A new toy: Read the Words

I found this just now via a Twitter from Wesley Fryer, who found it from Bob Sprankle on Bit by Bit. It is a Beta version of Read the Words (readthewords.com), a Web 2.0 application that converts text into words. Here is a simple example I created of the previous blog post to this.

The voices for selection are an interesting mixture of male and female and there is a real attempt to add inflection and expression to the reading. It provides a downloadable MP3 file and also an embeddable widget for online use. Let's think how many uses this could have in a regular school day or week.



Technorati Tags: readthewords web2.0

The Wisdom of My PLN

I am dipping into 'The Wisdom of Crowds' by James Surowiecki and grappling with statistics and averages and the fact that a crowd can have more collective wisdom than one person. James is a keynote speaker at NECC 2008 in San Antonio in a few weeks so I am getting a head start on his ideas.

I am coupling or aligning this theory with my emerging Personal Learning Network (PLN) and specifically with my Twitter followers (all 638 of you!) and embracing the comfort of having a ready supply of man-made (as in straight from the horses mouth) answers and responses, or 'wisdom' to my occasional questions.

This morning I was thinking about a recent request from a colleague to consider who we can contact to speak for our Model United Nations student conference and gathering next November. There is a list of topics and strands and amongst these was the term 'digital divide'. Well, I thought, have ideas about this....but maybe my PLN has more wisdom and experience and diversity to give me even better ideas?


The result from a 4-hour stretch on Twitter, as shown above, is quite interesting. First name to come up Stephen Heppell, who I just blogged about in the post before this one as he was on the Learning to Change video and is a great representative for new school models. Then came Tom with a link to Web 2 for Dev conference with lots if interesting, unknown to me speakers.
kjarrett recommended Bonnie Bracey from the Digital Divide Network.
Interestingly Andrew Churches recommends Gary Stager if we want to get into heavier discussion about the digital divide. The georgiac mentions Marco Torres, then technolibrary with the person who spoke on digital equitly at NECC 2007....who is that?
Then to top it off Andy Carvin, founder of the Digital Divide Network, and who I have had a number of online interactions with and follow on Twitter is mentioned by thomasdaccord.

So, thank you my wise crowd, I could not have come up with that exact and worthy combination of names.

Technorati Tags: digitaldivide twitter

Death of Education, Dawn of Learning

Learning to Change



My colleague and fellow Flat Classroom Project 2007 teacher, Barrie Becker, sent me the link to this video. She got it from Scott McLeod's Dangerously Irrelevant blog, who got it from David Warlick's 2 cents Worth blog. In Barrie's words, " It is fantastic - really summarizes and validates what we do."
The video is made for advocacy by Pearson Foundation Digital Arts Alliance and the Consortium for School Networking.

It features a number of well known education movers, including Stephen Hempel and Dan Pink. The message is summed up by Stephen at the end...."The death of education and the dawn of learning', which he claims is an exciting prospect.

Participants talk about creativity, ability to synthesize, work in teams, be multi-lingual and multicultural. Some 21st century set of literacies: Focus on finding and validating information, synthesize and leverage information, communicate it, collaborate and problem solve with information.

This is another video you might find interesting:
Marco Torres production: 21st Century Pedagogy
'Need to develop a new pedagogical dna for schooling in todays world in order to break from the past'





Technorati Tags: 21stcenturylearning change globalcollaboration

Are you really there??

I am trembling as I write this. I am reading carefully chosen words and sentences that have powerful meanings. I am reading online conversations and interactions and opinions that come from teachers and students. I am wanting to reach out and make everything right in the world, make people get on with each other, make people realize there are other people out there and that the world does not revolve around themselves. I am wanting to cut through complacency and excuses, cut through boredom and inactivity, slice through selfish attitudes. I want to demand engagement and higher order involvement of people I have never met, students I will never have in my class. I want to tell everyone that life is too short to be making excuses, life is too short to do nothing and life is too short to be invisible.

Our Horizon Project 2008 is in its last 2 weeks of student activity. The pressure is on to complete personal videos and wiki editing, teachers and students are getting tired, nerves are taut. There is still time for everyone to pull together, make a last effort to communicate and collaborate, exchange video clips, add some content to the wiki and finish on a high. However, now is the time when inactivity and involvement with the project really starts to be noticed.

