My Past as a Shovelbum

I am presenting to a class of middle school students today about my previous experience as an archaeological field technician.  To do so, I put together a quick map to show the various places I worked.

 

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PicLens Preview on Vimeo

Here is a quick preview video that Parker and I made tonight. It pulls images from any Flickr, Google Image, Yahoo Image, Smugmug, Photobucket, or Deviantart page and creates a 3-D view with them. Very slick.

from www.vimeo.com posted with vodpod

Meme: Passion Quilt

It’s a fickle thing, our relationship to words, so when Bach tagged me for this meme, I immediately conjured up images Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam. Not because of the topic, but just that word: Passion. There probably is some little known codicil of blog etiquette I am breaking here by comparing a serious topic to cheap club songs from previous topics, and I do apologize for that, but the thought process just happened. I am over it now.

This has actually been sitting on my GTD list for a few days now, moving between Today and Next depending on my level of commitment to the writing process, which has been low. We have a delayed opening due to weather this morning, and what better time to devote to this while everyone sleeps in a little.

Here are the rules:

• Post a picture or make/take/create your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network

I’ll tag the next five people:

• Patrick Chodkiewicz
• Ben Wilkoff
• Carter Smith
• Bing Miller
• Jen Wagner
• Erica Hartman
• Michael Gregory
• Cathy Wille
• Angela Davis
• Brad Davis

Image credit: Untitled from Mirissa’s photostream

Some Comment Carryover

I was responding to the fantastic comments from Bill, Carolyn, and hurricainemaine on my last post when I realized that it got a little long-winded, so I decided to post it as a legitimate entry here:

From Bill:

” Do you think that a “process v. product” message is a tough sell in an accountability driven culture?”

From Carolyn:

“Patrick, I so much agree that schools need environments where teachers feel free to innovate and to be learners themselves. And I feel we need to be having these conversations within our own buildings–because it seems it is the conversations where things can begin?”

From hurricainemaine:

“there is resistance amongst my peers for what I am doing. Is that because of the also top-down we are facing or are they truly stuck on the burning platform?”

My response:

“I have to agree with Carolyn on this one that teaching the skills that enable children to “learn how to learn,” will trump any testing situation or psychometric assessment. In that case, the process can, and does, win out over the product.

In her latest blog post, which I recommend, “Your Wild and Precious Life,” Carolyn uses the slogan from Mabry Middle School as an example of how to phrase a key principle that we all should model:
“Making Learning Irresistible for 25 Years.”

With a mindset like that, I don’t see how failure to engage is an option. How can I make this lesson/unit/curriculum so desired by our students that that they have to have it? Great questions to ask yourself.

My reasoning for writing this post was partly inquiry, but also to show how we are doing things. I want more than anything teachers in my district to come to me and say “Hey, look at this lesson I want to teach. It’s pretty out there, but look how it relates to what we have to teach, and look at the engagement level!” I don’t see it yet, but I know it is there.

Ken Robinson, in “Out of Our Minds,” talks about the battle to develop the creativity of your brightest employees or lose them to someone else, but he is talking about the corporate world. In many ways, I wish I was battling for that. As an administrator, I want to develop our staff to a point where they marketable, and then I want to do everything to keep them. That’s a culture of healthy competition.”

I know, I know, I should be writing about EduCon…

and I will, but this just got my attention this afternoon. We are starting to play with the idea of sending a team to BLC this summer, and in perusing Alan November’s website (I’ve got him on the brain lately), I found this quiz:

How much do you know about information literacy and online community building?

Take the following quiz to see if you are:

Somewhat Savvy (0-5 points)
Moderately Savvy (6-10 points)
Downright Nerdy (10+ points)

Give yourself 2 points for each correct answer.

Country Codes: The British have a different version of the lead-up to the American Revolution. What keywords and commands would you type into a search box to focus your search on academic organizations in the U.K. where there is content on the American Revolution?

Reliable Research: Someone in your family has been diagnosed with a serious disease. How would you design a search to avoid any commercial sites?

