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

Mele Kalikimaka

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a glo-omy, rainy summer day...

Yes, it is Christmas in July! I found Hawaii as I was driving to my statistics class tonight. I had to fumble with my new cell phone to try and get a picture to prove my find. As you can see, it took me a while going 60 mph in the rain. I'm pretty confident that a reputable FBI lab could verify that it is indeed a Hawaii plate. As the song says, "Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii's way, to say "Merry Christmas to you."

This has been the most spirited game of license plates I've ever played. It was so much fun to 'compete' with family near and far. I can't wait to hear who sees the elusive buffalo (North Dakota) first, Team Gallina or Bob and Natalie. And what about the quiet Parkinson's? I haven't heard a peep about their progress since returning from their whirlwind tour of the Midwest. Good luck and safe hunting to the rest of you!

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a glo-omy, rainy summer day...can't get that tune out of my head.

Climb Every Mountain

As I was coming home from school tonight, I decided to cruise through the Drury Inn off of Highway 44. Bingo! Jackpot! I found Nevada! I was going to take a picture to prove it, but a woman was looking out of the window, and I didn't want to get arrested for trespassing or anything. You will just have to trust me. You know, I think I've seen this plate many times and mistakenly thought it was Indiana.

My magic number is now 1! Hawaii is the only plate I need. I've almost reached the summit..."Climb every mountain..."