31 January 2010

Exhaling at EduCon


Note: The bulk of this was written at nearly 11:30pm on Saturday, 30 January 2010, upon arriving home from EduCon 2.2.  I just wanted to get these thoughts down before I went to bed and lost the feeling I had at the time; “post-production” tweaking was done with the benefit of a clearer head and a few hours of sleep.

I’ve just walked in the door from Educon 2.2, a conference structured as a series of breakout conversations about current and future issues in education, facilitated by classroom teachers, professors, researchers, and students, among others.

I was fortunate to attend sessions led by Gary Stager, Ben Hazzard & Rodd Lucier, and Jon Becker & Justin Bothan.  In between I spent time walking around the conference site, Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, and taking in the classroom setups, the facilities, and even the little details like the posters & flyers on the walls.  The majority of what little down time I had, however, was spent speaking and rubbing a friendly elbow with many people with whom I had heretofore only corresponded online via Twitter or Facebook.

Doubtless, there will be a flurry of blog posts over the next week about how great EduCon was (and it was!), and what people’s favorite presenters or sessions were, or what have you.  What’s on my mind right now, however, is the value of the time spent in between sessions.  I imagine that most folks at EduCon have a few things in common:

  • we fancy ourselves “progressive” educators (for whatever that might mean to each of us)
  • we are proponents of increasing student access to technology
  • we believe that there is a significant degree of change needed in the American education system, from the federal level down to individual classroom practices.

I don’t know that these phrases always describe the majority of our colleagues outside of our little online pseudo-social circles.

While it’s easy to look at the folks congregating in-between (or in some cases, during) sessions and cast aspersions that they’re prioritizing socializing over their own learning, consider how isolating the teaching profession can be in general.  Then, place yourself in a small subset of educators who can be defined by the above criteria.  For teachers who work in districts where their passion is not only ignored, but sometimes actively discouraged or prohibited by colleagues and superiors alike, social sessions with like-minded people are a necessity for sharing ideas, blowing off steam, and, as someone I spoke with earlier today said (I forget who, sorry!), “remembering that we’re not crazy”.  In some cases, it can feel like a deep exhalation.

There’s always been talk of the dangers of the “echo chamber” effect in ed-tech circles online.  Yes, it’s a valid concern, but considering how far the pendulum swings in the other direction for most of us in our professional lives, it’s not as if there’s not plenty to bring us ‘back to reality’.  Indulging in some off-the-clock camaraderie, perhaps even at the expense of a structured, scheduled activity, is not only acceptable, but vital to our continued advocacy in the face of continued opposition.  The sessions gave us plenty of food for thought about what we can do differently (or do more of) in our classrooms, buildings, and districts, but the shared food, drink, and laughter outside those sessions nourished our souls.

And I’m definitely going back next year for seconds.

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16 November 2009

NJEA 2009: Teach > Tech


It’s been over a  week since my two-day presenting stint at the New Jersey Education Association‘s annual statewide teacher’s convention in Atlantic City, and I have to say that, my crippling sinus infection notwithstanding, it was an incredible experience.

Credit must be given where it’s due: I think the organizers of this year’s High Tech Hall really got it right in terms of how to provide participants in such a huge setting (we’re talking attendance estimates in the tens of thousands) access to tools and meaningful uses thereof (as meaningful as you can get in a giant convention center, anyway).  Presenters in High Tech Hall were given round tables (approx. 6′ diameter), 32″ LCD screens, and 8-9 chairs.  We hooked up our own netbooks, laptops, speakers, and whatever other peripherals we needed, and conducted “drop-in” sessions where we could talk with small groups of people (see photos) about our respective topics (I did 4 hours on wikis and 4 hours on developing learning networks).

Having given both large group lectures and small group drop-in sessions, my favorite type is by far the small group setting.  I really enjoyed being able to talk with the folks who dropped in, find out what they knew and what they needed to know, and learn about their specific professional circumstances.  I was then able to tailor my presentation to their individual needs and help guide them where they felt they needed to go, not necessarily where I wanted to take them.

