NECC 2007

I had intended to blog about every session I attended, but I got pushed out of one session on Monday because it was full. Someone there said to plan on only going to every other session and going and getting in line for the next session. Wow! You can tell this little South Dakota girl doesn't get out enough!

I did get to go see Process Writing for the MySpace Generation. I already knew that we need to change the way we are teaching, but this takes it to that level! It was put on by the folks at Teaching Matters and I know I am going to be spending some time checking out their website when I get home. They are very reality-based and that is what matters to my kids!

Then I wandered into the Exhibit Hall! Talk about sensory overload. I spent 1 1/2 hours in there and didn't make it half way across the room. Yahoo is getting ready to pilot some new stuff for teachers. I signed up, but who knows if they are taking everyone. I met a wonderful lady who designed her own writing program, but I was surprised that she knew nothing about blogs, wikis, or other online tools. I know I am far from being an expert, but I did realize that I know more than the average teacher as to the Web 2.0 and the environment our kids need to be learning in. Towards the end of my visit to the Exhibit Hall I found Google. Since I am convinced that Google is taking over the world, I popped in. Fun for me...I found I do everything they were showcasing (and many things they weren't) except for the custom search engine. (I popped back in there today to do the Scavenger Hunt and found that it is fun and easy.)

Yesterday was a bad day. I woke up with a terrible headache, went back to bed for a while, then got up and got ready for the afternoon. I made it as far as waiting for the bus, only to have to run back and get sick. I missed the whole day. I can't tell you how bummed I am about that! Thank heavens there are so many people that have blogged about NECC. I have my reading cut out for me for the next week!

Today I feel better and started my day with Digital Game-based Learning in American History. I stopped at their booth on Monday. The are the Colonial Williamsburg group. I can't wait to dig deeper into this. I know our state pays for us to see all the broadcasts, but I really need to sign up for the teacher materials. There are many games and sites for students to interact at. I just need to remember there will be a lot more in my curriculum than just the Revolutionary War!


The second session of the day I went back in to see Will Richardson. I know, I know...a case of hero worship, but I get really inspired listening to him. His wiki for today was at

http://handitinnecc.wikispaces.com/

I know I now need to add Wikinomics to my summer reading list. I don't know that I learned any more than I have from seeing him two other times and from reading his book, but I am more prepared to go back to the classroom and fight the fight to have my kids using these tools and really preparing them for the world THEY are going to live in verses the one we grew up in. I know that blogging isn't where all teachers agree we need to be, but I am going to have my kids there doing their thing and showing teachers it not only CAN but SHOULD be done. While I agree with Will that we shouldn't be keeping our kids TOO protected, I do know I am going to have to take little steps. I am very confident that I can get the district to not squawk if I start with Class Blogmeister. Sometimes baby steps are better than no steps at all. I am going to set up my own wiki and put all the assignments and resources for my kids there. I have more to learn before I am up to podcasting, but would like to find a way to use that before the end of the school year. Perhaps my US History class could do their own podcast about the Revolutionary War? Hmm, something to think about!

I wanted to go to the Hands-On Wikis in the Classroom session, but again it was full. (Guess I would have had to skip Will!) I did go see Creating to Learn: Integrating Technology into your Classroom, Grades 5-12. I was almost on overload by then. Jacqueline Keane has put a lot of work into this and, thankfully, she sent me out with a book and folder packed with information. (More summer reading!)

Since I didn't think I could handle any more sessions, I went back to the Exhibit hall. (As if that wouldn't push me over the edge!) I finally saw the back half. I don't feel like I did it justice though! I have a backpack full of information. I found a great deal on thumb drives. I hope I can convince my wonderful principal that she needs to purchase one for every teacher. Maybe if I keep putting technology into teachers' hands, they will get excited! I saw things that make me want to drool and also realized how lucky we are in South Dakota. Most teachers aren't given web space around here. We all have it available. WebCT available to every teacher? They laughed at me. Promethian Boards starting to come into all the classrooms. I had teachers asking where was it I was from. Okay, we may be on the low end of the pay scale, but it is no wonder South Dakota scored an A- on the technology report card. (Only behind Georgia's A.)

There is only one keynote left for me today and the conference is over. It was a fluke that I got to come this year. I guess I am going to have to really start the campaign so I can be in San Antonio next year!

