century we'll be closer to 9 billion. BBC program, "How many people can live on Earth?" with David Attenborough. If everyone consumed the same as someone in Ruwanda, the Earth could sustain 15 billion. If everyone consumed as much as the U.S., the earth could sustain 1.5 billion.

We need to educate our students to understand this fact.

Our classrooms are designed for the 19th Century. We need to get back to the basics of "people."

"Finding Your Passions Changes Everything!"

Most people don't understand their true talents and don't connect with them!

He told the story of having to introduce the Dahli Lahma on a panel last year. The Dahli Lahma was asked a question, and after a pause, he said, "I don't know!" How many teachers say that?

If you think about all the circumstances that caused you to exist, the odds on you being here are stacked against you! Being born at all is a miricle! So you should do something worth-while!

Robinson spoke of Terrance Tao, a math prodigy, who at age 7 was taking Calculus!

If you have to do math, and can't, you assume you're not smart instead of realizing that you are not smart in Math, but may be smart in something else!

He was "chilling" with Sir Paul McCartney, who said that he HATED music in school. No one at the school thought George Harrison had any talent either. So there was a teacher in Liverpool in the 1950's who had 1/2 of the Beatles in their classroom and didn't see that they had any talent! Elvis didn't get accepted into his Glee Club! How many of our students untapped potential is sitting in OUR classrooms?

To be in your element, you have to love it, and then you never have to "work" again. Bart Connor learned how to walk on his hands at age 6. Not much use at the time, but when he was 8, his mother arranged to have him go to the gymnastics center. For him, that place was like Santa's House and Disneyland, combined. Is that how we feel when we walk into a gym, a classroom? Connor's mother could have said, "stop it with the hands thing!" but instead she encouraged it! She couldn't have known that the journey would take him to the Olympics. Life is organic. "It's not what happens too you that makes your life, it's what you make of it."

Our educational systems have to be predicated on our diversity of human talent!

If you have the potential to be a talented violinist, basketball player, etc.

All you can do is invest in the moment and encourage the passions you see in front of you!

Cultural-We need to educate our students to be informed members of society.

Economic-We're educating students for the old economy rather than the new.

We need to change metaphors! At the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, design!

We need to move away from the industrial model of education. Most of the assumptions of this are now broken. In the 70's if you had a college degree, you had a job. Not any more!

Now education needs the organic metaphor, based on human beings!

He told this amazing story to emphasize the importance of nurturing student passion and potential:

Near Las Vegas is Death Valley, the hotest, driest place on earth. In the winter of 2004, it rained. In the Spring of 2005, the floor of death valley was a beautiful flower garden. Death Valley isn't dead! It's dormant! and with the right conditions they will produce a harvest. The same is true with students and education! Running a school is more like agriculture, encouraging growth! There are no schools better than it's teachers, principals and superintendents.

Schools can NEVER be fixed permanently.

Schools need to be personalized around people's creative talents! Plants don't grow by themselves! With organic systems, miricles can happen every day!!

After his talk, Carl Anderson asked Sir Ken a question. "What is the purpose of school?" You can see his reply here.

"Go Wireless" Initiative Year 2 Update

2010-10-14T22:04:00.021-05:00

October 14th, I met with 52 parents and students at Valley View Middle School, where I presented our plan for year 2 of our "Go Wireless" laptop learning pilot. I've written before about our initiative and the ups and downs we have incurred, and as we move in to year two of the pilot we are looking at a "Bring Your Own Laptop" model.

Go Wireless Update: Bring Your Own Laptop at Valley View on Prezi

I shared details from our Frequently Asked Questions document, discussed what they could and should use the laptop for, and their responsibilities. After assisting students with connecting to the network, I had them complete a short survey to gather some data on their hopes and dreams for using their personal laptop at school. Parents and students asked some great questions about when they could use the laptop, whether they could charge it in classrooms if need be, and whether they can use their laptop at home for Facebook or G-mail? (That's up to your parents!) Below are some of the comments students shared on the survey:

After students and parents turned in their Personal Use of Technology Form, they received a sticker indicating that they were "Wireless Certified."