Toward the end of the day, I was talking with a resource room reading (I think?  sorry!) teacher who was thinking that wikis might somehow be encouraging to her students.  After explaining the basics of the tool, as well as listening to her background, we agreed that a wiki probably wasn’t going to be of much use to her students.  Due to the small setting, however (she was the only one at my table; this was about 10 minutes before shutting down for the day), I was able to sit and brainstorm with her for a bit, and I showed her Audacity, a free program for digital audio recording.  We talked a bit about teaching reading, oral fluency, listening skills, and self-monitoring & self-evaluation, and after some further discussion and an impromptu demonstration, that teacher left with at least another idea for helping her students.

It didn’t matter to me that a wiki was not in her immediate future because that would not have helped her students.  I liked being able to go “off book” and use what knowledge of tools I have to help her brainstorm some ideas for activities (aided, not driven, by technology) that would suit her students’ needs.  We do all our students a far greater service by letting their needs drive the choice of technological tools (or the choice to not use technology), rather than the other way around.  As I have said in the past, when you add a wiki (or a podcast, or a blog, or a Voicethread) to a poorly designed lesson, it doesn’t magically become a good lesson – it’s just a bad lesson with a wiki.  Folks who attended the High Tech Hall sessions were exposed to dozens, if not hundreds, of technological tools, along with ideas for classroom implementations.  Speaking as one who knows all too well how easy it is to get swept up in shiny new things, it is my hope that they balance their enthusiasm for their new tools with a very clear picture of the pedagogical benefits they offer (or don’t).

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3 November 2009

NJEA Convention – High Tech Hall


This Thursday and Friday, I will be presenting at the New Jersey Education Assocation’s statewide conference in Atlantic City.  To be sharing presentation time with folks like Kevin Jarrett and Lisa Thumann is a bit humbling, and if I can get through the whole thing without spilling anything on myself or tripping over a computer wire, I’ll consider it a success.

If you’ll be at the convention, stop by High Tech Hall to see Kevin, Lisa, me, and a slew of other folks speak about (and, more importantly, show examples of) using various technological tools to enhance teaching and learning experiences.

On Thursday, I’ll be discussing “Exploring Online Personal Learning Networks” from 9am – 1pm (supporting wiki), then from 1pm – 5pm, it’s “Wikis, Wikis, Everywhere” (supporting wiki).  These presentations are both condensed versions of multi-day PD courses I conducted when I worked at Hunterdon Central Regional High School.

On Friday morning from 10:15 to 11:15, I’ll be running a shorter, 1-hour version of “Wikis, Wikis” in Classroom 2, where participants will have access to computers and have the opportunity to create and explore along with me (computer access is limited and first come, first served, so get there early!).

Hope to see you in Atlantic City!

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14 September 2009

How I Spent My Summer Vacation


This summer was a lot of things for me and my family, but “relaxing” was not one of them.  With a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old (who’s going on 16) to keep entertained, it felt like the summer was a blur of museum visits, amusement park rides, movies, and trips to my ancestral homeland (the Jersey Shore).

Fortunately, amidst all the running around, I was able to engage in two professional development activities that gave me great cause for optimism about the state of social media and technology in education.  The first was speaking with a group of educators at my former place of employment, Hunterdon Central Regional High School.  Will Richardson wrote fairly extensively about it here, but the Cliff’s Notes version is that a group of 20-25 teachers from across disciplines will be piloting a 1:1 netbook program with about 300 students this year.  Doubtless, HCRHS is an affluent district, but unlike many others with more money than sense, they really front-loaded their teacher’s training this summer with discussion and reflection on constructivist teaching and the role that personal computers can play in that.  In other words, it wasn’t “tech tech tech”, it was “teach well with tech”.