NECC Session 1 ~ Will Richardson

The first NECC session I attended was Will Richardson's

Learning with Blogs: Bringing the Read/Write Web into the Classroom
I have heard Will speak at the TIE conference in Rapid City. Now that I have started my own blog and am planning to use them in my English class, it seems to be a whole new conversation. I will record some of what I heard:

Will's Wiki
Will's Blog

Will had been a 21 year educator. Quit to become a full-time blogger and speaker. Will has been blogging for six years.

Google Blog Search
Technorati

To start blogging you need to read blogs. The links above are great places to start to find blogs that interest you. You then need to start commenting on other blogs. Engaging is a very important piece. At that point you may feel comfortable to start your own blog. There are many places you can start your own blogs. I have a couple started, but I am not sure where I want to "live."

Blogs are reflective. You can use it as a journal, but the real power is to put your thinking and opinions in there and see what people think. You put in intellectual sweat.There is a lot of synthesis in blogs. There is a lot of hypertext. Kids will be working in linked environments.

The question was posed to Will asking the difference between a blog and a wiki: A blog is a conversation. A wiki is a collection. What is the difference between blogs and forums? Blogs are deeply personal. They are your space. Forums are not. They are a group of people.

Reading blogs is an important part of being a blogger and a few that Will talked about were:
Clarence Fisher's blog
Konrad Glogowski
Karl Fisch

Teacher modeling works best when teaching blogging. Here are a couple more:

Vickie Davis - Cool Cat Teacher
Bud Hunt

IM is a very effective language and we should be teaching students that as well as formal language. We need to tell them when it is appropriate.

There are many places you can set up blogs. Here are a few:
learnblogs.org
wordpress

I have a blog. I read blogs and occasionally comment in other's blogs. I am not yet to a point that I consider myself a blogger. I am getting there though. I really want my 8th graders to publish their writing to a blog this year and comment on one another's blogs. I HAVE to be a good role model, so my summer is cut out for me. I am so excited!

I always enjoy Will's presentations and hope to catch a few more!

Hitch a Ride to NECC

A site called Hitchhikr allows you to hitch a ride to many conferences via the blogosphere. On the main page you will find listings to popular conferences. If you click on NECC 2007 you will find a listing of blog posts by people who are at NECC and who are tagging their blogs in a certain way.

Podcasting from NECC

Apple is sponsoring podcasts of key sessions at NECC (National Educational Computing Conference). Check out this page for a list of sessions scheduled for podcasting. The easiest way to listen to a podcast is to download iTunes on your computer. Once you've completed the download select podcasts, select the education category, if you don't see a listing of NECC podcasts perform a search for NECC using the "search iTunes Store" window.

Technorati Tags: necc

ISTE New Student National Education Tech Standards (NETS)

ISTE is releasing this week the new version of the student technology standards.

ISTE | National Educational Technology Standards

In 2006, ISTE began work on the next generation of NETS for Students, which focuses more on skills and expertise and less on tools. Specifically, they address

* creativity and innovation;
* communication and collaboration;
* research and information fluency;
* critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making;
* digital citizenship; and
* technology operations and concepts

. . .

After a year-long effort to gather feedback and rewrite student standards and accompanying documents, we are eager to release the new ISTE NETS•S™ at NECC 2007 in Atlanta.

View the next generation of NETS•S (Word doc, 52K)

National Educational Technology Standards for Students: The Next Generation PDF

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This generation of students

Some have suggested that our (educators') generation is one of information explorers; students of today are a generation of editors. Not only must they find the information but they must do more with discerning good information from weak information and produce quality content. One blogger brings some interesting insight to that notion.

Are We Just Editors Now?

I think, however, that simply calling the current school-age generation a "generation of editors" is a little too limiting. It's true that today's kids don't have to hunt down kernels of information as if they're ancient Cro-Magnon scrounging for roots and berries. Instead, it seems to be replacing those hunting-and-gathering skills with the ability to synthesize and combine information in ways that my own Baby Boomer mind can't always grasp.

It's also creating a generation of skeptical kids who can better sort out bad information from good information. In the old days—the 1980s—finding what seemed like a relevant piece of information was like digging up gold. But sometimes it was fool's gold, and it was often difficult to tell what information was good and what wasn't. We had to rely on editors and peer review to uncover bad information. Even then, bad information would propagate, and would often take years to correct.

One minor example of this is the statue of David, sculpted by Michaelangelo. Art history books had long noted that the statue was a little over 14 feet tall, and this was accepted as fact. But while working on the Digital Michaelangelo Project, researchers discovered that the statue was actually 17 feet.

These days, we get upset when network news doesn't correct factual errors in real time.