Why are some participants more engaged than others? Is it technical ability, or lack of? Is it an unwillingness to be part of an online learning community? Is it just sheer confusion, an inability to understand the requirements and a feeling of being overwhelmed? Is the project too hard? Is it that they just don't care about grades, team members, the challenge??

In a recent blog post on our project Ning, Vicki Davis wrote,

"We have some students contributing, communicating, responding and participating. And we have some students who simply AREN'T THERE!

We are entering a new age in our society with Face to Face (F2F) is simply not enough because so many of us are communicating computer to computer (also called Peer to Peer or P2P). I say that we need effective "techno-personal" skills."

In response, student Jonathan C wrote,
"I find it slightly ridiculous. I've been busting my tail off to try and get the C3D group to work, but right now, the most complete page is the main page. A few of the pages still have very little information, and people are only editing small things without contributing anything substantial.

I am getting quite angry because of the inactivity of my peers. People are slacking off because they get out of school in less than a week, and while I agree that summer is nice, they have a responsibility to the rest of their team. I have seen pages with very little editing in the last 5 days, and i have not gotten any responses from anyone, except Mrs. Lindsay.

The students who are involved, yet do not contribute are not part of the effective Horizon Project. One of my friends commented that they would like to get rid of the people who were not contributing so they could learn who was reliable, and who wasn't. They need to learn that there are real people on the other end of the internet connection, who are pushing to get something done."

Then today Jonathan wrote a blog post titled, "Day 57 - Desperation" in which he said,
"If you are reading this right now, I thank you, because no one seems to understand the concept of communication. We have all these problems regarding completion, because people are wondering what they are supposed to be doing. Well, if you don't check the discussion on the wiki pages, or if you don't check your group, well, then it is awfully hard to know much of anything, now isn't it?

Because people are not taking the time to look into what they are supposed to be doing, or they are not taking time to contact their project managers, there is a little bit of a problem, in terms of horizon project completion. Project Managers and Assistant Project Managers can only do so much. Sub groups need to be taking the initiative, and they need to start working together to solve problems. No matter how much cyber urging the PM does, if you do not check your discussion on the wiki, or if you do not check your main page, than the group is doomed to failure.

Another problem that I am seeing across the board, is a problem with activity and motivation. A few students are working because their grade depends on this assignment. Others are contributing because they feel it is their duty, not to let others down. Others aren't contributing because they don't know what to do. Others aren't contributing because they don't have the tech, or do not have the grasp of English. Other's simply aren't . There is not much that someone can do to urge someone who has no interest in the project. You can't yell at them in person, you can't plead with them, you can't do anything. They simply disappear. They see that email notification of a post on their Ning, but they won't check it. They will see that their was a comment on a discussion board, but they won't check it. Follow up is key to the survival of this project, and the fact that people are in la la land, is not helping."

If anyone had any doubts about the benefits of project-based learning, global collaboration and relevance to real-world scenarios, you need look no further than this project. Students and teachers who are committed in value and time, and students like Jonathan who DO get it and ARE VISIBLE.

Vicki talks about the 'currency of reputation', and addresses student complacency with this:
"What would your currency of reputation be? Although now, in high school, you can take on this project and literally goof off, take the C or F and move on with your life. Very soon, you'll develop a reputation as a non-existent person who cannot be counted on."

Is the Horizon Project/Flat Classroom Project a microcosm of real life? In many ways I believe it is, there are achievers, conscientious contributors, excellent communicators, creative thinkers, and there are many who do not put in the effort, for what ever reason do not participate at all or not often enough for us to really see what their strengths are except that they are just not there.

How can we change this? How can we change the world? Is our current education system(s) promoting effective global communication and collaboration? Are these skills valued enough to be part of what we do in schools on a regular basis?

I have plenty of questions.....I do not have as many answers. For myself I lack understanding sometimes, as a highly motivated person, of those who lack interest in exploring new terrain and taking on different learning modes.
Do you, as the reader of this blog have any answers?

A special thank you to Jonathan from Glenbrook Academy for freely sharing his thoughts and concerns about the project with us.

