Opportunities and Challenges for Web 2.0

Lucky enough today to catch a quick tweet from @neilstephenson letting all of us know about a great tech and learning event featuring Alan November, Ellen Bialo and Jay Sivin-Kachala, and Terrell Tucker. The focus was Opportunities and Challenges for Web 2.0 in Schools. I've embedded the slides below...and the audio is available here. It's nice to hear Alan November speak, the results of surveys conducted, and how a school is doing it the right way. It's a relatively quick production and worthwhile in my opinion.

Things I came away with:

Web 2.0 tremendous vehicle for collaboration and authentic learning
Administration needs to be comfortable with the tools before complete support is available
Teacher generated content will be viewed as invaluable reason for adaptation
Students are driving force in adoption of these tools

Antiquated research methods?

Great video/skit called Joe's Non-Netbook had my wife and I laughing for an hour. I found it while re-reading a few of Chris Lehman's posts that I had fallen behind on. Chris is a Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA (Opening 9/06) It also made us talk about how true the statements are. When the student tries to
pull the picture to his folder so he can save it for later...I almost died.



But seriously, how do we use textbooks in the classroom? How should we?
To many kids, books are for reading Fiction and non-Fiction, or retelling and summarizing the content for a book report. Textbooks are...ahem boring. I said it, I know, but seriously they can be a little dry with very little interactivity built in.
They do their research online with little thought for authenticity or verification of data.
I often hear teacher's say that "They still need to know how to look things up in an encyclopedia..." Do they? Or "Wikipedia is a bad idea because it allows users to "GASP" edit the content."
Please don't go off on a rant on the value in reading books, I get that and I agree, I am always reading something printed, but textbooks are doing little to stimulate our students whereas the web does this so often.

Great Tutorial on Wikipedia

"Ban Wikipedia" article

Encyclopedia Brittanica 2.0 an article about how Wikipedia model is being copied and used.

Got a minute? Check out this TEDtalk from Patti Maes...
Patti Maes demos the sixth sense.
Great tool? or frightening revelation?
Paraphrasing a line... "Great to meet you, can you hold on a sec whle i google you?" :)
I want one!

What do we know about the effect of technology on student achievement?

Dr. Robert Marzano addresses the question "What do we know about the effect of technology on student achievement?" at the CUE 2009 Conference on March 6, 2009.

Points I took away...

Training before receiving technology increases ability to use productively.
Teacher Experience increases achievement.
Too much use is a deterrent, like anything right?
Takes two years to reach comfort level critical for increased achievement
Focus on content (digital pedagogy) not cool factor or "bells and whistles"
Still checking for understanding all the time is critical

What are your thoughts?

Two lines I loved...
"No more excuses!"
"No magic bullet, but instead magic BB's"

Facebooking and Education

Great post by Ryan Bretag and a conversation that needs to occur. Great questions posed, like; Should Teachers Accept Friend Requests From Students", and "Should Teachers Request Friendship From Students". I think there are many benefits to online learning and social interaction. I agree with what Ryan says and maybe a Ning is a much tighter and private space for these learnings to be modeled and applied. I use wikis for that purpose because I'm in a K-6 setting and because I want to model safety first. I think that there would be a lot of professors that would be very appreciative if the students came into their classes with strong digital safety education and experience in these settings.
That said, I tweet and I don't mind if my students read along...I keep it clean and try to respect those boundaries we need to have.
Here's a post that also covers this topic pretty well. Thanks Ryan for asking the questions!

Do we contribute to grade inflation?

Grade Inflation? Great article from christian Science Monitor. The article is in reference to colleges and universities, but as a K-6 teacher I wonder if it reaches down here, too? We use a standards based 1-4 scoring scale, which would not be as measurable as the university numbers to the right.
What makes these grades go up? I asked my students today in class and their responses were.."Are we smarter?" Then they asked "Are teachers, just better?" I didn't know what to say to them. I believe that its a combination of many things. I think that maybe there's a lack of rigor in our classes from Grad school down to Kindergarten. I also think that there are some teachers who may be less likely;y to criticize because of perceived and real repercussions that an entitled generation could lay on them. Is this a genuine issue? I don't know. Then again, maybe we are smarter and teaching better? I don't know, but I know that this post stuck with me all day today as I thought more and more about it, and wondered if I m contributing to this or if I am challenging the students enough.
I love my job and I love the challenges that come our way...I hopoe this can spoark a good conversation for me.

