See more of Gwyneth’s work at  http://www.iste2010.org/profiles/blogs/sir-bolt-steampunk-robot-talks.

]]> http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/12/09/easy-animation-and-iste-2010-get-your-ed-tech-boogie-on/feed/ 0 http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/07/07/we-are-all-individuals/ http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/07/07/we-are-all-individuals/#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:01:10 +0000 Alice Mercer http://www.isteconnects.org/?p=9851
In my last post here I talked about reaching out, and meeting others. In that I pointed out two contradictory things, by reaching out you can find other like minded people, but you can also find different perspectives. Really, you never know what you might get. There are cyclical complaints about group-think in edublogging circles that come up (echo-chamber, anyone). Matthew Tabor has compared watching videos from NECC as akin to a cult indoctrination on twitter. I understand that is sort of Matthew’s style, but I will admit there is a comfort in being around like minded individuals at NECC and other conferences. I think it’s a little more complicated that it might appear to someone outside of the classroom/school site setting. We live socially in a series of semi-intersecting social circles. While I may be uber-Web 2.0 woman and hang out with others like that at a conference, at my work, I may be the odd person out, the only person who working with technology at this level. Compared to trainings I’ve done on Open Court (where the Governor’s Institute trainings were scripted), the thinking is pretty open in ed tech circles. So what may appear to be indoctrination to one person, looks like freedom to me.

When we go to conferences, part of what you gain is perspectives from outside your school, your district, and your state. In an era of scripted curriculum, you cannot underestimate the value of this. At the same time, I need to make what I’m learning work in the context of NCLB, my high-needs school, and within a district that has a pacing guide. How do I make this make sense to my fellow teachers? This is a juggling act I do after each conference. I’m not complaining, I find it challenging and exhilarating at the same time. My site is pretty supportive even if most of them are not putting the same things in practice that I do. They want to do more, and I want to help them, but I have to respect their concerns about cell phones, and one-to-one laptops, and not treat them as “retrograde”, but instead work with towards change (maybe for both of us). When I hear someone at a conference discuss project-based learning, I have to hear that it may well be far superior to practicing “fidelity to our textbook program” and that there are other ways to educate students that what passes for “scientifically proven” instructional methods my district uses. I may look like I’m hanging out with my “clique” at NECC, but the reality is I may be expanding my circle of thought.

Photo credit: Opening Night on flickr photo sharing

Being the parent of a child with autism makes you a little more aware of eye contact in conversation. I’m noticing some interesting patterns at NECC that say a lot about how I socialize. First, there are times when it has become painful for me to make and maintain eye contact. That has to be a sign that I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of folks I’m seeing and meeting. While this year’s conference has a smaller turnout, 18,000, that’s still a lot of people to plop down in one place.

Sometimes when I’m talking to folks, I find my eyes wandering to scan the crowd and I’ve seen others do this as well. We are either trying to find someone we were waiting for in the sea of people, or checking for faces we know in person already. Sometimes we are checking for someone we have only known online up to this point and have been dying to meet IRL. This is that one golden chance to meet others we haven’t seen face to face and we don’t want to miss that opportunity.

Those of us who have already been to conferences, even local ones, have a circle of people we know and hang out with. They are our base camp in this sea of humanity. It is easy to stay in a tunnel here. If you are completely unfamiliar with teaching conventions, and never go online for PD and professional social networking (and there still are folks like that even at a place like NECC), you will stay in your bubble of local district buddies, an “accidental” tourist at the convention.

If you are too wrapped up in your “network” you already have, you will miss conversations with the person in front of you, or next to you as you go down your must meet check list. You will be in your own bubble that includes only folks you KNOW are like minded, but may miss a conversation you should have had with the person in your district back home, or in a session at NECC who is from the other side of the country.

My favorite meetings are the ones that are impossible to plan, but easy to undermine. You miss them when you only talk to the folks you already know. Those are the connections based on nothing more than propinquity. You sit next to someone at a session, and one of you strikes up a conversation. You are invited to tag along to a dinner, and are seated by someone from the other end of the country that you’ve never met before. Someone strikes up a conversation as you wait for a shuttle bus. You could learn a lot, or, you could miss that metaphorical bus, as you avoid eye contact and conversation.