Technorati Tags: horizonproject2008 vickidavis globalcollaboration

Trying to be a 'Better Blogger'

OK, there goes another hour....or more...trying to get my head around commenting and co-commenting while blogging. I admit I am not a diligent commenter. There, I have said it! I applaud those who make the effort to comment and co-comment and keep the conversations going and I love to get comments on my blog! Even though I don't always comment back (another black mark against my name as a blogger). Is it time? Yes....but it is also a certain shyness I still have to be fully out there and interacting.....I think it is also a lack of confidence in what value I have to offer as a commenter. However, my aim is to be a 'Better Blogger' and here is one way we can do this.

I wish to draw your attention to the Comment Challenge created by Kim Cofino and colleagues for the month of May, 2008. Kim has detailed instructions on her blog on how to participate. There are prizes and awards! (I think if you wanted to be a winner you would have started on May 1st however). There are daily activities posted on the Comment Challenge wiki. People are blogging about how to be a better commenter. There are even student and class participants from around the world. This is amazing!

So, what have I done so far? At last I re-found CoComment and added a widget to my blog to track comments I make. It has raised my awareness of how important commenting is and how as a blogging community we need to put in more effort to support each other and to foster conversations.

So, join in, put your name on the list of participants, create a CoComment account and get organized. This is not about being a winner, it is about participation and being a better blogger.

Technorati Tags: comment08 cocomment blogging kimcofino

Get ready for K12 Online Conference 2008

The announcement went out this week for the K12 Online Conference for 2008. The call for proposals to present deadline is June 23.

I really like the theme this year: Amplifying the Possibilities

The conference is continuing with a similar format as in the past two years (2007 and 2006) however there has been a slight change of personnel convening the event and a change in focus for the strands.

The conveners from before include Wes Fryer, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Darren Kuropatwa with the addition of Dean Shareski this year.

The four strands -
Strand A: Getting started
with the addition of Everything you wanted to know about getting started with web 2.0 technologies for learning but were afraid to ask. The presentations in this strand will focus on specific, free tools for newcomers.

Strand B: Kicking it up a notch
You’ve been using blogs, wikis and other technologies for awhile but perhaps haven’t seen them transform your classroom and the learning environment for your students in the ways you think they can. This strand amplifies ways new technologies can be used to transform classroom and personal learning.

Strand C: Prove it!
Although some teachers are excited to “amplify possibilities” using computer technologies, Web 2.0 tools, and 21st Century learning strategies in their classrooms, how do we know if these innovative instructional strategies are really working?

Strand D: Leading the change
Innovative approaches to teaching and learning using web 2.0 tools are often utilized by a limited number of “early adopter” teachers in our schools. This strand seeks to amplify ways educators in a variety of contexts are serving as constructive catalysts for broad-based pedagogic change using Web 2.0 technologies as well as student-centered, project-based approaches to learning.

All details can be found on the K12 Online Conference blog. Proposals deadline, another reminder, is June 23. Announcement of keynotes coming soon. Announcement of presenters will be made at NECC 2008 in San Antonio on July 2.

I encourage all readers of this blog who are out there making a difference in their classrooms to consider submitting a proposal to present.

Presentations for K12Online08 must conform to the following requirements:

1. Presentations must be a single media file of twenty minutes or less in length.
2. Presentations must be submitted in a downloadable and convertable file format (mp3, mov, WMV, FLV, m4a, or m4v.) Presenters wanting to use an alternative format should contact their respective strand convener in advance.
3. Presentations are due two weeks prior to the week the relevant strand begins. (Week 1 presentations are due Monday, October 6, Week 2 presentations are due Monday, October 13.)
4. Presentations must be submitted only one time and on time. Early submissions are welcomed! Repeat submissions (with changes and additional edits) will not be accepted. Presenters should proof carefully before submitting!
5. All presentations will be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Follow K12 Online via Twitter.
Check out the K12 Online Conference 2007 Ning for what happened last year.

Technorati Tags: k12online08 wesfyer sherlynussbaumbeach deanshareski darrenkuropatwa

A Day in the Life

This article was published last week in the May 2008 edition of Learning and Leading with Technology magazine from ISTE as part of the 'Bloggers Cafe' series. I have reproduced it here, without the minor editing cuts, and with the essential hyperlinks that make a blog a truly interactive and alive piece of writing.
I hope you enjoy reading about what has become a natural way of life as a connected educator.