During our question and answer session, one of the parents brought up the important question of equity and whether we were creating a situation of "haves" and "have nots" by allowing students to bring personal devices to school. The district has provided laptop carts in each building for staff to check out to use with their students. In addition, a set of netbook carts has been purchased so that students could check them out overnight using our library catalog system. We've created a Website for staff, students and parents to purchase equipment at a discount, and we are also looking at possible funding sources to create grants for those who may have a financial need to cover all or part of the cost.

After our teacher convention break, students who attended the training will be brining their laptop to assist in their learning. I look forward to learning along with them!

How Millennial are You?

2010-09-22T09:14:00.018-05:00

Students in KC West's Mass Media course at Edina High School took a quiz recently to see "How Millennial" they were. They used the Pew Research Center assessment answering 14 questions on how they access and consume information. KC is teaching this course in a "blended" format, and has great reflections on that aspect on her blog. KC's work on blended learning is a great example of what's working in public education.

After taking the quiz, she had them create a Prezi presentation to share how they consume media. It was interesting to see how they consume their news, music, and entertainment. Some were very "millennial," tweeting, texting, blogging, reading on Kindle's and iPads, while others were not.

Here are a few examples of how the students see themselves:

How millennial am I? on Prezi

Millennial Generation on Prezi

It was interesting to hear the students present. Some talked about how they read books on their Kindle and iPad, others have been blogging and tweeting for awhile, while others did none of those things.

How millennial am I? Well.....I took the quiz and here's how I scored:

Something about reading an actual newspaper in the last 24 hours and having no piercings or tattoos...

Project BluePrint: Tech Trends

2010-09-20T10:31:00.018-05:00

The districts that participate in Project Blueprint shared the state of Tech in their district. I've highlighted what I think were the important points.

Edina

3,210 desktops and laptops (PC now, but may support other soon.)
LCD in each classroom
Fiber, 1 gig between buildings
50 meg connection to the Internet. (Buying roughly 10 meg per year additional.)
Network (IP phones, digital video)
Wireless: 90% coverage at Secondary, 20% coverage at elementary
Aligned to mission and vision of the district, promotes curriculum and instruction, encourages innovation
Improve efficiencies and effectiveness in the delivery of technology services
ITIL framework
Providing access
Allowing personal devices
Student Centric Learning: Cloud based, Universal Design for Learning, Easy wireless access, Anytime-Anywhere learning opportunities, rich multi-media content.

Clayton, MO

10 gig between the building
1 gig within
50 meg connection for 2500 students, but seeing that be tapped out. Looking at 100 meg this summer.
Looking at VOIP
100% g wireless coverage and moving to upgrade to n this year.
Doesn't want to be seen as an inhibitor
Centralized IT support. Only 2 1/2 miles across. Remote in to computer. 95% of problems can be resolved this way. If not, help ticket. They can get most things done w/in 1/2 hour.
Mac District. All but 60 are Apple. VNC w/ Remote Desktop
iPad trial going on right now. Bundles of 4 for classroom teachers and some for teacher checkout.
All of E's "Inservice" tool for PD.
Struggling with some "cloud based" tools
PowerSchool for SIS
Quia, Moodle, Working to define the best tool for the task
Pilot first before implementation

Guilford, CT

Thomas Forcella talked about his work in Maine where 1:1 computing and moved to Connecticut. 5 years ago, they had no mobile tech, 1 IWB, etc. Multiplied tech funding 4x's the level of 5 years ago. Starting from scratch allowed them to focus first on student learning.

Gave every teacher a laptop, with expectations on how to use it, which helped a great deal with innovation.

Mission: Provide instruction that invites effort and supports rigor.
Smartboards: Cognitive apprenticeship, student and teacher demo in front of students. Goal is to create producers not "reproducers." The IWB is the first step of the process.
"We want students who produce knowledge, not reproduce knowledge."
Video Integration: Interactive Reading Project-Across schools AND grade levels. Students challenged one another about the books they were reading
Expanded the use of Web-based tools: Voki, Wikis, Blogs, etc.
Document learning: Flip Camera project
SmartMusic, Lab Simulations, Movie Production

Burning Questions:

How can we insure that all students have access to rich technological experiences in school? (How do you ensure other curriculum standards/experiences are provided?)

How do we keep technology from being "busy work" or "entertainment centers" in classrooms?

