NCTIES Session Notes: Project Palooza the Sequel

POINT OF NOTE, WIFI WAS IN AND OUT DURING THIS SESSION, SO NOTES AND CONVERSATIONS WERE SCATTERED

Project Palooza
Weebly site
Emma Braaten
Kerri Brown Parker

Common Core Connections included in projects
Glogster…7 Billion Topics…propaganda piece…sculpture created as well and an art exhibit in the library
Healthful Living infographics…Smart Art in Microsoft Office

Pick a topic of “global import” through stations
Media Coordinator serves as the second teacher in the room to help facilitate small groups
Global Issues in Context Database
Splice for iOS

11th grade American History project
Weebly pages because they are so simple
GoAnimate “interview” with famous American

Copyright discussion…copyright friendly images…publishing to web means they have to be much more careful rather than just in a classroom

Postcard app for iPod Touch

JUST POINTING OUT…WIFI IS DOWN IN THIS SESSION, SO THEY ARE GOING OVER STUFF, BUT I’M NOT ABLE TO DIG THROUGH THEIR SITE AT THE MOMENT

10th grade Choice Project…similar to Graduation Project
Again a station model
Quality research sources
Process journal along the way

millbrookmediacenter.weebly.com

Infographic Creators
Infogr.am
Piktochart
Easel.ly

Death by PowerPoint…Death by Prezi lessons

ThingLink for the Constitution…embed info and videos on top of image of the constitution or other primary source docs…ThingLink for Digits Dashboard
QR Codes for Politics…Three options for answer to question…scan QR code and get Dem/Rep/Mod…that way they know where they stand on the issues and which party has those beliefs
Reading passages that were determined by their overall choices

STEM with Anatomy Teacher
QR codes…students created lab themselves…create a QR code for website that answered lab station question…kids had ipods to go around and watch videos, read links, etc…could do this with iPads as well

Earth Science – Animoto
Chemistry – Ethical Research

Google is not your source, it’s just the search that gets to your source
Databases reminder for Science Teachers

Paper Slide Videos for Math Class

NCTIES Session Notes: Mind Maps, Brainstorming and Timelines

Richard Byrne
Free Technology for Teachers
http://richardbyrnepresents.com/?page_id=19
Mind Maps, Brainstorming and Timelines: From Paper to Digital

High school social studies and language arts (for 1 year…)
Sketchbook is great for 10 minutes before take off and 10 before landing…then takes screen caps
Mindmapping and webbing has been done for years…just on paper in the past, so how do we update it using technology
If you can draw an idea you can explain that idea
Lee Lefever (Common Craft videos)
Text2Mindmap…outline can become a mind map
Dipity…online timeline maker, collab with others, include multimedia
ThingLink
Other Tools

Online allows us to include multimedia
Allows you to analyze connections
Wallwisher is now Padlet…no login needed for Private wall
Sharing the Gmail +1 trick…add +1 to a teacher controlled email address so students can sign up for accounts that require an email, teacher is the one who sees who is signed up and for what

Pixabay…high quality public domain images…no sign up required

iOS Apps
Penultimate for sketching on iOS…syncs to Evernote
iBrainstorm…has option to “bump” the mindmap to another person running the app, or email it

Reflections on EdCampNC, Take One

Yesterday I attended the first ever EdCampNC, and my first EdCamp in general. For those unfamiliar with the format, EdCamp is designed to be an “unconference” or even more simply, an informal gathering of educators, with no real setup prior to the day of the conference. The sessions are not predetermined, though there may be some timing structures put in place. I signed up for EdCampNC back in late Februrary or early March along with close to 200 other people. As it turned out, we only had about 75 or so show up to Poe Hall on the campus of NC State University in Raleigh, NC. 