A Day in the Life of a Global, Connected Educator
(How blogging has changed my world)

Julie Lindsay
Written February, 2008
Based on a previous blogpost from February 2007

As a global, connected educator I blog to foster international communication and to interact with my personal learning network. Blogging is embedded into my daily life. I read blogs, I respond to blogs, my student’s blog, and my colleague’s blog. It is through blogging that I have made and sustained professional liaisons around the world and what it means for me to be an educator and technology leader has shifted dramatically. Blogging allows me to embrace diversity, encourage and support new ideas and be inclusive on a global scale. We can all learn more about the world by opening our eyes to what is going on out there, outside our classrooms, outside our schools, outside our states and countries. Blogging promotes leadership and a 'flattened' approach. Blogging allows you to bring the world into your classroom.

My day of blogging starts with breakfast and a review of Google reader. In my daily routine and my struggle to make sense of where we are going I read blogs of other educators who are also sharing their experiences of the changing learning landscape. But, not only do I get to read from my own blogroll (subscription list of bloggers), through Google Reader and the 'share' feature I get to also read what my favorite bloggers are reading. Wow, this is a powerful tool. This paradigm shift means I know what my colleagues are reading and being influenced by and I can also share my explorations through the blogosphere. I scan Kim's (Cofino) new post from Thailand about 'outside voices' and the positive impact of bringing a consultant to a school to support curricular Web 2.0 embedding. I remember the Skype interview I recorded with Kim recently and uploaded to the wiki to introduce her to our school community and how the spoken word provided immediacy and complemented the written text. Another blog post is about a 'sustainable educational model' from Jabiz, a fellow expat. in Qatar who I have at last met face to face, where he states, 'education is the ability to sustain your own learning'.

At my desk at work I scan email, open Twitter and some Ning's (social networks) to view recent activity. The Edubloggerworld Ning has steadily growing international membership and an active core of people who keep the network alive. Our recently created school Ning, elearning4life, is also jumping with extra groups and forums and blog posts added every day. I decide to add a new group called 'Blogging for Learning' and immediately post resources. Being early morning in Qatar the Twitter network is alive with Australasian’s at work, coming off work and settling in for the evening. Meanwhile the Europeans are still in bed and the USA contingent is finishing off their evening blogging and online activity before saying goodnight. I add some greetings, comments and pick up interesting resources via 'Tweets', including new blogs posts hot off the press.

My email is alive with negotiations for meetings and events around the world. Jeff in China sends another SOS (Shifting Our School) podcast invitation to participate in online discussion with international educators; Barbara from Vienna and Vicki from Georgia are lined up for an online meeting via Elluminate later tonight to discuss our new digital citizenship project. I check my airset.com calendar and realize it is for 10pm in my time zone...not as late as usual. I also receive a reminder about another 'fishbowl' blogging session on 'A Whole New Mind' with Karl's class in Colorado. Steve has invited me to Skype in for a Web 2.0 session for the forthcoming CUE.org event, luckily the Saturday session is in a workable time zone for me.

So, when my students ask 'What are we going to use our blogs for?’ I smile. My response includes, 'Blogging will change the way you view the world, blogging will change the way you interact with the world. Blogging is just the beginning of how you will have an impact on the world....one post and one interaction at a time.'

Technorati Tags: iste learningandleading connected global blogging

Learn how to Flatten your Classroom at our Workshop

Vicki Davis and I are really excited to announce our first 2-day Flat Classrooms workshop. Although we live on opposite sides of the world, in very different cultures and circumstances, on July 8 and 9 we will be together. It is truly rare that we are in the same place, but we are passionate about duplicating our efforts and encouraging the proliferation of these projects around the world.

We invite educators who want to transform their learning spaces to include global collaboration in their curriculum to join us for a unique workshop at Mary Institute St Louis County Day School in St. Louis, Missouri.

These two days will be a unique opportunity to really drill down to the details of how to hold a flat classroom project and understand the best practice and pedagogy behind such a project. We believe it will be a memorable, special event as it is the first opportunity we have had to truly outline how such a project is conducted, assessed, and facilitated.