I think also think that the baby boomers tend to view information as simply words, pictures and diagrams. My older daughter regards information as something that's mutable, and that flows, not as something fixed and chiseled in stone. We see that on the Internet, too, as people experiment with mashups of different media, with information (data) mixing freely with algorithms to create different ways of looking at the world. One example of this is the work that Imran Haque, the Stanford graduate student who won my old PC in our recent essay contest, is doing by mashing up Google Earth with US Census data.

Editors, synthesizers, and creators. That's the new generation. They'll no longer have hunt and gather for precious bits of information. Instead, they'll be able to build something new and—we can hope—better.

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Blogs in the classroom

If you are needing ideas/rationale for using blogs in the classroom setting, this blog from Anne Davis may be helpful:

Ed-Tech Insider: Blogging in the Classroom

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Are you preparing your students for their future?

Recently in my doctoral program, I came across this article posted by a colleague in one of my courses. As a K-12 educational leader, it made me ponder the questions: Are we doing all we can to prepare our students for the future? Are they learning the necessary skills from us that they need in order to perform and function in the world? Teaching and learning are changing, are we keeping up?

This article linked below describes one college who is now requiring all students to successfully complete at least one online course prior to graduation. Interesting.
http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/17/online

TIE Conference 2007

The conference is over and I can't believe how fast it went. I am excited about the new things I have learned and only hope that I am going to be able to use them in my class. It takes a little more than just me to be onboard with Web 2.0 to make it happen!

The conference was wonderful. Thank you for having the wireless internet available. I was able to keep up with this blog everywhere I went. The speakers were incredible as was the variety of breakout sessions.

I am thrilled that the state's middle school computer teachers have all come together and started their own association. We hope to meet every year at this event!

I would like to thank the TIE staff for all their hard work and dedication to making this event happen every year. We know it doesn't just come about by magic.
I hope to see many of you at the Systems Change Conference in the fall!

PS ~ Check out the cluster map to see who is checking us out!

Student 2.0: New Technologies, New Opportunities for 21st Century Learners

Julie Mathiesen - TIE

Julie took off from the in-depth session I took with her on Sunday about Web 2.0 tools. She truly believes we need to know who our current “customer” is and what they are all about. You will find her presentation on her wiki.

Julie showed us a cute little video about Digital Immigrant vs. Digital Native. She pointed out that “You might be a digital immigrant if….”

She also gave us some new vocabulary like: Screenagers and the MySpace Generation. She also gave us MMORPG – Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game

Teachers don’t know much about gamers because we don’t play games and don’t get the draw. There are games that thousand, even tens of thousands of kids are playing all together.

Electronic communication: “Email is so, like, 2005.” Teens do instant messaging.
Voice communication: Cell phones vs. text messaging.

There are currently 173 million people using MySpace. Julie, being the hip and happening young woman she is, showed us her “MySpace” page. Her page may not be “rockin’”, but she uses it for the great reason of keeping track of her kids. Since I do the same thing, I think it is something parents should do. If MySpace were a country, it would be the 9th largest.

Our generation gap is turning into a generation LAP since many of our kids are lapping us. Start checking out places like Second Life. Many universities as well as ISTE are represented here. What a site!

Five ideas to go forth with:

Go Public! Start blogs! Get student work out in the world

Be De.licio.us! This is Social Bookmarking. Keep your favorites online. If you tag them, you can have them come into your wiki automatically.
Get Wiki! Julie has a Wiki Challenge: Come to the TIE site and paste in your own standards. Link resources to make students proficient with this standard.
Fast Forward! YouTube or TeacherTube. Check out the content. Watch some video and then learn how to MAKE a video.
Get Game! Explore the world of games.

Julie, what an awesome job! Thanks for sharing all your knowledge with us!

Technology Tools for Schools

Joe Hauge – TIE

Joe explained the advantages of being a TIE member. TIE is funded on soft money through grants and they do powerful work for school districts.