As the event kicked off, pieces of colored paper served as the template for the days discussions. About 36 sheets of paper were lined up along the wall in four rows, one row for each session time that was scheduled. Participants added session ideas to the wall based on things they were interested in discussing throughout the course of the day. The final session listings can be found here. After the session boxes were filled up, some of them were combined/cut/moved, etc and the final time slot was devoted to a Tech Smackdown which would be held for all of the participants. 

Overall Impressions

• Number of People – This proved to be a challenge. The expectation based on registration was close to 200 people, the reality was much closer to 75. With 8 sessions per time slot, 200 people would have meant about 25 in any individual conversation room. Throughout the day, my rooms consisted of five, six, and three people. Now I’m not saying a good conversation requires more people, however, in the format of “Ask a question and get answers from smart people in the room” that EdCamp proposes, the small number of people in the conversations led to many few sources of possible answers. Recommendation: Cut the number of sessions slots down to four or five. That limits the available conversations, but increases the number of people involved in those conversations. 8 would have been perfect if 200 people had shown up, which may be the case in the future.
• Conversation Merging – Another way to cut the conversation list down a bit would have been to merge a few of the conversations. Time is short between the “Board” filling up and the first session starting, however, when it was evident that the number of people would be small, Inquiry Practices and Project Based Learning could have been combined. Or “Teachers Expectations of Administration” could have been combined with “Administrators Expectations of Teachers”. That might have been the most obvious “One Room Conversation” on the board. Separating them seemed like taking the answerers away from the people asking the questions. 
• Tech Smackdown – Really enjoyed this, and I think most of the other participants did as well. The danger in this kind of forum for sharing is someone walking away thinking they have to use all of the tools, or conversely, that they don’t know how to use any of the tools. For most involved though, just getting a view of other things people are using is important to begin thinking differently about their own practice. I always enjoy the fact that there are things I haven’t seen before that get shared in these sessions. The list of tools shared can be found here. 

Overall, I greatly enjoyed my first EdCamp and can see just how powerful the potential is for these kinds of discussions. After the day wrapped up, I met with a few of the folks who helped organize EdCampNC, and the discussion eventually moved to the possibility of Regional EdCamps in North Carolina to increase participation. Though I like that for a future idea, I think it needs to be considered carefully before splitting up something that needs some time to grow first. A couple more years of the main EdCamp, or at least continuing to have a single “EdCampNC” along with regional EdCamps seems like the best way to grow these conversations and allow more people to participate. 

Many thanks to those who organized EdCampNC and I look forward to future EdCamps in our state!

NCMSA12: Closing Keynote with Dr. Bobb Darnell

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School Improvement
Dr. Bobb Darnell
bobbdarnell@mac.com
http://www.achievementstrategies.org

50s Sputnik – New Math, New Science…New Everything
60s Age of Aquarius…Feel good age
70s Back to Basics…behvorial objectives
80s Age of Assessments
90s Brain Research
2000 – NCLB, Data Driven Instruction, and now Common Core

Sharing Did You Know (STILL SURPRISED IF FOLKS HAVEN’T SEEN SOME VERSION OF THIS…)

Four things have changed…
1) Kids
     Shorter attention spans and visually preferred (showing Rocket Power clip…32 frames per second, nothing there longer than 2 seconds)
     Students hate to be bored…Bueller…Bueller??
     Wired for a certain kind of learning…SpongeBob uDraw as an example of what they are doing outside of school, and younger than middle school
     Immediate gratification
     Interactive and Hands-On
     Love Challenge and Are Curious
     Want to succeeed (win) using strategies, practice, and do-over…
     Kids will play a video game an average of 100 hours to “get good” at it…
2) Expectations
     For Teachers…Teacher Evaluation as an Olympic Event…
     For Administrators…walkthroughs…
    
3) PD
     LYNT – Last Year’s New Thing
     TYNT – This Year’s New Thing
     NYNT – Next Year’s New Thing
     Hot Topic Du Jour PD…leads to a need for change therapy…
     Now?? Marzano Classroom Instruction that Works…we know things that work…