I was particularly happy to see two new educational bloggers emerge from this cohort, library media specialist Heather Hersey and English teacher Cathy Stutzman.  I’m really looking forward to reading their public reflections and learning from them, and I’d be lying if I said that watching all this from the outside didn’t make me just the teensiest bit envious that I won’t be a part of some potentially great things at Central.

Another event I was honored to be a part of was Patrick Woessner‘s panel discussion entitled Digital Citizenship & Social Media in the Classroom and Life (click for link to mp3 archive of our chat).  I joined Chris Betcher, Matt Montagne, and Kevin Jarrett via TinyChat for a group videoconference with teachers at Patrick’s school on topics such as Internet filters, use of social media tools with elementary students, and all manner of other neat stuff.  To be talking about a topic about which I’m passionate to a captive audience was thrilling enough, but to do so while bouncing ideas off these guys (and building off their own thoughts) was really a privilege, and I hope it signifies good things to come at this school in St. Louis.

I guess what ties what’s happening at these two schools in New Jersey and Missouri all together for me is this feeling that something is changing in education that is coming from the ground up.   These changes are not coming as a result of administrative directives; in fact, just the opposite is usually true – the movement is coming from teachers who are realizing where the next big shift in education could come from, and how we can harness that for the benefit of our students.  They are becoming school leaders through action and example, not simply by virtue of a degree, certificate, or job title.  It also underscores for me my belief that while the technology enables us to do some really cool stuff, the oft-cited “21st Century Skills” are as much, if not more, about the human connections we help to create, both inside and outside our classrooms and schools as they are about the technological tools we use to foster communication.  Students, much like potential customers or clients, are tired of being spoken to/at – that doesn’t fly anymore.  They want to be part of a conversation, and the teachers at HCRHS and MICDS are, directly and indirectly, fostering conversations about learning as well as about content, which is neither new nor revolutionary – it’s just not done enough.

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3 July 2009

Mapping Out My Mind


The other night, I got to thinking about some things I’ve got coming up on the horizon, both personal and professional.  The funny thing about it was that with each new thought, I came up with another two or three tangentially related things I’d like to accomplish.  In a way, it was almost overwhelming to think about what I have to/want to accomplish in my personal and professional lives in the next few years, but in a good way.  I’ve got lots to look forward to, so much so that I didn’t want to forget anything or let a potentially good idea slip once I moved on to the next idea.

I fired up my MindMeister account and started a mind map entitled “Yearly Goals”.  From this central main topic, I had five branches – one for each of the next five academic years (e.g., “2009-2010″, “2010-2011″, etc.):

capture

As I recorded some of the ideas I had thought of earlier on the mindmap, I placed them under the year I thought I’d begin or complete them.  I don’t want to go into too many specific details here regarding content, but I will say that by the time I was finished, I had a very clear idea of what I was going to work on this summer and coming school year and what could safely wait until at least next summer and beyond.  This has helped me to focus my energy and attention on what is most immediately needed.

In the matter of about 20-30 minutes, I went from feeling overwhelmed with abstract concepts and ideas to having a very clearly defined, well organized plan of attack.  Mindmapping is not something I ever got into in depth with my students (although I did use graphic organizers to aid in writing), but maybe I should have.  My expertise is in the secondary English/language arts setting, but I imagine students in any project-based or multi-step environment could benefit from something like this.  In addition to helping me “pace myself” and sort out a plan of attack, an unexpected benefit of this exercise was seeing what smaller milestones I can achieve in between the major ones I’m shooting for.  Instead of focusing on the big things I’m planning for 2011-2012, for example, and wishing I could fast-forward to that date, I now have a list of smaller, more manageable (but still important) achievements to keep my focus on in the here & now (not one of my strong suits!).

Although I did this for personal reasons, how many of your students, in a special ed or general ed setting, could benefit from some short and long-term goal-setting like this, online or off, for curricular or other purposes?

For further information on mindmaps, check out Dr. Brian Friedlander’s blog – he has written more extensively on the topic than any other blogger I’ve read.

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