Benefits of membership:
Vendor discounts
Individual districts struggle with getting good pricing
As a collective, TIE has been able to generate more discounts
All vendor discounts are on the TIE website (http://www.tie.net/)
Support Technology Coordinators
Technical training is very expensive, but also very important. Some examples:
A+ Certification
Microsoft Certification
New Horizons technical training
Professional Development for teachers and administrators
Face-to-face training
Online workshops
Working on putting workshops on DVD – set up for an in-service
Classroom Management is out
Winning Words will be out in August
TIE conference
Data Analysis Service
TIE’s redesigned website

Systems Change Conference – MAPLE (Midwest Alliance for Professional Learning and Leadership) in partnership with TIE
It will be held at the Cedar Shore Resort in Chamberlain, November 14-15-16, 2007

Systems and Design in Technology

Wayne Lang
Technology Coordinator and Trainer in the Rapid City Area School District

Strand 1 of the new technology standards (Nature and Concepts of Technology) relies heavily on systems thinking and design. Educational technology fits well into Information and Communication Technologies. There is so much change coming that we need to find out how to deal with teaching our kids.
Strand 1 includes:
History and Progression
Systems
Relationships with other fields
Design

System is made up of several parts that all work together. We are surrounded by all kinds of systems. Systems help us to see how individual parts work together, understand complicated things, and deal with future changes.

System thinking can be broken down to the simple model of input, process, and output. Feedback is also a necessary element to make certain the system works.

How do we use this model? Relate the to the student world. Introduce – Plan – Analyze
Use the system all the time and kids will start thinking that way.

It could take between 7 and 20 years of students being exposed to systems thinking before it really pays off.

The Design Process (Technological Method)
Define the problem
Gather information
Generate alternatives
Select the best solution
Produce the solution
Test and evaluate the solution
Report the results

Wayne did a wonderful job explaining the systems thinking method.

For more resources, see Wayne’s website:
http://www.rcas.org/tsd/systems.design.3.htm

Tuesday Keynote

Technology Award
With a welcome to the final day of the 2007 TIE Conference by Joe Hauge, he presented the final technology award to Shelia Jensen of Corral Drive Elementary School in Rapid City. Shelia has been there for 6 years and works with Literacy. She has been a mentor to other staff members. She troubleshoots glitches and incorporates technology daily. Shelia also servers on the Building Leadership Team and as a Building Technology Leader. Congratulations Shelia.

Student Media Fair
We had an opportunity to see a video clip highlighting student technology achievement. I am constantly amazed by the creativity and talent of our young students. I sat watching the video in awe! We all need to celebrate these awesome students and their ingenuity!

Get your students involved with next year’s media fair!

Governor Mike Rounds
The Governor gave a heartfelt thank you to everyone in the room for what we do with the students in the state of South Dakota. He also thanked Jim Perry and TIE for this conference.

Governor Rounds talked about the budget and the moneys appropriated for education and technology.

Guidance Central has been purchased for schools to prepare students for college entrance exams and to plan their high school and college careers.

Education Week announced that South Dakota was one of only three states to receive an A- in technology while the average grade is a C. This article for SD was available at Education Week (http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html) and was amazing to see where we actually are compared to others.

The Governor opened the floor for questions:
What will we look like in 10 years?
Combination of wireless access and voice communication
Kids may have computers in their pockets – a visual world
Will teach them with same technology – series of stories from around the world
Teachers will strive to stay one step ahead
Our challenge is to stay current with what technology students use
Will all students be connected?
Absolutely
Wiring schools was a priority – every school building
Now we need to go wireless
Make it bigger so business can hook in
Funding – How can you guarantee adequate funding for training for one-to-one teachers?
How do you guarantee funding for training for Regent schools?
We don’t have complete buy in even now – it still needs to be sold
You don’t learn by just have the tool, it has to come along with training
We need to have enough schools involved and succeeding to ask for state funding from the legislative body
Ongoing training at the local level – Districts need to match salary enhancement dollars – target specific projects, like training for teachers
We don’t want a merit pay system – we are trying to build teams
Post-secondary level – all students that are graduating have to understand how to integrate knowledge using a computer system
All students will soon be required to have a laptop
How are we going to bring new teachers in to the state?
State sends money to districts, but schools are putting money into reserves instead of teacher salaries
Governor Rounds is pushing for more dollars to go into a salary policy
What can we do to bring high paying jobs to the state?
We are losing kids to other states
Businesses look at South Dakota are worried about finding employees to fill positions
Have to have good job opportunities in the state and young people with the skills to go to work right away
Kids have to have more education
How can large schools like Central High School get involved in the laptop initiative?
Started with small schools because it was too daunting for larger schools to get everything pulled together
The first two rounds are able to share what is and isn’t working
Schools that have the laptops need to continue sharing what is working

The Governor ended by thanking the veterans that do so much for our country.