Is it the Test? Content or Context?

"The experiment confirmed what language researchers have long maintained: the key to comprehension is familiarity with the relevant subject."
This Op-ed article from the NY Times, Reading Test Dummies, brings up a great point about our tests and their authenticity. To find content that would be familiar to every student would be tough. However, I think it's important to make it relevant, if it is to be an authentic assessment the test should have a connectedness to the real world they live in. Would it still be a standardized test if the prompts were different? I'm unsure, but like the author said, asking a student to read for comprehension on a topic like "taking a hike in the Appalachians even though they’ve never left the sidewalks of New York, nor studied the Appalachians in school" seems biased and unfair.
Why do we ask kids to engage in, and analyze a reading passage differently than we do as adults?
I think there are other factors, too, like passion for a subject or curiosity; these would impact relevance I think, too.

Ask Questions...Answer even more!

If you read this post then you know that I love learning from other edubloggers and I especially am fond of Colorado bloggers.I'm biased, but I think we have some awesome things going on up here, #COLEARNING is a great symbol of that. Tonight I read Ben Wilkoff's blog (must read if you don't already do so) and I couldn't agree more. Below is a reply I posted to his blog, but I could've gone on forever. Here's a snippet that speaks to many of us from his post (go read it)

"It happens when
someone asks a question or has a request of you. They have a simple
thought that they would like to discuss with you, but instead of
answering, you put it off or say that you don’t have time for their
tangent. You talk about all of the other things that you have to do
and you just don’t have time for their little project.

While this may be strictly true, you are shutting any opportunity to
advance your relationships with those people who ask or your skills
with the tools that are required for the request."

Right on! Cool Cat mentioned something similar to this today or yesterday and I can't agree more. Yes it's exhausting, and yes it feels like you're pulled in hundreds of directions, but if you can seize every moment and BE HERE NOW then you are relevant, productive, and changing traditional roles and structures.
The teachers working with you are lucky to have such a forward thinking guide and peer to bounce ideas off of.
I answer numerous emails daily about seemingly pointless tasks related to voicethreads, wikis, etc, but if I can ignite a passion for forward thinking in a teacher then I'm igniting that passion in other teachers in their building and countless students this year and possibly next!
I love to think that way...am I that impactful (not a word, I know) probably not, but it helps me make time and BE HERE NOW!

Three things you must do!
1. Take time today to engage each of your students in authentic instruction!
2. Seek out someone in your pod, building or network and offer your time.
3. Ask a question of someone who knows more than you...they want to help, they just don't know how.

# 3 is a struggle for me, but I'm doing better, I try to ask for help and ask often if my tweets fail to register. I know enough to know that I don't know much, so I always can find a question. :)

Photo courtesy of Flickr

Assessment Call to Action a paper and a study

21st century learning a learning styles is something that is brought up by teachers who are engaging in these tech literacy and pedagogical shifts in their schools and communities. The need and desire to get technology in the forefront of our thinking and lesson planning has been talked about quite a bit in recent years. What hasn't been done is the leaders in the industry addressing these issues directly and telling our schools what they think these learners should look like and what they are expecting when their education is completed.

This is a quote from a study/paper began in January 2009
Partners in Education Transformation (Cisco, Intel and Microsoft)
Transforming Education: Assessing and Teaching 21st Century Skills

"In the 21st century economy and society, the memorization of facts and implementation of simple procedures is less important; the ability to respond flexibly to complex problems, to communicate effectively, to manage information, to work in teams, to use technology, and to produce new knowledge is crucial. These capabilities are rarely taught in schools or measured on typical assessments.
The ability to respond flexibly to complex problems, to communicate effectively, to manage information, to work in teams, to use technology, and to produce new knowledge is crucial to economic success."

What can we do as educators? We can help the data collection, assist in the sharing of ideas and help to educate and inform teachers that want to learn more, but don't have the questions in front of them yet. Here's their tips on getting involved. Read the article, get involved if you can.