Please take time to review the workshop information, what you will learn, and contact us with your questions. Space is limited and on a first come, first served basis.

Because we are busy teachers, we have partnered with fellow visionary, Steve Hargadon to orchestrate this event. He shares our common vision of global collaboration and facilitation. We also appreciate the vision and encouragement of fellow collaborator Elizabeth Helfant at St. Louis County Day School and her insistence that this is something that we need to share with the world.

What will you learn?
Our Aims:

1. To promote academic excellence through the use of leading technological tools.
2. To promote connection and understanding between geographically dispersed, ethnically and culturally diverse groups of students in meaningful, global cooperative authentic learning experiences.
3. To simplify and document pedagogical best practices for such projects.
4. To duplicate "ourselves" and practices to encourage the open proliferation of such projects as a standard part of global education and digital citizenship.

Course Outline
Workshops have plenary and break-out sessions and include both skill building with Web 2.0 tools and project management. A hands-on approach is emphasized with participants encouraged to bring laptops and take advantage of the wireless network provided.
According to the needs of the workshop participants both introductory and intermediate/advanced breakout sessions can be offered.

Introduction

• Flat Classrooms and 21st century teaching and learning
  • What does a 'flat classroom' mean? How do we recognize one? How can you create one?
  • What are 21st century skills? What does a 21st century classroom look like and what does it do?
• Global Projects and integrated/embedded curriculum
  • A review of characteristics of best-practice global projects and methods to find projects appropriate to your learning needs
  • A look at what it means to embed global collaborative projects into the curriculum

Pre-Project management

Planning and managing a Flat Classroom Project

• A review of essential requirements and logistics to run a Flat Classroom Project

Seven Steps to Flatten Your Classroom

• Connect

  • The 5 phases of connection - an overview of essential elements of being a connected educator
  • How to create a PLN (Personal learning network) and explore online connectivity
  • An introduction and review of social networks and networking in education and how to integrate them into the classroom
  • An overview of generic Web 2.0 tools used in Flat Classroom Projects

• Communicate

  • How to foster an online learning community - teacher and student engagement strategies
  • A detailed look at skills and tools needed for asynchronous and synchronous communication

• Citizenship

  • How to be a responsible digital citizen - a review of issues
  • Solutions for safety and privacy when collaborating online

• Contribute

  • How be a reliable and successful online contributor - mastering RSS, social bookmarking and wiki's
  • Breakout sessions for skill development at different levels

• Collaborate

  • How to manage the extended project community: peer review, expert advisers, judges, researchers
  • How to develop strong collaboration skills amongst students and teachers

• Create

  • Digital storytelling - How to integrate this powerful practice into a project
  • Managing multimedia online - Strategies for working with multimedia formats and sharing resources around the world

• Celebrate

  • How to assess and acknowledge student achievement - Review of authentic assessment methods
  • How to run student and teacher summits - Strategies for reflection and showcase sessions

Practical sessions

Lab #1 - Setting up a class or school wiki

Lab #2 - Setting up a class or school Ning

We hope you will consider joining us, Flat Classrooms Workshop

Vicki Davis
Julie Lindsay

Technorati Tags: flatclassrooms flatclassroomworkshop vickidavis stevehargadon flatclassroomproject

Wanted! Experts and Sounding Board Participants

All 11 classrooms in the Horizon Project 2008 are busily editing wikis and providing content based on the 6 trends and 7 meta-trends in emerging technologies as studied in the Horizon Report 2008. This is a difficult time for all students and teachers. To be working with content that is not fully documented in text books (of course) and is often still relatively new online, students are being pushed to their limits of understanding.

The wiki editing requirement for the project is to collaborate with their team members (3-5 on a team) to provide content based on a template with headings 'Background', 'Examples' and 'Citations'. Remember of course that topics include Grass Roots Video, Data Mashups, Computing in 3 Dimensions....and 10 more! The hyperlinks just given go to the main wiki page for each topic. Feeding into these are the 4 areas of impact wikis that cover Education, Arts Entertainment and Leisure, Government Politics and Employment, Science and health.