Congratulations Sheila Jensen--Technology Leadership Award Winner

Sheila has been a mentor in technology integration at Corral Drive elementary school in Rapid City. She promotes reading and writing through the use of laptops, having applied for and received numerous grants to provide technology tools for teacher and student use. She is a member of the building technology committee, and is also an author and inventor. Great work, Sheila!

PodCasting in Education presenter: Janet Hill

How many have tried podcasting? I decided to see what this was all about. There are basically 3 types--audio, enhanced, and video podcasts. We were shown how easy it is to do each type of podcasts with Janet from Apple using several audience participants. She also showed us the free podcasts in itunes. One nice thing is itunes can be downloaded free and works on either platform. If you get into itunes, do a powersearch and look for ecogeeks. Some great free video podcasts!

You Tube Showcased by BHSU

Dr. Len Austin and his students, Brittainy Covel and Chad Grahek, began a lively YouTube demonstration with a clip of Elvis Presley from 1977 in this very building (Civic Center)...by the end of the hour, they had uploaded and could show a clip of their audience, filmed by Chad's cell phone earlier in the session. This session gave me new insight about what it might mean to "live" on the web...It's the ultimate "show and tell" tool. Today's session was a great introduction to this site and some of the issues surrounding its use. I didn't immediately see great educational connections, but it certainly revealed a lot about our culture...

Monday's TIE Conference

With over a thousand participants, the TIE conference is off to a great start. The gifts are fun - we all got a cool bag and a TIE blanket. When picking up the bag we were given a sheet of vendors. If each of those punched your sheet, you could turn it in for a ticket for extra prize drawings. Lots of prizes have been given away already and more to come tomorrow.

Getting to see friends and explore new technologies is fun. I love the TIE conference and always come back to school with a renewed sense of purpose. I think this year's is off to a rousing success.

Middle School Technology Association

Mary Frances Honner ~ Sioux Falls Catholic Schools
Rosalie Moore ~ Douglas Middle School

Mary Frances and Rosalie are spearheading an effort to pull the middle school technology teachers together in a collaborative environment so that we can share ideas and lessons. With the new state technology standards, we are all looking for ways to cover everything and keep our students current with technology. There was a great deal of interest and I think we will be hearing more from this group. Keep us posted and thanks, Ladies!

Top 10 Web 2.0 Applications for the Classroom

Brian Dzwonek
http://bdzwonek.googlepages.com/tie2007

Brian lead us through a tour of his favorite Web 2.0 applications. You can find his presentation on the web site. Below is his countdown list and a general idea what you will find these applications to do.

10. Ajax13
Simple icons
Writing
Sketching
Presentations
Tunes

9. Leafletter
Mini webpages

8. Zoho
Writer
Sheet
Show
Wiki
Notebook
Meeting
Projects
CRM
Creator (online database)
Planner
Chat
Mail

7. ScanR
Use your cell phone camera as a copy machine

6. Google Docs and Spreadsheets
You need to go through your gmail account and you can use the documents and spreadsheets and collaborate with others.

5. Survey Monkey
Online survey creation tool
It has a basic, free component

4. pbwiki
Education wiki as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich
5 gb space for free

3. Google Pages
Create web pages

2. Blogger
Easy blog tool through Google

1. Basecamp
Online project management tool

Courage To Teach

Maggie Austin, Marilyn Hofer, Marlene Rothermel, and Karen Taylor

We were broken into two circles of trust and these amazing women were able to show us a glimpse into the Courage To Teach experience. I am a member of the second cohort and I honestly wondered how they were going to be able to take this program based on Parker Palmer’s work and do it justice in such a short time. I should have known better than to worry.

In a time when our lives as teachers are so incredibly busy and struggling to keep up with additional content and No Child Left Behind and advancing technologies (that the students frequently know more about than we do) and all the other pressures of our chosen career, we rarely take time to ourselves to remember or find out who we are or why we are teaching. Courage To Teach a a gift that allows you the time for reflection and support.

Personally, I was not sure I had time to be part of Courage To Teach and Marlene assured me I didn’t have time NOT to be part of this program. I will owe her forever! I have found that the retreats give me the absolute luxury of time that I never seem to have. The reflection I have done is both personal and professional. I feel the difference when I walk into my classroom. If you don’t have the opportunity to participate in the retreat program, I highly recommend reading one of Parker Palmer’s books.

The program was brought to South Dakota through the EveryTeacher grant, which is gone now. They are trying to find funding to continue, but at a cost of almost $3000 per person for the 18-month program, it may not happen. That would just be sad!

Thank you, Ladies! Well done!