LightintheWoods

Last week I was helping Moose Jaw teacher, Sandi Kerney, set up Skype. She was preparing for her class call to Sgt. Paul Park in Afghanistan. Unfortunately on that Thursday morning of the call, Paul had difficulty with his connection and Skype. The students were so disappointed and I hope they get another chance to chat with Paul. Visiting a soldier on a foreign assignment is an unbelievable opportunity.

As this was all happening, Sandi contacted me for a Skype call. Not knowing what to talk with the students about I decided on an impromptu virtual tour of the University of Regina campus. (Being a university student is one area in which I excel.) Thanks to the wireless network on campus, I carried my Macbook through the halls showing this group of students a few classrooms. We only lost the signal as I descended from the 6th floor in the elevator. From there, I lead them down hallways and explored the new gymnasium.

Connecting with these students for 10 minutes was the highlight of my day. They were interested in the University and I hope this experience will provoke future questions and investigation of higher education.

This is just a another brief success story of using Skype to connect to people outside the walls of the classroom.

For now I think I should be hired on at the University as a recruiter. Anybody else want a tour?

During my first degree, I was fortunate to participate in a co-operative work experience program.  I had the opportunity to learn the introductory ropes of the administration profession by building relationships in the organizations I worked with.  Then, just this fall I completed my teaching internship in a Moose Jaw school, where I was able to observe the professionals around me.  These types of hands on, in person learning experiences have guided much of my development and I think apprenticeship is an important stage of development in each of our chosen fields. We ask experts to lead us.  The faculties that I have studied under have done a fantastic job of creating these face to face mentorships.

Future students are going to have many opportunities to meet mentors in virtual spaces, by using virtual tools.  The  potential for this online mentorship is too large to disregard. In the future, training teachers will be introduced to experienced teachers from around the globe.  Apprentice engineers will correspond with industry leaders.  More and more people will learn from qualified people that span geographic boundaries.  This is the way it is for me, and the way it will be for our future colleagues.  We develop a inner circle of contacts, folks we connect with frequently that contribute to our professional growth.  In return, students participate in pushing discussion, by questioning practice and eventually entering their workforce with an experienced viewpoint.  A viewpoint that has heard and reflected on the various pieces of the profession.  By reading and chatting about best practices and observing exemplary models online, students develop a matured perspective of their chosen field.

I think it is important for teachers and faculties develop a strategy for connecting their students to experienced experts.  We now have tools that allow for communication, for collaboration.  New learning possibilities abound.

My friend Lowell posted this Video. 3 guys get together to create hollywood style filming. Very cool use of green screen.

An interesting thing happened tonight. Steve Dembo hosted Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind. Daniel spoke live at this Webinar through WebEx. Upwards of 190 people listened, some of whom participated in live chat. Great Learning happened. It became interesting when CoolCatTeacher, Vicki Davis created a google Doc for Show Notes. 29 people participated collaborating to create the document.

As I contemplate how learning happens, I see possibilities for Google Docs in the classroom and auditorium. In January, I begin a position with the Center for Acedemic Technology and The Center for Teaching and Learning. One of my tasks will be to present to faculty from around the University of Regina on relevant ways to adopt web 2.0 tools into their teaching practice. I think Google Docs is a good place to start. Whether it is compiling notes or participating in a larger scale project. A good example of this comes from Digital Ethnography @ Kansas State University and Professor Wecsh’s Video A Vision of Students Today. Students used Google Docs to compile stats and info.

This afternoon I will be sitting in on presentation on podcasting and video editing for an hour and 15 min each.
Dean Shareski is presenting Podcasting in the Classroom. I will paraphrase Dean throughout his presentation.  Dean has been working with the Digital Internship Project.

Nothing to do with iPods. Dean suggests that maybe we shoud call it ‘netcasting’. Podcasts are another way of sharing information. It is important to spend some time and look at what other people are doing with podcasts in the classroom and what kind of content is out there. Find exemplary work.

We are talking about how we can subscribe and use podcasts successfully through iTunes.

What kind of content would be of interest to students and listeners?

How do we make and load podcasts? (simply & quickly)

Lots of related links to tools through Deans wiki. Podcast People is recommended as the easiest tool to use in creating podcasts. Dean is demoing how we create content direct to the web, similar to voicethread. Not as rich as using a tool like GarageBand but is a great online application.

Dean is showing the process of how he recorded his recent Skype conversation with Clarence Fisher, using audacity. He then uploaded the .mp3 of his Podcast 33, the third installment of his interviews for his K12 presention on classroom design. to archive.org.

Students can write scripts and practice talking. Try to make it sound like you are telling a story. That is the initial start, show examples of kids that don’t sound like they are reading directly from the script.

Dean showed the video of Bob Sprankle’s work.

Session 2: Alecs Digital Video Presentation 2:30-3:45

All you need a camera and a firewire cable.

Take video’s off youtube

iMovie trials

Tonight I sat down with my friend and colleague, Paul Bazin. Recently I have been pushing Paul to embrace the web 2.0 world and since September he has taken some great strides. Already he manages a blog, We have set sail to learn, within his classroom. We have chatted about bringing our classes together through blogging and perhaps online blog mentorship in some capacity.

As Paul helped me learn how to use my MacBook more efficiently, I helped him become more familiar with his blog, introduced him to twitter, del.icio.us, a variety of links and Google Reader. It was such a good learning experience for me to take some time to walk a colleague through these tools. It helped that Paul was keen to learn and had started his own web 2.0 exploration prior to our visit. This is how change happens, impact one teacher at a time if you have to. Slowly more will come to see the benefits that result from technology implementation.

On a side note: I have only ever tackled photo editing once before. Today our discussion at the Digital Internship Seminar pushed me to try out picnik and phixr. My verdict, they do the same thing but picnik seems more friendly.

As a requirement of the class that I am taking from Dean, my thoughts this past two weeks have been on collaboration. This is a reflection on my collaboration as it happened through this time frame.

Right off the bat Erin Dawson and I were sharing like minded direction during our elluminate session. We both wanted to create a wiki project on inclusion of technology in K-8 Science. Seemed like a great idea, but then it snowballed and evolved into elementarytech. This wiki demonstrates a broad spectrum of projects that infuse technology. We used mindmeister to brainstorm ideas and communicated mostly through email. I have heard the the quote from Alec Couros, “10 miles wide, 2 inches deep” and definitely applies to this wiki, we lacked direction. But I am still attached to it, I feel it has good potential and I intend to collect future lessons, links, units in this space. If anyone is interested, please come share with us. This is space that is ever growing.
Nicole Hofer created the Digital Citizen Ning group, I was familiar with Ning from my involvement with the digitalintern group and find it to be a neat platform to share and build community. I contributed a couple videos, but have intent to blog and develop this further. At the very least it is a good example of networking. I may use Ning to connect my students during this internship.

The neat part about the project with Dean was the opportunity to correspond with Jeff Utecht’s Class. Micheal, David and Matt created a great wetpaint wiki Web 2.0 for Newbies. I hopped on and began a Twitter in the Classroom page.

With application to the classroom floating in my mind I was lucky Damien Bariexca linked me to his class wiki. His reflection of his wiki experience is just what is needed for new teachers, like me.

But that is just a taste of the collaboration, it is happening instantaneously. Through everything, twitter and del.icio.us come to mind, but also through comments, reflections and discussion. The network is a grand thing.