As part of the project we are looking for more people to be involved. This is a true, global collaborative event that includes both students and adults, teachers and experts. We use the wiki medium to collaboratively create content, and the Ning (social networking) medium to foster an online learning environment and support each other.

How can you help?

1. Expert Advisor
Are you an expert or have an educational interest in a field that we are studying as part of this project? See the Teams wiki for a full list of the 13 topics (from the Horizon Report 2008). If so we would love you to volunteer as an 'Expert Advisor'. Here are more details:

We are looking for a group of "experts" who agree to leave 'during project' feedback for the teams during this project. We have two feedback periods: May 2-8 (leave a message for them) and May 9-15 (leave another message).

• Each expert is asked to take at least two times to read and leave feedback on the main wiki page of the group on the discussion tab.
• You may also join the group on the Ning and advise and give thoughts there as well.

Your job is to provide feedback and point out resources to the team. You are an "advisor." You may also choose to use delicious and the tagging standard for your group to help them. (Or you may join the horizon 2008 diigo groupfor our standard tag library -- but YOU must send your diigo bookmarks to delicious for this to work -- Learn how to do this.)

More details about being an Expert Advisor

2. Peer Review Classroom
We need sounding board classrooms from all around the globe to come in and give meaningful feedback to the students for their wiki content. We have about 80 wikis to cover in the next few weeks! We are very lucky to have Kim Cofino, Jo McLeay and Steve Madsen as our sounding board leaders. They will show you way and provide lots of sound advice as to how to get your class involved.

Why bother to be a peer review classroom? The experience of asking your students to read and comment on a wiki page gives them the responsibility of learning something about the topic to be able to respond in a meaningful manner. Also they will be responsible for commenting on spelling, grammar, design, structure etc.

Peer review is also part of the new NETS standards from ISTE and is something that we are going to have to do correctly, we need to begin to share best practices.

More details about being a sounding board / peer review classroom

Not convinced yet? Watch this video of two sounding board educators from the Horizon Project 2007, and the Flat Classroom Project 2007, Brandt Schneider and Chrissy Hellyer.




How do you sign up?
We welcome your input and hope you will join us on the Horizon Project 2008! If you are ready and willing contact one of these people: Vicki Davis (Expert Advisors), Kim Cofino (Sounding Board) via our project Ning and leave a message.

Technorati Tags: kimcofino stevemadsen jomcleay brandtschneider chrissyhellyer vickidavis horizonproject_soundingboard horizonproject2008 horizonproject_expertadvisors horizonproject soundingboard peerreview

Students in Qatar discuss the Horizon Project

This podcast started as a discussion based on the Horizon Project keynote 2008, given by Don Tapscott last week. However the Grade 10 class 'strayed a little' into also discussing and reflecting on the Horizon Project so far and their experiences with it.

Could I also commend one of our partner classrooms in the project, Glenbrook Academy for International Studies in Illinois, and their teacher's Chris Morgan and Ryan Bretag, for organising this wonderful student podcast in response to the keynote last week, 'Our discussion and Don Tapscott's keynote'. I really enjoyed hearing the student responses.

Summary of Qatar Academy student podcast along with the questions/conversation starters that I used to promote discussion -
1. Don mentions that the changes we are seeing are not about the technology but about the change in relationship between teachers and students in the learning process. What changes have you seen? What changes do you want to see?
Interestingly the use of email as a communication tool between teachers and students is relatively new at Qatar Academy. The students are finding it a great way to reach out to teachers, submit work and be in touch. We also discussed evolving this into using IM across the school aas well as the implications of developing a school-wide Ning
2. In Wikinomics Don refers to 'our network being our filter'. Do you have a network to support your learning? How important is your learning network?
This was a difficult question for the class. The concept of having a personal learning network and using peers as filters is still quite out there, however some responses indicated an understanding of the concept and practice.
We digressed here into a discussion about the intensity and distractive nature of being online and how we can all discipline ourselves to be focussed and not waste time.
3. How important is it to you to be a creator of information? How can we turn that information into knowledge and what 21st century skills do we need to do this?
The importance of originality and collaboration and the way these can enhance creativity.
4. What is one aspect of the Horizon Project that you find exciting?
Communicating, exploring technology, collaboration in general to create something new.
The revelation that Social Operating Systems actually has meaning in the real world!
Creating a wiki page with other people, interacting with them.
Peer relations. An interesting blog on the Ning about sleep that was shared by another student. The fact that everyone is different and unique and being able to interact helps us understand these differences.
5. What is one aspect of the Horizon Project that you find threatening or difficult to do?
Uncertainty of what to do in the project, time-zone difficulties, being on the Ning everyday for updates, the pressures of being a Project Manager and keeping everyone on track.
Project Managers need more training before the project starts
7. In 20 years from now what do you think the 6 emerging trends in educational technology will be?
Social networking within the school
Evolution of Facebook .....it will not exist
Connecting people through the network even more - education and business online
Use of devices to facilitate learning and communication
E-books will be prominent, purchase books online.



