I had the good fortune to be invited on to the Edtech Posse Podcast once again last week. I joined Rob Wall, Dean Shareski, & Heather Ross for a conversation about teaching digital safety & awareness, as well as discussion on the concept of digital resident vs. digital tourist. Unfortunately, the Posse missed having Alec & Rick join the conversation as I hardly filled their role. As a noob, I learned that the clicking of a mouse can be picked up by the mic and so could my wife’s cello practice. Sorry Guys. Thanks for the invite.

Listen here

image credit: courosa – http://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/3400178819/

Overall the conference was well managed. I was fed well and walked away with more ideas, motivation and inspiration for the day I get my own class of students. These events really do give me rush of teaching & learning adrenaline.

One of my purposes for attending was to live blog the event and test ustream & coveritlive in preparation for TLt 2009.  Unfortunatly, the internet was patchy at best. I used coveritlive for couple sessions and will embed below. David Warlick agreed to having his keynote ustreamed but I couldn’t get ustream off the ground.  For the remainder of the sessions I attended I made the following notes. While the intent was to live-blog, I must apologize that this was 5 or 6 weeks ago. No longer is it a liveblog but rather 5-6 week old blog.

David Warlick – Keynote

- starts by teaching us something he learned in past 24 hours
- **if we expect to teach with 21th century learners we must live & teach using those same skills

tags – redefine literacy, warlick

2nd life office – hhtp://davidwarlick.com/sl/ – demo of getting resources from 2nd Life office

tour of 21st century office – reg. telephone is redundant in mobile world. connected to ppl & family in new ways. Revolutionized our culture

With cell phones men can now shop in the grocery store – ‘I dont make mistakes anymore’

study – Berkely – How much information?  (is out there)  in 2002 we had 5 xo bytes of info to the sum of total info. 5 xo bytes + 37 more libraries of congress.  Only 1/100 of 1% got printed on paper.  We spend too much time teaching kids how to use paper

webcam – allows us to become more virtual – office wont need extra chairs bc we online

- MIT wearable computer. hi tech suit. – fully networked jacket, bluetooth – $640
- accessorize with tech – mic on pinky, speaker on thumb
- gps toe ring ( put in cord’s right vibrates for right turn, left for left turn)

***preparing children for a future we cant clearly describe.
**what do our kids need to learn in order to live in an unpredictable future
**stop intergrateing technology – instead integrate literacy

**best thing we can teach kids is how to teach themselves
**part of being literate is being capable to question, investigate

url backchecking – delete tail of URL – look for clues to digital literacy – find email of author – google vincent.breeding@stormfront,org -> http://stormfront.org

If all we’re teaching our kids to do is read, are children really literate? we were taught to read what someone handed to us. library, parent, teacher. now we read in a global electronic library that anybody can publish to. need to rethink what it means to be literate

wikipedia – NDP – biased? what’s the problem – info may not be reliable – wikipedia blocks ip addresses of capitol hill because they targeted opponents pages

what does it mean to be literate – expose what is true – find, critically evaluate, organize, apply it

arithmetic – the new nature of numbers – access earthquake info, generates huge data set – grab data paste info into excel – convert txt to columns wizard – put into scatter graph – graph comes out as map of plate technoics – map allows numbers to tell their story. – new skills involved in having #’s tell their story

words of humankind -> presidential inaugural address -> copy text & paste into tagcrowd -> look at 75 most used words of all the addresses in a tag cloud -> new ways to look at info
- compare president speeches, maybe war time addresses. george washiton to george w. bush

**put new lenses on info to get students to ask questions about info

keyboard & intuem 2 -> math – reworkign numbers in music to create new music

#’s are mechanism of our world – less time of levers & pullys

video not as powerful without music -> art & music are essential

communicate with text, image, sound, video,

contemporary literacy – exposing whats true – employing the info – express ideas compellingly – doing it in an ethical context – redefine literacy so it reflects today’s info enviro & integrate that

Spam – cost the world 50$ billion in 2005 expected to double by 2007
we could control HIV/Aids for under $27 billion

- imperative to have ethical use of information

It’s scary because we are redefining what we do – at core of reforming education today

no longer in industrial age – now the world is the currriculum and the world changes everyday

as teachers we need to be master learners

BEST Prezi I’ve seen

Clarence Fisher – Literate Online: Reading & writing are different online – Notes