Owner of a website: Your own child or grandchild asks for your help in identifying who owns a website that is in the top of Google http://www.martinlutherking.org. (A white supremist organization owns the site.) What website can you use to identify the owner?

Incoming Feeds: As a high school junior with a keen interest in genetic engineering you want to subscribe to the latest research. What kind of account would you create to manage the inflow of genetic engineering research from around the world?

Social bookmarking: You manage a high performance work team (from 6th graders to top managers of a Fortune 500). You realize that the collective web research of individuals could greatly benefit the whole team. What account would you create to organize all of the bookmarks in one easily accessible site?

Blogosphere Research: Your business has some critics in the blogosphere and they are very effective at getting their message out. What search engine would you use to learn what they are saying?

Googilitis: You have noticed that your elementary/middle school/ high school student only looks at the top 5 results of Google. You also know that many Google listings are based on popularity of incoming links rather than any value of the content. What search engine can you teach your child to use that will generate results with academic content at the very top of the search results?How many of us would not be able to do this? How many of our students would not be able to do this? The latter worries me much more than former.

The Major Disconnect

I had such selfish reasons for choosing to do this workshop at Franklin Lakes School District today; not only was it a great opportunity to talk about some really fun topics and make some extra money, but Alan November was the keynote. Alan’s message conveys a sense of urgency like no one else I have ever seen, and I always leave feeling recharged.

Today’s presentation by Alan centered on student content creation, much like the last one I saw, but this was the first time I was able to see him interact directly with a small group. His ideas, juxtaposed against the usual smattering of teacher doubts, really resonate with “no excuses.” Counterpoints to every dissension. Creation in the face of doubt.

When I think of my own practice, I wonder if I am doing enough creating of community. Darren Draper posted about bloggers who create community, but focused on the online environment. How do I do it in my buildings? Alan talks about allowing students to create material that is public, debatable and viewable by people from a global environment. I was twittering about the amount of teachers in a room here that do not have Google Accounts, or how few of them have heard of RSS feeds, and wondering to myself whether or not I could say the same for my district where I had worked on this for almost two years. What have I done to create the sense of urgency that Alan does?

This is perfect fodder for thought as I enter the week before EduCon, and I hope I’ll be able to gather some resources for this there.

Looking back over the course of the time I have spent at Tech Coordinator and now as Director of Curriculum, I don’t think formal professional development worked to the extent that I expected it would. I taught classes which were not well attended, or attended by the same group of people. I held in-service days where teachers were exposed to applications and strategies to help them implement social technologies in the classroom. But where did it get us? Sitting here, listening to Alan push these teachers, a very receptive bunch no less, I can’t help but place myself in a daydream where this is my district. How many of my teachers would know what RSS means? How many would have a Google Account? Did I make a difference, or did I just keep the same model that has not worked and made it look nicer?

I am feeling the need to break the mold, to present a shift so sudden yet so necessary that teachers would look at it with both fear and longing–saying “I want to do this for my own development!” or “This has to happen!” But what it looks like is escaping me. How do you make someone feel like they need something?

Two Questions from Dr. Tim Tyson

Patrick Chodkiewicz, our new tech coordinator, brought up the name of Dr. Tim Tyson the other day when he was referring to a conference he was speaking at. Immediately I remembered a post from his blog, Practical Practice, that was languishing in my reader in which he posed two questions:

What if we asked teachers . . .

“Does the education you are providing reflect the best educational experience you have to offer? If not, what keeps you from doing so?”

What if we asked students . . .

“Do you have the ability to do your most meaningful learning at school? If not, what gets in your way?

What types of answers would you expect from your staff? Your students?

In looking at these questions and thinking of how they apply to the staff and students in my direct sphere of influence, it’s hard to predict the answers that might come forward; however, a few things are telling for me:

Teachers

• conversations with teachers over the last two years point to a sense of being overwhelmed, unable to find relevant resources or the context in which to change their practices towards something that would allow them to overcome any obstacle.
• facilities have been an issue, and will continue to be an issue until spaces are adequately configured to accommodate ubiquitous access to relevant materials.