Technorati Tags: hz08 hz08_keynote horizonproject2008 dontapscott qataracademy

Don Tapscott Keynotes our Horizon Project 2008

Just over a week ago now bestselling author, Don Tapscott, of best selling book 'Wikinomics - How mass collaboration changes everything' provided the keynote for our newest project, Horizon Project 2008.

The keynote is available on our project wiki as well as on YouTube. Here it is embedded in this post.



Don talks about the 'children of the baby boomer's' and how they are the first generation to be 'Growing Up Online' (an earlier book by Don). He describes how the baby boomer generation were passive in that they watched more television and were not actively contributing and creating to the extent that the post baby boomer's of today are.
He also talks about the need to move education pedagogically to embrace more student-centered, multi-modal ways of teaching and learning.

What I find exciting about the fact that we have a 4 minute segment of Don Tapscott addressing the project is that this has become a catalyst for conversations and further interactions all over the world. The 240 odd students in the project have also the opportunity to respond to Don via their blog posts and discuss his ideas in more detail. They can also leave a discussion point or message on the keynote wiki itself for Don to pick up. This is where the medium as well as the message contains power. Yes, we could have given the students the book to read (I did encourage purchase and reading the online chapters), however to have the author actually address and endorse the project and to highlight pertinent ideas relevant to our students cuts through into a high sense of understanding and reality. The topic becomes real, the person becomes real, the project becomes a little larger than life. This is such an amazing opportunity for all participants.

For myself I continue to read Wikinomics and try to make sense of the tools we use as 'weapons of mass collaboration' amongst other pertinent ideas. I think my favourite quote from the book is this:
"If an army marching in lockstep to tightly arranged military music is a metaphor for yesterday's workplace, the workplace of the future will be more like a jazz ensemble, where musicians improvise creatively around an agreed key, melody, and tempo"

So! creativity, the wiki workplace, and all that jazz! Way to go I say.

Technorati Tags: dontapscott wikinomics hz08_kenote hz08

From Russia with Love

I have wanted to visit Russia for many years. This desire may have been influenced by my communist grandfather and the many books he had via mail-order straight from the USSR itself in the 50s and 60s...... Many of these were patriotic and idealistic showing the people working on the land and in the factories to improve the country. Many of them were also writings from Marx, Lenin and others espousing the virtues of a socialist state. Unfortunately my grandfather died before the Berlin wall came down and the USSR as we knew evolved into Russia.

To visit Russia these days is relatively easy (for an Australian passport holder that is). After securing an online Visa invitation, we made 2 trips to the Russian Embassy in Doha for Visa to be added in our passports, with a total cost of $100 each. Qatar Airline flies direct to Moscow in 5.5 hours.

So the very day that school broke up for Spring break we rushed to the airport and flew into Moscow, to arrive after flight delays at our hostel, Godzillas, at 4am. Sort of early next morning we are off...walking distance to the center and looking forward to a day, and a week of adventure. Here is a very brief overview of our week.

Red Square is amazing. St Basil's, the Kremlin (where we saw the Bolshoi Ballet Company in the State Theatre), GUM Department store (government), Lenin's tomb (not open for visitors the 2 days we were there).