(They do learning walks a few days a year and see abuses.)

ID of right programs that allow differentiation of instruction by curriculum and integration specialists

This video might have some answers...

Palisades, PA

Within 3 years, anyone with a "smart phone will be inexorably linked to it. How does this impact our schools?

Shared their Program Review where they had a 2 day process of review and assessment.

PD was an area of concern

Only those interested were attending

If people are required to attend...that increased participation.

They require daily updates to Teacher Web Pages.
Online Grading and student management
The more accountability, the greater level of concern by staff
Expectations of parents has driven that too!

Tech Leaders in the building w/ stipend.

PA Classrooms for the Future-Included a Full year of coursework to receive it.

Nationwide sponsors their Website. Best Buy provides scholarships for funding

Cybersonics Robotics program-Best example of PBL and 21st Century they have

Academy for Tech during the summer

They are exploring the California online textbooks

The equity issue: Wayland looking at "student computer" innitiative and what this means.

Parents not comfortable w/o control for how students are learning and what that means..

Wayland, MA

Mobile technology for students and staff
Improving network infrastructure
Paperless classrooms and new PD model for teachers
Virtualizing their data centers -VDI
A lot of $ on upgrade of switches and access points
"Learning To Change" 3R's & 4 C's : Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity Collaboration, (Curriculum would be the 5th)
Instructional tools they are using: Need to consolidate
Single Interface called: "It's Learning"
Can't call it 1:1...It's too controversial-budget concerns
Teachers have laptops, students have access to lab/carts in Physics
Blended Learning for PD-"Wayland Rises"-Rich Instruction for Student Engagement and Success
More student-centered learning. Modeling for staff
Learning the "It's Learning" interface through PD
Using STaR, MassONE (Tech Self Assessment Test), Surveys
Looking at the actual work of the students to assess if teachers are truly integrating
On their Website, they added a "Fast Facts" page about the district that the "stole" from Whitefish Bay.
It's Learning has a plagiarism component as well.

Many ideas here made me think of this video I've posted before, but feel fits the shift we are seeing in student learning. Wendy Drexler created it about 2 years ago, but it is still relevant today!

Much of the discussion after focussed on shifts to online learning.

Who's really doing the work?

How do we maintain our brand if we start using non-district products?

Project BluePrint: Curtis W. Johnson

2010-09-19T18:05:00.012-05:00

Edina is hosting Project BluePrint Schools this week. Comprised of districts that are suburban and of similar stature in their respective states, Project BluePrint consists of the school districts of Guilford, Connecticut; Wayland, Massachusetts; Cape Elizabeth, Maine; Palisades, Pennsylvania; Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin; Clayton, Missouri and Edina.

Curtis Johnson, co-author of the book Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, was invited to speak to the superintendents, curriculum directors, technology directors and teachers representing the different districts. My notes on the session follow.

Johnson began by asking those in the audience "Why would a 14 year old want to go to High School?

His answer: Social Peer group interaction and to feel competent. Are our schools meeting those needs?

He then told the story of a suburban Boston convenience store that had lines of people buying milkshakes between 6:30-7 a.m. Johnson said that people "hired" the milkshake to have something to hold on to on the commute, because it was viscous so it would last a long time and not spill as easily as coffee, and it was filling enough to get them through lunch.

Johnson then shifted to our current realities in education.

Not long ago, dropping out could still be a ticket to success later in life. Today, not so much.

The economic downturn has lead to a new normal: We are not on top, we can't just roll out of bed and be successful. Commodities were cheap. Every trend that made us stay on top are in reverse.

China is back and here to stay.

Are we going back to that profile? Here are some statistics prior to the downturn:

41% of workforce in financial services.
35% of U.S. capitalization was in Real Estate
58% of graduates of top universities went into Law or Finance. Not making things, or running things.
1/2 of Wall Street trading on average is flash trading w/ naked access. All algorithms based transactions, not creating any value for anyone.

So where are we headed?

We're probably only going to do well if you are prepared to do something with your head. We still lose 20% of the kids. School is rigid, predictable and boring for those at the top, and we lose them too!

Disruption is a good thing!