How you can get involved
In the context of the Project’s goals, structure, and activities, we are looking for:

• Assessment experts, researchers, business leaders, policymakers, and non‐governmental organizations—especially those who have been working in this area—to help identify and specify 21st century skills in measurable ways.
• Assessment experts, researchers, educators, software developers, and ministry officials to develop, collect, and share exemplary ICT‐based assessment tasks and scoring rubrics.
• Assessment experts, researchers, and software and network engineers—especially those who have been the leaders in experimenting with ICT‐based assessment—to share their experience and expertise, identify and address the barriers to ICT‐based assessment, and develop breakthrough technologies and analytic methodologies.
• Policymakers and ministry officials who are interested in having their countries help shape and refine the efforts of the Project and participate in the implementation and pilot testing of the new assessments.
• Businesses, foundations, and government agencies to co‐fund these important efforts in private‐public partnership.

My question is what is this going to tell us? Will their study end more credibility to the teachers trying to create this shift and style?

Economic Stimulus Proposal Ideas - Pro/Con

This article from the NSDC Blog stayed with me the last couple of days and as I was thinking of pros and cons to their ideas... I came up with a few, as always please add to the discussion.
"these funds have the potential to significantly impact the reach and quality of professional learning for all educators. Given the time constraints surrounding this legislation, the funds must be used on one-time investments vs. programs with ongoing commitments. Most importantly, these funds must be applied in ways that demonstrate to the investors --the public -- a significant improvement in teaching and learning in schools."

* Prepare more instructional coaches by developing the knowledge and skills necessary to support improved educator practice and student learning.
Pro: direct impact in the schools.
Con:Teachers may feel "forced" to reform and that could backfire

* Prepare more teacher leaders to advance the NSDC definition of professional development.
Pro: Professional Development funding
Con:No direct benchmarks named to assess successes.

* Contract with one or more external consultants to provide one-on-one technical assistance to principals to create new master schedules that enable collaborative teacher teams to engage in professional learning two or more times each week.
Pro: Ideas coming form outside the traditional arenas. Michael Bennett a great example of this.
Con: Lack of understanding for professional philosophies and ideas.

* Identify and support demonstration sites to serve as models of excellence in implementing effective professional learning.
Pro: Learning from a best practices frame of mind
Con: lack of transparency in selection process available right now.

* Provide two-years of intensive coaching and instructional leadership support for principals in low-performing schools.
Pro: Get the help where it is most needed.
Con: seems like a band aid on a broken leg philosophy

* Provide two-years of intensive technical assistance and support for leadership teams in low-performing schools.
Pro: Create cultural change valuing professional development
Con:Mandatory, not by choice could lead to resentment.

* Conduct a Professional Learning Audit; organize a local task force to critically review and assess the purpose, form, and results from professional development in the school district. Similarly, administer and use the results of NSDC's Standards Assessment Inventory.
Pro; thorough data gathering could give good information and lead to change
Con: slow process...anyone on a committee at school nows it will not go quickly.

* Organize, facilitate, and support volunteer teams of teachers who want to pilot the continuous cycle of improvement described in NSDC's definition of professional development. Contract with one or more external consultants or institutions of higher education to document and assess each team's experience.
Pro: Motivation through intrinsic rewards and being part of something bigger
Con: More work not more money for overworked teachers

This was just the rambling in my head as I read this article, I'm sure there is so much more that I hadn't even thought of, please share.

What are you doing with your technology?

Recently I was asked if I had seen Shift Happens, a question that I hadn't heard in quite awhile, I replied that I had and I'd seen some mashups recently as well. When I first watched the video I remember feeling frustrated and wanting to see massive changes in the schools. I've watched countless reactions to the video and they usually begin with we need more technology in the classroom. But what if that isn't the point at all? I believe the shift needs to come in the form of education, application, and digital pedagogy, or digigogy. Web 2.0 tools are great and I use them every day in my classroom to "hook" the students; I always say it's a tool not the curriculum which is why sometimes it's hard to assess whether the tool or the student is creating . If we use the web to connect and extend the walls of our classroom we're beginning the process. Using the Grappling's technology spectrum to guide the lesson planning forces us as teachers to extend our own thinking and really target the learning objectives that we have. Then our students in K-6 will be Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. If we all come together and create rubrics that can guide our assessment then we will all be better teachers. (join this wiki and let's create the rubrics together!!!) @paulawhite, among others has spearheaded this idea through a conversation we all had over a period of a week on twitter.