4) Research about teaching and learning
     We know there are best practices…reading for information and analysis…Graphic Organizers 27% increase in learning…summary frames and templates…There are great practices for vocab, that are NOT word searches…Vary the Content, Vary the Process…I do, we do, I do, we do, I do, YOU do, Closure, Review…

Use optimatal learning time 7-10 minutes, and then have them apply
Use Graphic Organizers
Use short cycle-challenge and feedback
Create challenges

NCLB won’t go away…no president will say “Yeah, let’s leave a few kids behind”
Common Core…nothing in it is stuff that’s “brand new”…not in ELA, not in Math…
Yesterday…Help!…Highway to Hell….what’s your stress level about Common Core?

RTI-RTID (respond til I die)
PLC? PLC? M-O-U-S-E?

Hammer, Screwdriver, Hand Drill, Chisel, Saw…category? Tools…10 points
Washington, Lincoln Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Madison…Pres or Streets…10 points…another? sure, we’re winning
bed, chair, desk, sofa, dining table…furniture
Rose Sylvia, Harrriet, Pennie Caryl…girls names
Hardest one??? schematic association, metacognitive assimilation, synaptic neuropathic patterning, dendrite pruning, cerebreal dissonance…something about the brain DURING learning…
violin harp clarinet, banjo guitar…instruments…
Go back to hardest one…
pontiac oldsmobile hummer yugo plymouth…cars…going out of business…

Walt Disney…winding lines…we’re making progress…if the lines were straight no one would stand there…

across 7800 studies kids will make 37 points worth of improvement when giving specific feedback related to objectives.

KINDA SUPER SCATTERED…GOOD INFO, BUT VERY HARD TO TAKE DOWN SPECIFIC POINTS…LOTS ON THE SLIDES WITH LITTLE TO NO TIME TO READ ANY OF THEM…AT LEAST THERE WERE SOME SOLUTIONS OFFERED, JUST WISH I COULD HAVE READ A LOT OF THEM…PERHAPS PPT IS ONLINE…

GREAT CONFERENCE…WISH I HAD GOTTEN TO MORE SESSIONS…WE’RE GOING TO TRY AND HAVE SESSIONS IN THE SANDBOX NEXT YEAR…WE’LL SEE HOW IT GOES…

True Colors

Catrina Davis

True Colors learning styles…personality assessment…like Myers Briggs, etc

Helps understand human diversity

“it is I understanding ourselves and others that we all gain dignity, pride, self-respect and esteem” Don Lowry

Translation: When you know who you are you’re more comfortable with everyone else

Character cards
Gold: structured, detailed, prepared
Orange: impulsive, spontaneous
Blue: idealistic, nurturers
Green: cerebral, process, questioners

COMPLETING AN ASSESSMENT NOW…APPARENTLY VERY GREEN…ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM…

Please Understand Me – David Kearsy

Great forming lines activity…lined up based on color score discussed how everyone has some aspects of each color…look at color spectrum, not single color…

Introversion vs Extroversion can change perception of colors

Showing Our True Colors
Peaceful Colors by Gail Shapiro
True Parenting
Follow Your True Colors to the Work You Love

PLN Mixchange

Tonight I caught this tweet from @VenessaMiemis. Very simply:

“i am compelled to make you a mixtape.”

My response was: If you do, rip it to mp3, zip it, and upload it to Megaupload.  I was involved a group a couple of years back where this happened.  I learned a lot about the folks I exchanged mixes with and also expanded my musical horizons.  Due to the questionable legality of such an endeavor, Venessa and I decided this could just as easily take place through sharing Grooveshark playlists.  So, here’s the plan…between now and next Wednesday (In time for Thanksgiving break listening) create a playlist on Grooveshark.com of between 10 and 15 songs.  It’s up to you how you select the songs. Some ideas:

• Songs you’ve used in class
• A mixtape that you actually had at some point
• A selection of songs you just personally enjoy
• Songs related to some chosen theme
• You get the picture…(and if you don’t, you may have never had a mixtape, which is a tragedy in and of itself)

Once you’ve made your mix, post a link to the playlist on Twitter with the tag #PLNMixchange.  As mixes begin to get posted, I’ll compile a list of them here at The Technorate Teacher.  By the way, as a courtesy, if your mix wouldn’t get a “clean” tag in iTunes, can you let that be known up front, and I’ll mark it as such on the compiled post.