Christiansen observed successful companies like Data General and Wang that died very quickly despite being well managed. The common thread was "good management!" They didn't look out their windows to see what was going on in the rest of the world. Why would they build a $2,000 computer with 4% margin when they could build a $500,000 with 40% margin.

What happened to the phone company?

Look at Toyota. The 1st Corolla's were poorly made, but "non-consumers" could afford them.

What drives organizations? People, Process and Priorities. Enterprises repeat the things that work. This becomes the organizational culture. Listen to your best customers. Who are the best customers in K-12? Parents of the children who do well! (Usually they did well in that type of environment too!)

"Society has moved the goalpost on K-12 education the last few years." From you are supposed to provide access to "you are supposed to provide achievement." The problem is the operating model of current K-12 is the model is not reflective of 21st century realities. Sequences and Silos. Getting to knowledge is not an issue today, yet the sage on the stage is still the most common pedagogy.

The model is NOT the way kids learn. Integrated knowledge is a part of who they are.

Never has every kid learned the same thing at the same time in the same place on the same day.

Standardization in the name of efficiency is not helping our students.

We have a performance problem, not a design problem. They just need to work harder! We don't back up to see if it's really a design problem.

If this is true, a big change is coming....

The online platform behaves like every other disruptor. Online learning 1.0 only appealed to a small narrow population. (TV delivery) 2.0 Online learning was a bit more creative, as it allowed schools to continue to offer subjects like German, Economics, etc.

Now, online learning is heading to the 3.0 phase. More interactive, individualized, beyond the experience available in the classroom. Video-conferences, guided tours of museums, languages, the best Chemistry course in the United States is online. It is too good to ignore.

How do we participate in this? The only examples of professionals participating in their own disruptions that are successful involve these important components:

Separate Space. Don't try to change everything or everybody-Just allow a few to try it. (Dayton's-Target example of decentralized Target didn't have to report to the Department store)

Radical Autonomy-IBM was the only company that survived the changes in the computing industry from mainframe to mini, mini to PC, and beyond.

It's a hard thing for people to do that, when there is fear of "what if they do well?" What about how unions will react?

Portfolio schools. Allow them to go do it and turn them loose. Judging them only on the results they get. If they can get to the 30-40% who we are not getting, then we might be able to do it.

Think about how different our demographics are from 30 years ago. Different internally from each other. Much more diverse. Students in Minneapolis come from families that speak 37 different languages. Shoving computers into classrooms hasn't done it.

It's changing the pedagogy to teacher as facilitator, coach, etc. that is needed. We've been talking about personalizing learning for decades, but the only place we really do it is Special Education.

Inserting our agenda into their use of technology.

Palisades has an Academy program where kids can learn in a different model.

Johnson on "Chartered Schools"-"There is no such thing as a "Charter school" it is a license to create a school under certain criteria. Is a Chartered School better than regular public school? "It's like asking if it's better to cook at home or eat out!"

Wayburn's superintendent asked the question: "How do you entice "us" to change? We're some of the most effective schools in the country! Why should we embrace this?"

Johnson: In the 90's there was no demand for e-mail. The same thing may happen in response to your question. If people are forced to move in that direction, they won't have the time to do it, unless they test it and develop best practice now.

The fuel injector put the carburetor out of business.

There is a perfect storm of kids who power down when they come to us. Parents think we're good at getting kids ready for beyond school and they need an online, student lead experience.

Efficiency in how we use our time as teachers.

In other industries, are their "creative deviants" that are currently underground and we're just waiting for them to surface. Are they under-represented in K-12?

Maybe many who leave after a few years are the ones who are leaving. "We won't get better teachers unless teaching is a better job!" "This is not a professional opportunity if you can't control your work."

Creating a space or environment where we're not compromising the results, but we're adding critical thinking and creativity.

Accountability for results next to the authority for the work. In teacher lead schools, they have both, and it makes all the difference.

Closing comments: see more at EducationEvolving.org

ISTE 2010: Session: Howard Rheingold: Critical Thinking while Exploring the Web

2010-06-30T09:34:00.007-05:00

I've seen Howard Rheingold present online, and was looking forward to seeing him live.

First we looked at Bing and the photos that they use on their opening page.

There is a Wikipedia tab whenn you search in Bing, along w/ related searches on the left. You can see the tone of the related searches as you search through something like "global warming." If you search "Global Warming," you will see "myth" or hoax, as you go further, you can see how the tone shifts in thinking on the topic.