Like this article from a year ago talks about; more laptops and SMART boards are nice and they will help accessibility assuming the school is wireless and has adequate bandwidth (otherwise that MUST be a priority), but if they are just typewriters and big projectors then we missed the point. We need to start by putting the technology we have in front of the students, then shifting our thinking, and finally helping each other through the process. We cna access their enormous potential by setting them up for success. Let them find the knowledge, then mash it up and create their own application of it. We don't need to teach them that the Civil War occurred 1861-1865, instead show them authentic documents and primary sources, let them research. discover, and create from the miles of resources available to them. Teaching them where to access, how to access, and the power of accessing information, will set them up for future success no matter where they are, they will guide and direct their learning like we do, by curiosity and the want to learn.

What does this have to do with education?

I'm not sure what we can learn as teachers from the Chris Brown Rhianna incident, but I can tell you that your students are talking about it, hopefully with their parents, but maybe not. I've thought for a long time that we don't address character education enough in a K-6 setting. I don't mean behavior and rewards based on positive or intrinsic motivators, I mean character in a bigger sense. Reading these articles today made me cringe.
"Rhianna saga showing vicious cycle"
and
"Survey finds many Boston kids placing blame on Rhianna"

The headlines speak to me as a father of a girl and a boy and honestly scare me to death.

What are we doing to educate about the cycles battered men and women find themselves in? I won't rant about this because I try to stay on education topics in this blog, but I do think we should ask ourselves how can we teach character education in a k-12 setting and are we doing enough of it.
Here's a great free resource for teaching character ed in k-12 I'm going to look at it again more closely....hopefully we can find ways to stop this from happening to our little girls and boys.

Screen Capture taken from Bostonherald.com
Resource is from goodcharacter.com

Web 2.0 Resources Galore

There is no end to the number of sites that love to show you all of the web 2.0 tools available. This site in particular caught my eye because of its easy interface and accessibility. they have launched a BETA version which is even easier and more visually appealing than the earlier version. Go2Web2.0

Teachers Sharing and Collaborating!! AWESOME!

Loving this site!

"'Ideas to Inspire' is a collection of Google Docs presentations, which offer a large number of ideas for engaging lesson activities in a range of curriculum areas.The presentations are a collaboration between lots of fantastic teachers around the world.Choose a presentation to begin, or find out more here."

I love the idea of opening up presentations to any and everyone who can contribute. Talk about maximizing the power of twitter and social networking. Kudos to those who have already contributed and count me into the number of people that want to add and join the conversation! Thanks for showing how tools can be used so easily in our classrooms even if our classrooms happen to be oceans away from each other.

It makes me think that there's so many untapped resources just waiting to be harnessed and explored by each other, for each other. Teachers who have the students in mind when planning and implementing instruction will always be an awesome resource in my opinion.

"Do you have an amazing idea which could be added?
Share it by emailing or tweeting!"

If you are looking for more ideas, why not explore
Teaching Ideas, MrWarner.com,
Tom Barrett's blog, Doug Belshaw's blog or Joe Rowing's blog?

Podcasting in Education...cool links

Picture from http://www.youthchg.com and notes that the picture is used with permission of Youth Change Teacher Workshops.

Cool Podcast Links and Articles

iTunes U Proves Better than Going to Class - ReadWriteWeb

The Education Podcast Network | A Landmark Project

Study: class podcasts can lead to better grades - Ars Technica

Podcast Library | Open Culture

Podcasting in Education | PoducateMe

Classroom Management Podcasts

Learning in Hand - Podcasting in Education

HOW TO: Convert Your Blog Into a Podcast on iTunes for Free

Record by phone with Gabcast.com

Speaking of History........

Vocal Removal - Audacity Wiki

iPod Educators

Motivate Your Students to Podcast

Daily Lit and using your RSS

I love my RSS feed and Daily Lit is a big reason
It's called Daily Lit and it will allow you read books as easy as checking your email or RSS. Each day they send you a piece of the book, until before long you've read the book.