Looking forward to learning some of your musical preferences!!  Spread the word!

The Mixes

@Twilliamson15 – Random mix of tracks

@copernicc’s mix

Teacher-N-Teacher: Connecting Teachers to Support STEM Education

MY NOTES IN ALL CAPS

Presenters: Davilla Riddle, Rebecca Lawson, Karen Jones

We’ve come a long way from the early days of the Internet.  Rebecca is discussing the beginnings of online collaboration, back when dialup Internet access was 15 cents a minute.  Discussing the role of Kidlink in forging collaborations between teachers.

A GOOD NUMBER OF FOLKS IN THE ROOM HAVE ALREADY DONE COLLABORATIONS IN THE PAST…COLLECTING INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT TOOLS WERE USED.

Digital Tools can help connect classrooms

• Nings
• Wikis
• Glogster
• Email
• Blogs
• Skype
• Edmodo

There are tons of ways to get students involved in collaborations: Skype, Animoto, etc…DON’T LIMIT YOURSELF TO JUST THE TOOLS YOU’RE ALREADY USED TO…

NETS Standards

• Demonstrate creativity and innovation
• Communicate and collaborate
• Use technology effectively and productively…not just for what you want to use it for

Types of Collaborations

• Teacher to Teacher
• Classroom to Classroom
• Multiple Class Projects
• Rebecca: We think we’re they’re all by ourselves…Related Arts teachers in her district began emailing all projects, presentations, activities to each other after creating it…IT’S ALL ABOUT SHARING!!!

Discussing the Middle School Portal with Richard Varner…and the way he used the portal to connect with scientists at Goddard Space Center and discussed how science fiction moved into reality.

ePals

Davilla connected with a school in New Mexico through ePals. Sent emails through ePals and then sent PowerPoint presentations about their areas.

ePals makes it easier to discuss seasons, time zones, and language similarities and differences worldwide.

When trying these things out, call them a “pilot” and it gives you a lot more freedom THAT’S ACTUALLY VERY TRUE…I’LL KEEP THAT IN MIND FOR THE NEXT HAIR-BRAINED SCHEME I COME UP WITH!

Participant sharing: LEGO Engineering Challenge…Scratch Animation collaboration students from Ohio spent 2 days teaching studetns in Kentucky how to use Scratch…eCybermission…Authentic Learning Experiences not just performing for the teacher.

Don’t let your imagination and creativity die at the feet of NCLB…YES, OR RACE TO THE MIDDLE/BOTTOM/CELLAR/OTHER NEGATIVE PLACE IT MAY TAKE US…

Code: UE9

Re: Social Networks as Exclusive Clubs…and more…

In a couple of recent tweets, comments, and blog posts I’ve hinted at my feeling that Twitter and other social networks used for informal learning, may be collapsing under their own success.  During the PLN Backlash conversation last week, there was a tweet which implied that Twitter as a PLN is becoming somewhat of an “exclusive club”.  I wanted to hash out a few thoughts I’ve had that don’t entirely fit into solid post format:

