Time to change

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” ~ Eric Hoffer

License Plate Game--CA Sweep! and Worst Year EVER in STL!

There was an unprecedented California sweep--1st and 2nd Place--in our annual License Plate Game, 2011. Hurray for the newly crowned King and Princess of the License Plate Game, Team Cange, our 1st place winners AND for the 2nd place winners, Team Parkinson, who had never before placed in the long and storied history of the game, (even when they lived in Atlanta, duh), until now!

The two St. Louis teams went down with a collective five unfound plates: Team Gallina--Alaska and Hawaii and Debbie "Formerly Known As THE QUEEN"--Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. For Debbie "Formerly Known As THE QUEEN," 2011 was the WORST YEAR EVER!

With the sting of the reality that our annual summer fun game was coming to a brutally, unsuccessful end, the St. Louis contingent was presented with the following image to add salt to the wounds of defeat:



Yes, that is the Classy California Contingent calling (defeat obviously hasn't impaired the ability to create a cool alliteration) us losers! Losers? Are you really calling us, Losers?

Well, live it up CA because next year THE QUEEN will be back with a vengeance! Come 2012, the crown will be back in "The Lou" and victory will be ours!

ISTE 2011 and A Piece of History

Day 2 at ISTE11...amazing!

Keynote: Mindsets for the 21st Century:Unleashing Leadership Potential in Students - Dr. Stephen R. Covey and Muriel Summers with moderation by Boyd Craig

Favorite quote: "Seeing a child as a test score is the worst form of identity theft."


Coaching, Technology, and Community: Power Partners in Professional Development – ISTE

White Paper Release

Cognitive Coaching Program – Garmston and Costa

1. thought and perception produce all behavior
2. teaching is constant decision-making
3. to learn something new requires engagement and alteration in thought
4. humans continue to grow cognitively


Instructional Coaching – Jim Knight, Kansas Coaching Project

Equality
Choice
Voice
Dialogue
Reflection
Praxis
Reciprocity

Join ISTE Coaching Center

Get Ready, Get Set, Get Organized! – Beth Still, Josh Allen, George Couros, Paula Naugle, Jason Schrage

Edmodo:
a. private social learning platform
b. similar to Facebook for the classroom
c. Glogster imports easily into Edmodo
d. students cannot have one-to-one conversations
e. can collaborate with other schools using Edmodo

Livebinders:
a. 3-ring binder for Internet
b. can be used as a portfolio

New Media, New Literacies: Educational Transformation through Digital Creativity – Jason Ohler

1. ‘New media literacy’ instead of digital storytelling
2. Don’t use storyboarding! Use story map.
3. The "DAOW" of literacy - digital, art, oral, written

Late in the afternoon, I decided to walk from my hotel to see the Liberty Bell.



Day 3 at ISTE11...bittersweet

Copyright Clarity: Using Copyrighted Materials for Digital Learning – Renee Hobbs

"To promote creativity, innovation and the spread of knowledge."

Who is telling the story?

Educational Use Guidelines are NOT the Law!

Intellectual property is the 2nd largest export that we have.

People may use copyrighted material “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research.” ~Section 107, Copyright Act of 1976

The copyright law balances the rights of owners and users by deciding if the benefits the users more than it hurts the owners.

Is your use of copyrighted materials a fair use?

Nature, purpose, effect, amount

1. Did the unlicensed use “transform” the material taken from the copyrighted work by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat the work for the same intent and value as the original?
2. Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature of the copyrighted work and of the use?

Did I transform the work or did I copy it?

User’s Rights video ala Schoolhouse Rock

Transformativeness = add value + repurpose

Transforming to make something new = fair use

The Yeah, Buts: Answering the Top 10 Arguments Against Change – Will Richardson & Rob Mancabelli

Book: Personal Learning Networks

How to build a framework or strategy for change.
Favorite Yeah Buts: Check out presentation for top 10 results

1. Time
2. Fear/safety
3. blocking/filtering
4. it’s always been this way
5. watering down of rigor/standards
6. no access/technology
7. not proficient at technology
8. it’s disruptive in the classroom
9. no value in classroom
10. alignment with assessment

Two good books:
Switch by Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Change or Die by Alan Deutschman

To effect change we need to elicit the emotional AND rational responses to ‘yeah but’

Brainstorm with the teachers (perhaps by a facilitator) what is good and bad about what change you are proposing…allows teachers to publically express “yeah but”

Can you Hear Me Now? Next Level of Mobile Learning – David Thornburg

The network is the computer.

Metcalfe’s Law > Moore’s Law

If the network is the computer, the browser is the OS.