Here are some other great RSS feeds and tools to use
100 Cool Things You Can Do With RSS » Accredited Degrees
Page2RSS
Tabbloid
StumbleUpon
FeedBeater.com
Grazr - Gather Feeds, Create Streams, Publish Widgets
Twiffid: see what your Twitter friends are blogging about
Feedbooks: Food for the mind

Copyright law...antiquated?

There is so much information out there, but here's a link to a paper that explored the perfect time limit for copyright: read it if you have the time, it's very interesting.


That was the most exciting thing that I read this morning and it's been a story four years in the making which kind of makes my point on this. Why do we have such a ridiculously long copyright in this country right now?
Larry Lessig recently talked about this in an @ Google talk and opened my eyes to the Sonny Bono law, which changed the copyright law from life plus 50 years and now it's life plus 70 years. The original law 1909 was for 28 years. It has been extended now 11 times? Why?

Now with so much talk about Creative Commons, should we revisit this again?

Should we limit it to 14 years as the founders believed?
I say yes, I believe that a 14 year copyright is reasonable and could be beneficial to the "lawbreakers" in our schools and on the web, but realistically the law needs to be changed.

Links of Interest
Creative Commons
Why I CopyFight
Code of Best Practices
Creating a media Library
Creative Commons Search
Creative Commons Wiki Search
Web Rights

Do we have the time?

Do we have the time to incorporate these tools into our students learning? Will this get in the way of our pedagogy or CAP or lessons that we love and have used for years? My gut tells me that we don't have any more time...we spend most if not all of our time in the K-6 classrooms assessing; finding time is hard.

But I just can't accept that as my answer. I think we're ripping these kids off if we do that. We have to be finding time to learn and engage them in the classroom. Learning is messy, yes sometimes technology breaks, slows us down, or doesn't meet the expectations we have; but we must persist. The kids in our classes deserve it.

I've been reading the discussion posts in this course and the light switches going on and excitement created in our class' is motivating to me. Has it been for you? There are some great things going on and I'm excited to hear about it; knowing that there are more students today reaching those higher order thinking skills of create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember; through wikis, voicethreads, google docs, delicious, and many more.


My point about time I guess is that this week we can look at how to save time. Through an RSS reader we can have great content delivered to us like a newspaper on the porch. If you can stay with Classroom20, Twitter, Plurk, Delicious or Diigo, you will save time and learn so much; I can promise.


I've thoroughly enjoyed working and learning with every one of you this session. I hope that you were able to get something to take back to your classroom or school and show someone else. If you ever have any questions I am always available via email, or tweet.

State testing week...why do we do this again?

I've had my beefs with NCLB for awhile now. CSAP (Colorado's test)weeks frustrate me to no end. First of all I hate taking down all the kids work and posters and discussions we've had and I hate how I'm expected to not answer ?'s about the test and by all means don't TALK about the test to ANYONE!!!! I wanted to pull some quotes for pros and cons on the debate and let them stew in my head for a couple days. I found myself angry and frustrated with the entire process whether it was how the bill and idea came to be or what it encompassed. I felt passionately that there were not any pros to this debate. I was inspired by my frustration, so I looked into it more closely. “When consequences are tied to assessment, they increase the pressure on schools, teachers, and students to perform well on standardized tests. The pressure may be minor, causing little worry for students or teachers. Or, the pressure could be of such a magnitude that it causes anger or resistance to occur.” (Nichols) This article spoke deeply to me because I wondered the same thing. I sit in my classroom and for the next two weeks we will be giving these High Stakes tests and I’m still unsure for the reasons. I also looked into the Pros of this debate. “Rewards for success, punishment for failure. NCLB raises standards by forcing states to meet the federal guidelines. School performance is judged by subgroup, thus low subgroup performance cannot be hidden within in district/state-averages. Reliable and longitudinal data enables teacher to develop education plans.”
Do we really believe that these rewards are enough justification? Can all of these rewards be measured? Don't get me wrong, I am a BIG fan of DATA driven instruction, so long as that data is coming from multiple sources and is a fair authentic assessment. My problem with CSAP is that I'm unsure if it's fair and accurate assessment of measurable goals in the classroom.
I'd love to hear what other people think.