• It’s already hard to stick with Twitter…from the Nielson study in April 2009, we learned that 60% of Twitter users quit within the first 30 days.  That means, most of those who have a cursory introduction to PLNs will likely struggle with Twitter before adding any of the things below into the mix.
• Twitter restructuring has caused problems…Initially, when you followed someone on Twitter, you could see their tweets to users you did not already follow.  This meant you could see half a conversation, which allowed you to find other half and follow that user if they interested you enough.  Now, you can only see conversations between those parties where you follow both (or all) users.  This severely limits the visibility of those within the community of educators.  Someone starting out small (as I’ve suggested frequently) will struggle to see who else to follow.
• Increase in network size makes it hard to get started…As we build larger and larger groups from which to learn, it becomes harder for new users to wade through hundreds that someone is following.  For example, I started building my learning network through Twitter after a session (like many) with Will Richardson.  Will has kept the number of users he is following relatively small at ~150.  That is a reasonable number to wade through.  As many of our networks grow into the 400 – 2000 range, it becomes entirely impossible for a new user to wade through and find the users with the most relevance to themselves. This leads to…
• Lists as the starting point…hey, look there’s a dead horse, let me beat it…seriously, digging through a small list (<50) and finding the most relevant from there is great, just don’t follow a list en masse because it’s easy.
• Plurk isn’t easy either…This is not a problem inherent in Twitter.  From my own recent experience, Plurk is a different environment, but with many of the same issues.  It’s been stated that Plurk is a more tight-knit community.  If Twitter is becoming an exclusive club, Plurk is a different “club” if you will, but it’s still hard to get a foot in the door.  Despite having been an active participant on Twitter for nearly two years, an active del.icio.us user, blogger, and general PLN/NIHCTTAR supporter, I’m struggling to find folks to follow on Plurk, and am having very few response to my attempts to engage the community.  Time will tell, but it seems to be the same song, different verse for new users to either service.
• When everyone knows everyone it’s hard for the new folks to get their voices heard…going back to the analogy in my previous post: When everyone at the party knows everyone else, it’s hard for someone new to come in and join the conversation.  This is where it becomes imperative that we, as a community, work to embrace new members.  We can’t just hand them a network and say “go to town”.
• Strange occurrence…for the first year I was on Twitter, I maxed out at being able to follow tweets from 100 users.  Beyond that, I began to get lost in the stream.  In the last 6 months, my time “reading” Twitter has drastically decreased.  During that time, I’ve ballooned from following approximately 100 users, to following 400 users…May never get comfortable with 2,000+ but it seems to me, that the less I focus on reading everything the more conversations I can get involved in.

More Thoughts on the PLN Backlash

Shawn McGirr and Troy Patterson over at the Middle School Matters podcast have posted an episode today that includes some discussion of my previous post about the PLN Backlash of 2010.  That episode can be found here.  I strongly encourage you to go and listen to the whole podcast (as these guys have wonderful thoughts and reflections on middle school, and some great discussion of sessions they attended at ISTE recently).  What follows is a slightly modified version of the comment I posted related to pieces of their latest episode.

I think it gets a lot of attention from the people who are involved in it because they are involved in it…Yeah it might be tiresome in the echo chamber, the people who are doing the PLNs and are really involved in it…I wonder how many outside the “techie types” are really using PLNs, know what they are, how to develop them, know which tools to use to develop one…and I think that’s part of where the conversation is and should be.

Thanks for the discussion of my post. Though I feel the PLN piece may come across as more “half baked” than “well done.” A big piece of the conversation the other night was the “officialness” of THE PLN, as if there were only one that everyone was a node within. I think your comment that everyone’s PLN is different is a huge part of the key. The other byproduct of the “official marketing of the PLN” and Twitter Lists (or TweepML lists) is this feeling that you can develop an “instant PLN”. Sort of “just add water and watch it grow.” A PLN is something that requires time and effort on the part of the learner. You can’t just follow “X” people and suddenly “get” the “power of the network.”  I think that sends the wrong message to those who are new to this venue for informal learning.

Troy and Shawn also mention Twitter being compared to a lunchroom conversation where you can tune out the noise and focus on 1 or 2 in the cafeteria, but not as easily on Twitter.  Along the lines of the lunchroom conversation…imagine only hearing 2 out of 4 people involved in that lunchroom conversation. Twitter’s reversal of their practice of posting tweet replies to individuals you don’t follow makes it harder to see/read/hear all of the conversation. I believe part of that was going on, even for me, the other night during the PLN debate.

