I'm looking forward to learning and networking at the PETE&C educational technology conference this week in Hershey.
Monday
Monday will be my day to attend sessions. I am particularly looking forward to seeing how I can better use Moodle and other free Web 2.0 tools in my classroom. I am hoping to find a gem or two from these sessions. A session that I will be attending virtually will be the "Results of Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom" session about the Harrisburg University class I took this summer. Andy Petroski and Jim Gates will be using parts of a video I made with my responses to questions related to the course and how I have implemented web 2.0 tools in my class.
Tuesday
Tuesday will be the day that my students will participate in the student showcase from 9:45 to 12:00. They will be showcasing their collaborative writing project Writing 4 History, where they are currently in the process of finishing four books to be published on Lulu.com. My day will be spent with the students, so I will be unable to attend any sessions. Besides the student showcase, the biggest highlight for me on Tuesday will be the Opening Keynote by Daniel Pink.
Wednesday
Between 9:45 and 10:45 I will be helping with the session "A Journey to Improve Teaching and Student Learning" in the Crystal A room. This session is about how Hershey Middle School is implementing a progressive technology initiative by facilitating technology coaching, professional development, research based teaching strategies, and open source tools with 1:1 classrooms to improve writing and thinking across the curriculum.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Tell a Story in 6 Words
Interesting idea for student summarizing practice.
Ideas for history classroom? There's many.
America's perennial question: Liberty or authority?
Much thought goes into simple things.
Check out website. Won't be disappointed.
SmithTeens: 6 word storytelling by teens.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The Educational Vision Debate
Recently I have noticed a flurry of negative posts concerning Obama's choice of Arne Duncan to be his Secretary of Education (see below for links to a range of views on this pick). This choice has certainly hit a raw nerve with many progressive educators who hoped Obama's Secretary of Education choice would signal a move away from the status quo of testing, testing, testing, toward an educational environment that values creativity over standardization.
Certainly, Duncan's choice does seem to signal that the pendulum has not hit the standardization overkill wall quite yet, and that change has not come to America's public schools.
Of course, the pick may be more about friendship. The fact that Duncan studied at the University of Chicago Laboratory School does hint at a more progressive leaning than his record suggests. Only time will tell.
Here is a sampling of the online debate over Duncan's announcement:
In this corner--Change
Will Richardson
Alfie Kohn
David Warlick
and, in this corner--Arne Duncan
NSBA
The New York Times
Joanne Jacobs
Certainly, Duncan's choice does seem to signal that the pendulum has not hit the standardization overkill wall quite yet, and that change has not come to America's public schools.
Of course, the pick may be more about friendship. The fact that Duncan studied at the University of Chicago Laboratory School does hint at a more progressive leaning than his record suggests. Only time will tell.
Here is a sampling of the online debate over Duncan's announcement:
In this corner--Change
Will Richardson
Alfie Kohn
David Warlick
and, in this corner--Arne Duncan
NSBA
The New York Times
Joanne Jacobs
Monday, December 15, 2008
Breaking Down the Classroom Walls--From Technology to Attitude
My hiatus from American Cultures 2.0 has not meant that I have been inactive. On the contrary, I have been in the process of the most transformational shift in my teaching career that involves empowering my students to look beyond their grades, and the friendly confines of Hershey Middle School, and to consider their citizenship in the larger world. This transformational shift in how we do things in my classroom has been made possible by two changes--technology and attitude.
Technology
Due to the changes that have taken place in my classroom since mid-October the classroom walls no longer isolate my students from the world. We now have a WordPress MU class blog entitled Viva la Historia, a laptop for every student everyday, and access to the School District's Google Apps slate of tools, including Google Docs--ALL IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS.
These tools have allowed us to:
- Have contact with classes in Connecticut and New Zealand
- Have nearly unlimited information at our fingertips everyday
- Have the ability to write, collaborate and problem solve issues related to self publishing a book on Lulu.com for anyone to purchase with proceeds going to charity
- Have students manage their own WordPress blog to challenge their writing, thinking, and creativity (this will actually happen in 2009 after some training)
If I kept teaching in the same way I have always taught prior to the transformation to a one-to-one classroom then I would be neglecting my duties as a teacher. Will I make mistakes on this new journey--Yep! I already can speak from experience how not to set up one Google Doc for an entire class to contribute to and expect them to do so in class--DUH!!! Without the attitude that it is o.k. to make mistakes then change is impossible.
Another attitude shift is one from being the main authority in the classroom to one as a guiding authority who is willing to become a student when the opportunity arises. This openness to learning and sharing is a necessary attitude if we want our technology to truly be transformative.