Students:

• access and permissions are key to them; in our present situation they definitely feel they don’t have enough access to the things they want to do.
• Classes don’t contain any aspects of “networked learning.” In fact, I don’t believe our students would know what that is at this point. I’d like to remedy this.

I suppose that while this is nice to conjecture about here, the proof would be in the pudding and a survey might be in order. Stay tuned.

Image Credit: “Open Access,” from Ron Layters’ photostream

A Plea for your Voice, Once Again

This Thursday, I am presenting at Montclair State University Center of Pedagogy‘s Turning on Learning Conference. My session is called “Creating Personal Learning Environments for Professional Development,” and I really want to use the power of the network to illustrate the following point:

Like it or not: your professional development will no longer be something you “go somewhere” and receive. It will not be at a “make and take” style seminar where you go to the local Holiday Inn conference room and leave with some nice pre-made handouts to give to your students. It comes to you, as long as you are ready to accept it. It’s a network, and it’s here for you. Yes, you’ve got people.

When I needed to prove this point earlier in the year to my high school staff, I relied on my own network to show them the power of connectivity using Voicethread. I’d like to do that once again. My audience will be administrators, teachers, and undergraduate and graduate education students, and I’d like them to hear from you all about what you see as the future of professional development.

So if you have a moment or two, please lend your voice or your text to this voicethread.  I am sure I will be thinking out loud about this all week, so bear with me.

Update your Links, We’ve Moved

I don’t really have good reasons, other than curiosity and a desire to gain a little more flexibility in my design. You’ll notice though, that I am not using .org here; I just don’t have that kind of time to be playing with all of that hosting and installing at the moment–it’s still on my to do list for now as something I would like to get to someday.

The feed has been redirected from the blogspot address, so I don’ think that will change, although if anyone knows how to keep a technorati rank intact after a move like this, I sure would appreciate that knowledge.

Now the challenging part becomes whether or not the new home will spur me to write on a more frequent basis. I am getting used to the responsibility level of the new job, but am having a difficult time working in reflective writing into the mix. It’s coming, though, I can feel it.

Open Professional Development

(a version of this is cross-posted at Tech Dossier)

Welcome back to what is commonly referred to as the second half of the school year, but in reality unevenly splits our academic year into two sections; regardless, I hope everyone had a restful holiday and is ready to begin the year anew, armed with resolutions that are bound to change the world, or at least your place in it.

One of the things that is high on my list this year is to begin transforming how we view professional development. PD’s usual place in education is to sign up for a workshop, go to said workshop, learn, and then try as hard as we can to practice and apply those skills in the classroom. It’s always an external process. What if if, instead of you going to the class, the class came to you?

Darren Draper, a Technology Integration Specialist from Salt Lake City, and Robin Ellis, an instructional technology specialist from Quakertown, PA, have decided to offer a second round of what is called Open PD. Every Wednesday night starting on January 23rd, from 6:30pm to 9:15pm, they will offer sessions live online using Skype and a screen-sharing program called Yugma (both free) to teach you about various social software applications and the possibilities for their use in the classroom.

The first cool thing about this? I dropped in for a bit of their last session, offered in the fall, not knowing what to expect; what I found was that not only was I connected to the class, but so were about 15 others from around the world and we all could talk and contribute, and especially ask questions when we weren’t clear about something! It was like being in class without physically being there. At one point, I was out on my deck enjoying the sunset, and taking their class simultaneously.

The second cool thing? They are going to cover topics such as: wikis, Google applications, del.icio.us, flickr, blogging and social networking (facebook, ning, etc.) in a manner that is non-threatening and open, thus the name OpenPD.

If you have the time, this class is well worth your while regardless of your familiarity with the topics at hand. As Darren states in his post about the class, ” the sum of our knowledge is what truly makes these new technologies so appealing.”

Image Credit: “Learn” on amarola’s photostream
Technorati Tags: openpd, darrendraper, robinellis, socialsoftware08