I feel that the MSMatters guys are right on that a PLN, or an Informal Learning Network, or a NIHCTTAR (Network I Have Come to Trust and Respect) is not about a single tool. I’m connected to many in my network via Twitter, Delicious, blogs, Nings, listservs, etc. There was an interesting question that came up near the end of the discussion the other night about the difference in a community and a network. I’m still struggling to differentiate between the two, though I feel at heart there IS a difference in them. Jon Becker pointed me toward this article on Imagining Twitter as an Imagined Community that I can hopefully tackle and digest within the next few days.

Near the end of the discussion, you mention Google’s Buzz as an alternative to Twitter.  I’ve actually been exploring Plurk for the last week or so, and think it may offer a bit of the threaded discussion you’re suggesting related to Buzz. I still find Buzz overwhelming with the number of Google contacts I already have who are not part of my “PLN” (1.7.5).  I’m not sure I want my family, friends, and informal learning network all powering through to me on Buzz…time will tell.

As I mentioned in the comments of the previous post, I’m still not sure that the tools we have available are fully capable of supporting the level and depth of conversation that need to be happening. But as a place to spark conversations, there value cannot be underestimated. The more I stew on it, the more I agree with your suggestion that the problem is within the “echo chamber” created by Twitter. We see the power of the PLN, want others to understand it as well, but tire quickly of hearing that over and over again from all sides.

Thanks for pushing my thinking Shawn and Troy!

Great PLN Backlash of 2010…

*dusts off The Technorate Teacher*

Thank you @nashworld for bringing me back out of my blogging shell…it’s been too long since I had a chance to stretch my fingers a bit

A short while ago, this tweet floated through my TweetDeck stream:

And there it began…the Great PLN Backlash of 2010…You had a good run there Personal Learning Network…but now, we must inevitably march on to some other “better” form of online learning.

The strange thing is, I totally get what he’s saying. While a learning network, be it personal, professional, online, offline, real, or imagined is an infinitely powerful tool…it’s still just that. A tool.

That’s one of those things where education tends to get very cloudy. Taking A tool and trying to turn it into THE tool. During my session at Middle Level Essentials, I shared a number of slides showing the “March of Technology Tools”. No doubt there were people throughout the last 50 years of education heralding one hardware or software tool after the other as THE tool which would “revolutionize” education.

The conversation continued on with tweets from @mbteach, @mattguthrie, and @jswiatek among others chiming in about the various benefits and issues with these networks, as well as the dangers of trying to make them required or giving them too much power.  It seems to me, that almost inevitably, when we make anything in education a “required” practice there is more pushback than when someone comes to an idea out of casual conversation.  I’ve witnessed it firsthand in discussions of fair grading practices, parent communication practices, etc.  When these practices are imposed as “required” in the classroom, people lose sight of their merit.

I’m wondering if all the talk about how great it is to have a “PLN” is making it seem like required practice for many teachers.  Matt then asked how you get the folks who are always late to the game or never get there to adopt good ideas.  And there we are again, back at the idea that something is unequivocally “good” while other things are “not as good” or “bad”.

How have we wound up in this spot in education where we are constantly looking for THE silver bullet? Yes, A PLN or alternatively a NIHCTTAR (Network I Have Come to Trust and Respect) is a powerful tool for some.  Attending “real” conferences with planned sessions and presenters is a powerful tool for some.  Attending unconferences with conversations about reform are a powerful tool for some.  And at the risk of having my technogeek card removed: Textbooks, tests, and lectures are a powerful tool for some.

I don’t want someone building my house with just a hammer…I don’t want a teacher with only a PLN teaching my kids…

Not sure I want my builder or teachers to lack those tools either…