Photo credit: My eye on Flickr

I was able to attend three sessions at EduBloggerCon this year and facilitate one. While I still would love to see the event follow the model of a BarCamp, I think the wiki organizational structure worked this year better than in 2008 largely because everyone was able to hold sessions they wanted to offer and there was NOT any voting. Half of the sessions I attended were in the hallways, but I was able to hear speakers fine and didn’t mind at all pulling up chairs and just circling up for a conversation.

I wonder how many school district leaders would be willing to take the approach of EduBloggerCon and ask teachers to organically propose as well as facilitate PD sessions on topics of interest, on which they have expertise as well as a desire to share? The participatory nature of EduBloggerCon is radically different than most teachers’ conception of “sit and get” professional development, but I find the participatory nature of the event to be precisely the thing which makes it highly engaging as well as relevant.

Given the speed of change in our society, a professional development structure like EduBloggerCon lends itself well to address both issues of concern to participants as well as emerging or new ideas. It is wonderful ISTE continues to support EduBloggerCon and provide the space as well as WiFi connectivity for participants completely free of charge. Many thanks to Steve Hargadon for his role in organizing the day and facilitating a super opportunity for co-learning with peers.

In reflecting about EduBloggerCon09, Lisa Thumann noted:

I think that we all know that change is hard. We also know that unless we commit to making change, it won’t happen. The fact is that there is uncertainty as to what jobs are coming down the pike. We don’t know what we are preparing our students for. So we need to create a model that they can carry into their adult lives. I’m working on putting together some short video clips on what educators are doing in their 21st Century Learning classrooms. I talked with a college student, April, yesterday about how she felt that her high school, which she classified as a 21st Century Learning school, helped better prepare her for college. I almost jumped out of my chair in excitement when she explained to me how.

Without EduBloggerCon09, Lisa might have not had that opportunity to dialog with April and have those learning experiences.

Jeff Utecht, also writing reflectively about EduBloggerCon09, noted:

This year….smaller, deeper, and more thoughtful. Exactly what I was hoping for and personally what I need to push my own thinking. It was one of those days where you went to one but watch others via Twitter. You wanted to go to all the sessions…and in some ways you did via the conversations that happened between the actual sessions.

As of this evening, just over 360 photos from EduBloggerCon09 have been uploaded and shared on Flickr using the tag “ebc09.)

I wonder to what degree does EduBloggerCon reflect the learning environment of the future for our students as well as ourselves? The day is filled with choice: Choices about sessions to attend, and sessions to lead. Virtually everyone has a laptop, and most people are actually using laptops during sessions to take notes and engage in backchannel conversations. WiFi is open, available, fast and free. Conversations extend from the scheduled sessions into the lunch hour, and continue online. Dialog is richer because of the online discussions which have taken place prior to the event, and are deepened as a result of the face-to-face time spent together.

When will students in our schools be able to experience a similar day of learning to what participants in EduBloggerCon09 were able to share? I hope that day is soon.

I arrived this morning at about 10 am, highly caffeinated and ready to type.  I spent first few hours walking the cavernous halls of the Washington Convention Center looking awestruck, unable to comprehend the epic scale of the place, and the enormous number of NECC attendees.  It is truly a sight to behold.  Everywhere there are hundred-foot ceilings, brighly colored banners, and scores of genial volunteers in lime-green t-shirts.  For such a large place, it feels immediately welcoming.

Beginning at 1 pm, our team kicked off the live-streaming for ISTEConnects.org.  The much-loved Joe Corbett (@ISTEConnects) interviewed members of ISTE’s marketing team, as well as a few passers-by — you can check it out here.

At that about takes us up to the present moment.  I’ll be reporting on new developments as they happen, so just keep hitting refresh!

See you in a few,

Zach Goodwin

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’d be willing to bet Pearson won’t be there again as they were last year with a videography team. :-)

It’s hard to predict how many folks will show up, but I’d guess attendance will approximate last year in San Antonio.

Photo by Lucy Gray

With a larger group, some might think it is inevitable that the dynamics are different and WORSE than they could be with smaller numbers. I was not able to attend EduBloggerCon 2007, but I understand that event had a much different “feel” than EduBloggerCon in 2008. I’m disappointed Steve Hargadon has opted not to utilize a “BarCamp model” for this year’s EduBloggerCon, but none-the-less I’m expecting a fun day of learning and conversations.