They now have a beta Social Search in Bing as well. And "microsoft.com/maps/apps.aspx

Microsoft has a site for teachers around critical thinking here.

Finally, Howard started talking and began by sharing the resources for the session.

We used the hashtag on Twitter #istect and people also added resources on the wiki page.

This allowed for the creation of this .pdf at the end with resources created by the participants.

The resouce mining included a Diigo Group called Critical Thinking where you can join and find great resources.

Howard asked the audience if there was anything you could tell your administrator about it, what would it be? Angela Maiers was in the audience, and said, "start early, do it often, and don't underestimate young minds."

It is important to show students early where information comes from, and show them sites that have bad information.

Rheingold discussed MartinLutherKing.org, a site I have used many times with students to discuss critical thinking.

A site called Newstrust can be used w/ older students and has resources for educators.

Rheingold stated that Wikipedia is a marvelous educational tool precisely because it is untrustworthy, and it reveals the process. "It's the best place to start, and worst place to stop researching on a subject."

You can triangulate by doing a Bing, Google and Wikipedia search on a topic. This will give you a better start.

Teachers need to develop THEIR critical-thinking skills as much as students!

Someone in the crowd asked whether there was a wiki page on Wikipedia discussing the validity of Wikipedia? Yes, in fact there is.

Rheingold talked about the scientific method and degree of authority. We need to instead develop a process of thinking where we can defend the sources we use.

Someone made the valid point that we need to have the same critical thinking we have with books that we have with Wikipedia. We need to question EVERYTHING!

There need to be a partnership between classroom teachers and media specialists on this.

CommonSense Media has some great resources on this.

The session gave many resources in many formats that will be valuable assets on this topic.

ISTE 10: Tuesday Session: Google Wave

2010-06-29T13:33:00.012-05:00

Tim Stack and Jared Covili from the Utah Education Network presented on how to use Google Wave as a tool and how to put it into the K-12 classroom.

Education in our generation has been force fed, and then...the info is gone.

They then showed Arne Duncan video on Digital nation discuss the future.

59% of students online talk aobut educational projects

50% of students are learning online

They want choice. Today they have 150+ stations

They want control

How can Wave help some of these issues?

They created 2 waves for this presentation, one for the presentation:

And one for the comments and questions like a back channel.

Replies that people make create new "Blips" on the Wave. By Control-Clicking on the second wave in your list, you can have 2 waves open at a time, then by closing the minimize button on the search panel, you can see both Waves side by side.

Issues: when waves are public, the creator can be deleted, and people can change content. In fact about 3/4 of the way through the presentation, someone deleted the resources section of the presentation!

Next we looked at management of the Wave. Stack said that the more you use it, the easier it becomes. It's just different.

Since this is an open source project, there are some apps like aunt-rosie@appspot.com that can be added to allow for things like translation from Spanish to English. You drag the app to be a participant in the wave and then you get a drop down menu when people are editing. In the wave, you add these apps as contacts to your wave.

It's still in it's infancy, so it requires extensions and gadgets to allow for waves to be Public, to embed calendars, and other extensions.

You need Google Gears installed on your browser for dragging and dropping of documents and images in a Wave. Surprisingly, Google Gears is currently not supported in Chrome!

They then showed a wave for the Utah State " Amazing Race" contest and how you can pull in .pdf documents and images. The images appeared in a preview mode similar to Google Buzz.

Any document can be added to a Wave as well.

There is also an extension that brings up a video chat with up to 6 people.

I was excited for this session, as along with many, I had tried wave back in January and was ready to get some tips and to see whether I wanted to train staff to use it this year, since it is now part of our Apps for Education package. At this point, I think I will wait.

The apps and extentions are currently only added at the user level. If you are a member of a wave created by someone who added the bot/app to the wave you can use them. Perhaps teachers could be trained in adding specific extensions and then invite their students to the wave. For sychronous creation it does have intriguing possibilities.