Computing as a service

Internet world of stats

Mainframe computers + 40 years = iPhone

Disruption events in education:
1st phonetic alphabet – Gilgamesh
2nd mass produced book, books printed before purchased – Guttenburg
3rd mobile revolution – is as important as the phonetic alphabet and mass produced book

Students should be able to write their own software. App Inventor for Android Let kids invent their own apps and share via qr codes

Howard Rheingold – 21st century literacies
Attention
Participation
Collaboration
Network awareness
Critical consumption

Ray Ozzie – A New Day

A new day…
Multiple interconnected devices
Living in a post-PC world
Ubiquity reigns supreme

Day 3 was bittersweet. I was ready to go home, but I met several people that I wish I had met earlier in the week--shared passions and great conversations. Just more to look forward to next year in San Diego!

Where am I?

Interesting way to find your room. If you can't remember your room number, you can use your GPS. Do all hotels in Philadelphia label their rooms with latitude and longitude?

Well, I'm taking a breather from the License Plate Game to participate in the 2011 International Society for Technology in Education Conference (ISTE). However, I have seen Connecticut (not counting it), and New Jersey must be Philadelphia's Illinois.

Here's a brief look at what I learned today:

Monday, June 27, 2011

This is Not a Unit: Eight Shifts for Every Curriculum – Will Richardson
Presentation

Eight shifts that already affect learning outside the classroom but are mostly absent from inside the classroom:

1. Talk to strangers
2. Create your own e-portfolio
3. Share widely
4. Manage multiple streams of information
5. Detect misinformation and develop attention literacy
6. Follow your passions
7. Learn for learning's sake
8. Problem solve

• Educators must connect students to their passions and help them collaborate productively around those passions.
• How do you measure or value people's participation online?
• How do you verify a tweet? via TwitterJournalism
• Survival of the focused
• How do we help students become “Googled well”?

Creating Digital Culture – Roger Wagner

Hyperstudio is publishable to YouTube. It also makes citing images easy by noting all the URLs used in project. They are found in attributes.

Do projects demonstrate a solution to a problem, not just how to use software/application?

YouTube: My Name is Cholera
Problem: Tell a story from the standpoint of being cholera.

Make learning visible. Document or share the process with the parents.

HEC-TV Live! Unlock Students Potential by Connecting Classrooms and Experts – Helen Headrick & Tim Gore
HEC-TV LIVE!

Flashmob – checked off bucket list

Taking the PULSE: Content Analysis of an International Online Community – Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Sofia Pardo, Research Roundtable
Presentation

Study looked at quality of conversations between IdeasLAB in Australia and Powerful Learning Practice in USA.

What happens in online teacher communities? NING and Pulse, a closed community of educators who committed and joined.

Asynchronous, team-based, online community of practice

Content analysis – computer mediated analysis used in qualitative or quantitative analysis

Flow – function – content

Findings: most posts were broadcast to all 68% of participants

20% of the participants chose not to post, but preferred to observe or lurk.

Found that lurkers might be high-level thinkers and too busy to interact…next study.

PULSE – online communication analysis and coding for computer mediated communication for researchers and teachers for blogs, wikis, etc.

Whew, what a great day of learning!

View from hotel room:

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

Welcome King Bob and Princess Natalie, aka Team Cange, the newly crowned winners of License Plate Game 2011. The torch has been passed to the West Coast for the first time since the inception of The License Plate Game, in record time, no less! The winners found the winning license plate on June 11, 2011. That is a record that will be difficult to beat! Congratulation to the King and Princess and keep your chins up to the rest of the competitors. Remember, the game lasts until Labor Day Weekend!

No 'Blue Hawaii' This Year!

I saw Hawaii two times within 30 minutes. Amazing considering it was the final plate I found last year, and it took forever! As of today, I have found 23 plates. The only other person reporting totals is John with 25 plates. Only the sound of crickets (or cicadas) coming from the other players.

Night and you
And blue Hawaii
The night is heavenly
And you are heaven to me
Lovely you
And blue Hawaii
With all this loveliness
There should be love

Come with me
While the moon is on the sea,
The night is young
And so are we, so are we
Dreams come true
In blue Hawaii
And mine could all come true
This magic night of nights with you

No 'Blue Hawaii' for me this year!

While Visions of License Plates Danced in Their Heads

The first day of License Plate Game 2011 is history and after dreaming all night of all those plates out there waiting to be found, we're waking up to another day. The first day found the contestants making many snarky comments about each other. Hopefully, today we will be a little more civil. After all, this is a family fun game and winning isn't EVERYTHING, and everyone can't be the Reigning Queen. I don't have first day totals from everyone, but Team Gallina seems to have the lead with "coughseventeencough" and Team Cange has thirteen!

Today is another day. As Bob said, "Game on!"

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

License Plate Game 2011

After a long winter and turbulent spring, we're finally ready for our annual License Plate Game!

The rules: find license plates from all 50 states, and as many Canadian territories and provinces as possible, within 50 miles of your metropolitan area between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend.

May the best family win!

On your mark, get set, gooooooo!

License Plate Game warm-up