In the session I’m hoping to facilitate discussing the 2009 K-12 Online Conference and the new features proposed by this year’s conveners, I definitely hope we’ll have a discussion together rather than just hear from a small, limited number of folks. It will be interesting to see how the day develops and the dynamics of different sessions which have been proposed!

These prospects for shared, online learning surrounding a face-to-face conference reminded me this week of a situation in the fall of 2005, when I attempted (unsuccessfully) to catalyze live blogging and sharing from the upcoming TCEA 2006 conference. Citizen journalism is a disruptive prospect for many organizational leaders. Empowering anyone with access to a computer and the Internet to share their voice on the “global stage” can seem risky as well as dangerous to leaders most comfortable with tightly controlled, top-down styles of management as well as information dissemination.* As I noted in 2005, we’re living in an era where traditional publishing has been disintermediated. This landscape is fraught with risks and dangers, but it is also filled with opportunities. For more on the pros and cons of blogging for teachers, see the point/counterpoint article in the May 2009 issue of ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology, “Is Blogging Worth the Risk?” by James Maxlow and Lisa Nielson. It’s available as a free PDF download for both ISTE members and non-members.

It is impossible for me to think about social media and its potentially transformative potential to permit transparency and more open communication without reflecting on recent events in Iran following their election last week as well as many EduBlogger responses to the election.

On Monday in his post “An Amazing Day”, Jim Gates wrote:

Today was an historic day in the world. The elections in Iran sparked demonstrations by the people there insisting on their freedom. They objected to what they call a fixed election and have, in spite of everything, taken their anger to the streets in incredible numbers. And, they used the social medium of the web to help spread their message…This was a GREAT day to be working with teachers and trying to show them the power of social media, Twitter, specifically. In Tweetdeck I created a Search column for the word Tehran and that’s how I followed the events. There was a hashtag of #iranelections too that I could have chosen to follow. But, the bottom line is that I was following up to the minute reports from the people who were living the event.

Yesterday as well, Shelly Blake-Plock wrote in his post, “This is the Moment: Legitimize Social Media in Education:”

This weekend will go down in history in two ways. First, it will mark — for better or worse depending on the outcome — a fundamental shift in the way the people of Iran are able to express dissent with their government. Second, at least here in the United States, this weekend will mark the moment at which the mainstream media — particularly cable news — was overwhelmed by social media.

It can not be denied. We are all now living in a world of social media. You can’t claim ignorance. You can’t call it a ‘trend’. Whether or not Twitter exists in five years is beside the point. What happened this weekend is that social media became — in the most legitimate way — the voice of the people.

Shelly goes on in his post to exhort educators to take action, along the lines of her guest post here on ISTEconnects, “What Does Internet Blocking Suggest to Students?” He wrote yesterday:

The blocking debate ended this weekend.

Goodbye to the last vestiges of 20th century top-down media. Goodbye to the fear of what humans might produce given the opportunity to work collectively in thought and goodwill. Good morning, humankind.

So teachers, don’t try to teach kids to live in a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Rather, reach out and take hold of the possibilities social media offers. Anyone countering you doesn’t deserve the authority their office holds.

This is the moment. Legitimize social media in education.

When it comes to content filtering and other administrative policies relating to technology and social media, in many contexts we definitely have a strong need to “unmask the digital truth.” What ARE the reasons all blogs and wikis are blocked in many school districts? Why do some organizational leaders resist attempts to embrace social media and blog coverage of conference events as well as organizational meetings?

At NECC 2009 this year, it’s going to be exciting to not only EXPERIENCE the conference, but also SHARE the conference. We are probably only beginning to glimpse the power of social media tools to communicate and amplify ideas as well as conversations. Social media’s potential to provide transparency for a national election or a local school board meeting is largely untouched in many communities, but that reality is changing. Quickly.

We’re living in a “publish at will” digital landscape. What will you share today?!

* I first heard Marco Torres use the phrase “the global stage” at an educational technology conference, when referencing students publishing work online for a worldwide audience.

This very thought provoking topic is part of an already fervent global conversation that grows in intensity everyday. Expect this debate to be tremendously valuable to all of us attending NECC 2009 as it will probably influence the way you view the future of your career in education. The actual panelists are due to be announced soon so check back for a follow up to this post and find out who will be spearheading this important debate. Be the first to know by following us on Twitter @isteconnects.