The ability to think big has been made a lot easier with technology. Or has technology created the opportunity to think big? All I know is that before the addition of blogging, laptops, and online collaborative tools I felt very traditional and in a way hemmed in by the classroom walls.
I can't wait to see what 2009 holds in store for my students!
Upcoming Blog Posts:
Digital Cultures Moodle Course to teach students Digital Citizenship
W4H--Our Writing for History self publishing book project
Ideas???--I welcome ideas to write about
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Long Live the Blog
“Blogs will fill every niche in the ecology of public writing. They'll be good examples of blogs and a far larger range of sites that are sort-of, kind-of blogs. This is as it should be. It's also as it already is.”
David Weinberger
Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center
johotheblog.com
Recently, there have been numerous pronouncements that blogging is dead, or at least not what it used to be. The Economist and Wired magazines both published articles questioning the relevance of blogging in the face of the ever changing nature of blogging and the increasing corporate dominance of the once thriving amateur blogosphere. It is apparent that the cutting edge nature of blogging has become mainstream as nearly every media outlet and corporation has implemented some form of blogging to reach new online markets. In addition, various forms of blogging, from Twitter to Facebook, have taken over our conversational media adding new ways to share, network, and learn. This is all evidence that blogging in various forms is here to stay.
Educational blogging, or edublogging, has never been more relevant for teachers and students. Blogging is one tool that can improve the quality of teacher reflection and networking. In an age where technology has made it free and easy to connect with other professionals and experts around the world it would almost be professional neglect to shun such powerful teacher development tools. In the year since I have been actively blogging I have reflected and learned more about teaching and learning than in all of the professional development courses I have attended in 15 years as a teacher. In the past year I have had online conversations with teachers, professors, and administrators in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa, Connecticut, Washington, California, and New Zealand! How could I have connected to these amazing resources without being a part of the edublogging conversation? It simply wouldn't have happened, and I would be less knowledgeable as a consequence.
If I am able to learn so much from being a part of a blogging network then why not teach students to be a valuable contributor to the online conversation. Students are already having online conversations on Myspace, Facebook, and interactive video games, so why not use similar tools to teach students how to effectively communicate with an online audience? Why not use these tools to teach students digital citizenship so they understand the larger context within which they participate online? Why not use these tools to simply teach students in a relevant and authentic way?
Various forms of blogging has become and will continue to become a ubiquitous feature of our online life. As educators, we need to recognize this and embrace it to improve how we learn, but more importantly, we need to use this knowledge to improve how students learn and make our classrooms relevant to a 21st century reality.
“The word blog is irrelevant, what's important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.”
Seth Godin
author
sethgodin.typepad.com
David Weinberger
Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center
johotheblog.com
Recently, there have been numerous pronouncements that blogging is dead, or at least not what it used to be. The Economist and Wired magazines both published articles questioning the relevance of blogging in the face of the ever changing nature of blogging and the increasing corporate dominance of the once thriving amateur blogosphere. It is apparent that the cutting edge nature of blogging has become mainstream as nearly every media outlet and corporation has implemented some form of blogging to reach new online markets. In addition, various forms of blogging, from Twitter to Facebook, have taken over our conversational media adding new ways to share, network, and learn. This is all evidence that blogging in various forms is here to stay.
Educational blogging, or edublogging, has never been more relevant for teachers and students. Blogging is one tool that can improve the quality of teacher reflection and networking. In an age where technology has made it free and easy to connect with other professionals and experts around the world it would almost be professional neglect to shun such powerful teacher development tools. In the year since I have been actively blogging I have reflected and learned more about teaching and learning than in all of the professional development courses I have attended in 15 years as a teacher. In the past year I have had online conversations with teachers, professors, and administrators in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa, Connecticut, Washington, California, and New Zealand! How could I have connected to these amazing resources without being a part of the edublogging conversation? It simply wouldn't have happened, and I would be less knowledgeable as a consequence.
If I am able to learn so much from being a part of a blogging network then why not teach students to be a valuable contributor to the online conversation. Students are already having online conversations on Myspace, Facebook, and interactive video games, so why not use similar tools to teach students how to effectively communicate with an online audience? Why not use these tools to teach students digital citizenship so they understand the larger context within which they participate online? Why not use these tools to simply teach students in a relevant and authentic way?
Various forms of blogging has become and will continue to become a ubiquitous feature of our online life. As educators, we need to recognize this and embrace it to improve how we learn, but more importantly, we need to use this knowledge to improve how students learn and make our classrooms relevant to a 21st century reality.
“The word blog is irrelevant, what's important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.”
Seth Godin
author
sethgodin.typepad.com
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