St Basil's Red Square, Moscow

The Moscow metro is a delight, however it is also a challenge to navigate. Luckily we have a colleague working in Moscow who showed us around and got us used to the 'metro maze'. Trains come every 2 minutes on all platforms, from early morning until 1am. Many of the stations are wonderfully decorated, and all in different styles of lighting, painting, sculptures, mosaics etc. I realised coming home that I did not have enough pictures to really show what we saw...I think most of the time we were running to catch another train!

Scene from a Moscow Metro station

We took an overnight train to St Petersburg. Well, this is a place that lives up to it's reputation! Amazing constructions and awe inspiring collections of wealth. You can see why the Russian people wanted change, how can so few have so much amongst so many? We went to the main attractions, Hermitage Museum where the collection of art works, sculptures and other artifacts is in the millions; the Church of Spilled Blood, an amazing church made with mosaics; the Mariinsky Theatre, known as the home of the Kirov Ballet Company, where we saw Tosca.

The Hermitage Museum (former Winter Palace), St Petersburg

Inside and outside the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg

Church of Spilled Blood and St Petersburg canal

Our trip to Russia was a life experience. There is still so much more to see, not sure if we will ever get the chance to go back. Language and communication was a challenge as an English speaking traveler. Unlike many countries we have visited in Asia, Africa and the Middle east, Russia is NOT an English speaking or accommodating country. The script is in Cyrillic which makes it difficult to decipher words eg restaurant is 'Pectopah'. Signs therefore are not in English, shop keepers and other service personnel do not speak English and can be rude about attempts to try and communicate. The language of Russian itself is fascinating but I had no success at all in learning it. Strangely, and I do not mean this to be taken the wrong way, the spoken language often sounds like a record playing backwards to my ears.

Another aspect of the country is the emerging middle class. So many shops in the two cities we visited were aimed at the fashion conscience younger person. Girls in particular were walking around with the latest fashion in clothes and shoes. Prices were expensive to our pockets. However there is lots to buy if you have the money, and people were spending. Food and drink is not too expensive. Beer and champagne is cheap, vodka (of course) was available for sale on every street corner. Mulit-national restaurants were plentiful (Pizza Hut, McDonalds etc) as were localized restaurants with authentic cuisine. The local pub was a warm haven for a meal and a drink and a friendly place to be.

See Flickr slideshow of all pics from Russia

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Thinking about Thinking

Some stray thoughts are going around in my head tonight. Snippets of conversations, blog posts, Twitters, emails and other events have got me to thinking about thinking. You could say I was having a De Bono 'Blue Hat' moment.

I came across this video 'We Think' by Charles Leadbeater, for the first time today and played it to students as an example of how to communicate effectively using simple text and graphics, and also as an example of new modes of thinking and learning in collaborative and creative ways. The term 'We think, therefore we are' is found within the work, a more updated version of Descartes 'I think therefore I am'.



I also revisited Blooms Taxonomy through receiving an email from Open Education who have written a summary of Andrew Church's work to do with 'Blooms Taxonomy and the Digital World'. This work is a great resource and provides additional material to support digital modes of learning and assessment aligned with the revised version of Blooms Taxonomy. Excellent rubrics for using digital tools are shared including such tasks as 'Blog journaling' and 'Threaded discussion'. I am keen to adapt these for my current classes to give them a greater sense of what is expected from the use of digital tools in the learning process.

The issue of plagiarism and how to deal with it within an educational environment came up today via a colleague on our school E-Learning For Life Ning. Beverley's post, 'If you've never plagiarized, cast the first stone....' asks for proactive input and ideas as to how we can reshape our educational objectives (back to Blooms again) to foster better academic practice rather than be reactionary and have to impose sanctions for misdemeanors.

So what do I think about all this? I think originality and creativity rule. I think learning to collaborate and interact with other people, not just in the same room but internationally, also rules. I think we can turn educational practices around by not just talking about Bloom's Taxonomy but actually applying it. I think Bloom's Taxonomy can be enhanced by the use of digital tools and, as Andrew has done, a whole new set of verbs such as blogging and podcasting lead us into exciting and more engaged activities for students and teachers. I think Dan Pink is right, creative people will rule the world. I think we do not focus on creativity enough in schools....too much focus on getting the answer right. I think current assessment methods often do not foster student-centred learning. I think I have thought enough today........

What do you think??

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