ISTE 2010: Session: #Tweet, #Learn, #Lead

2010-06-28T16:39:00.016-05:00

I stopped by to listen in on Chris Craft (@crafty184), Jonathan Becker(@jonbecker) and Jeremy Brueck (@brueckj23) discuss how to use Twitter more efficiently. It was interesting to see these three educators from different parts of the country collaborate and share their perspectives on how Twitter can be used effectively. I've been trying to grow things grass roots in Edina the last couple of years, as it has greatly benefited me professionally, and I was hoping to gain some insights from this ISTE Bring Your Own Laptop session.

They actually began their session last week, by inviting those registered a Google Form Survey created by Brueck to gather background information on the participants skill level and to attend a Moodle course on Twitter providing introductory lessons and a quiz. Brueck also has this Wiki site with great resources for every level of Twitter user.

They created three hashtags which formed a backchannel for the session :

#isteask for people to ask questions during the session

#istelearn for people to share information

#istelead for people to share how administrators might use Twitter.

I thought this was clever and they had the 3 tags as columns on Tweetdeck up on the screen as they presented.

Craft began by assuming that everyone there wants to use Twitter.

Do you want links to resources?
Ideas for the classroom?
Conversations about topics?

Then Twitter can be an effective tool for you!

He noted some important things to remember:

It is entirely acceptable to unfollow someone who isn't tweeting, or isn't giving you good information.
It is entirely acceptable to block someone from following you. (I have had to do this when obvious spammers have started following me.)

How do you use this tool without being overwhelmed? (This is something that a few of the people I have attempted to get on Twitter have struggled with.)

American Education Research Association Conference this spring Craft presented on some of his Twitter research. After looking at 250 self-identified educators over the course of 18 months, most of their tweets were socializing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but can be noise in your stream.

If you want to use Twitter for learning, you need to carefully choose who to follow, carefully choose who not to follow, and carefully choose who to engage.

He follows around 400, as do I, though I have heard Will Richardson say that he prefers to follow only around 150 or so.

This is YOUR network. YOU need to Own it! Follow people smarter than you!
Follow people who can be leaders for you.

Jon Becker began by asking this question: "Is the faculty lounge valuable? How?"

One respondant from the audience said, "Depends on who's in there with you!"

Most aggreed that conversations about teaching and learning in the faculty lounge can improve your instruction.

Twitter is a nearly boundless faculty lounge for you.

Many school leaders don't have that space to talk with other educational leaders. Twitter gives them the ability to grow the list of people they can connect with, ask questions and learn from.

You can follow people that someone like Chris Lehmann, the principal of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia follows (in Lehmann's case that would be 2,247 people!) or if they have a list of administrators like Chris has, you can follow the entire list (Cutting the number to 63!). Another option is to use Tweepsearch or Listorious and search for the word principal.

Becker suggested that Pam Moran (@pammoran), David Dotty (@canynosdave), David Briten (@ColonelB), and John Carver (@johnccarver) are superintendents who are active on Twitter and worth following.

There are a set of standards that people in the field of Educatonal Leadership that school administrators need to aquire, such as the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium's (ISLLC) Standards for School Leaders. Community Engagement is one of these standards. Becker feels that there are great possibilities for using Twitter to meet this standard. The Van Meter, Iowa School District is a great example of this with the #vanmeter hashtag. It's a great way to be transparent to your community and for you to control the message.

Brueck explained hashtags as a tool to aggregate tweets. Also, Tweetgrid can give real-time search results. (Thanks, @tollsy!)

Some districts are using Yammer, a "walled garden" approach to using Twitter, which is a social network for private social network for businesses that can still be synched to your Twitter account.

Bruek then explained how he uses Tweetdeck to manage multiple Twitter accounts and other social network feeds. He showed how he created columns for

Becker mentioned a local reporter tweeting from a school board meeting. Do you want that, or should the school control the message. He reiterated that Twitter is a great way to engage the community while also controlling the message.

Brueck shared how to click on the time date stamp in Tweetdeck to bring up the individual Tweet for when you want to share a relevant tweet with others.

Becker showed how to roll over a tweet in Tweetdeck to e-mail the tweet directly to people you want to share it with.

There was great discussion of whether to have multiple accounts or to live life in the open. B

Hootsuite is a tool that can assist people with managing multiple accounts.

This session gave me some ideas to try this coming school year to help people who might be feeling overwhelmed, and a few new tool suggestions as well.