7/8 Snow Lake – 7.5 hour drive to saskatoon

- Classrooms are most important. -> need to do everything we can to make sure classrooms are quality places to be
- Training kids for IBM accusation from director, rather Clarence helps kids become literate
- very tech advanced society. kids need to know how to access, find and evaluate information
- different to grow up knowing you have an audience. We didnt have that
- text today has many access points – hypertext is choose your own adventure
- print literacy is more important now because there is so much more – many components to a web page  —– *** very multi modal
-text has always been changing

- what could be coming – bumptop (emulate a real desktop), firefox auora (fluid interactive charts & graphs, search
-Information & access continues to evolve – we’re in the middle of change
- 1st time is history where literacy practices are going to be affected by corporations

-electronic vs static text – worries Clarence – Ipod itunes led to video & podcasting – Apple led to a great influx of use

-electronic is not static – not about message but about socialability – can change & view text with someone else

-collaborative nature of tools – google docs example international teen life project – kids in columbia, jakarta, georgia – choose a topic that is important to kids in their country (HIV, eating disorders) -  research then script then they made a collaborative video, north american schools responsible for video editting
leave questions, comments for each other

we do it to make connections, need to plan connections 4-6 months in advance

1. Access
2. Evaluate – what’s important, not info overload but filter failure
3. comprehend – text is one way of sharing info. some are text illiterate others may be video illiterate
4. Share – remix culture & copyfight
- different from traditional reader/writer workshops – now radio plays with 3000 listens + feedback & advice for improvement
- kids attitude is motivated to produce higher quality if they know they have an audience
- 24,000 views on one girl’s blog – gr 8 13 year old
- scratch – build animations.  Now has community & get feedback & audience from forum. download other peoples work to see how they may have down a certain build
- 35% of scratches are remixes
- how do blogs & wikis change media?  “You don’t have to be a rich old guy from New York to be heard”    -sudent response

145 blog posts in 190 days – comments are correlated

Students do 2 posts per week – 1 required – eg. what has your research process for _____ been?, 1 of choice
Blogs are hybrid spaces- develop digital citizenship skills,

igoogle account + RSS – subscribe to lists of blogs, podcasts, videos

- at beginning, give kids 5-6 places to read. Later they find their own resources.  Set list of required but kids can find and present their own sources. Sit down every couple weeks to find out what kids are learning from their feeds.

- no use writing gobblygoop – need to find % of info that is relevant

- **Filtering is so important – we dont teach our kids anything when we filter our internet tools

Protocol – hit back button if you get in the wrong place, hand in the air calling Mr. Fisher, then he asks how did you get there

**change from acceptable use policies to responsible use policies**

new kinds of communities emerge

cant give kids access to info & say that is enough – need to teach why access is important & how to filter & how to use it to learn

need to know how to use the tools

wikipedia as a starter then back it up. Need to understand bias

newseum.com track a story from around world

**internet spaces are complex spaces – sometimes advertising we can see – only 16% of kids can see the ads from the info**

textbooks has always been suspect but we weren’t aware of it.

David Warlick – Video Gaming

New info enviro – Unpredictable Future – Networked Learners (Kids are different)

UK huge into gaming -

not sure the answer is 2nd life – many many options (OpenSim)

Glen Wiebe – ESSDACK – research on literature – “Videogames are extremly tasty patterns of reality”

David Williamson Shaffer – about roles & rules

tech becomes simpliar but games become more complex – Wiebe says the brain at play demands complexity

google scholar search for Video games in education

games are learning engines – cnat get to next level unless you learn something

Book – Got Game by: John Beck & Mitchell Wade

Video Game generation is more social than previous generations – very good at collaborating

LAN parties – never more than 2 at a time – others sit and talk about the game – talk about plot and decisions of game developers

Pong evolved

Some games
- rollercoaster tycoon – design the coaster – business ed
- pitman – crash landed on planet, & you’re starving – figure out what you can eat – discover a plant with feet as roots – train these plants to do things for you, rebuild spaceship, build shelter, find food – no instructions – figure out goals & rules
- assassins creed – go anywhere in the game – whole world is wide open – characters behave in certain ways – based on 13th century french village – kill based on politics

- little big planet – make your own game

Applying this into the classroom – do we need to bring a bunch of vids into classroom? NO

Why do I need to learn about Caesar when I am building Rome everyday

dont need to bring game into classroom but bring conversation about the game into the classroom

Serious games – seriousgames.org

games, learning & society

Game cultures

study on how kids cheat and the benefits of it – cheating is problem solving

passively multi-user online games …or information as game – depth of research you builds an accumulation of points

machinima – script the game into a movie – would never occur to us to turn a game into a movie set – television can now be remixed

Sylvia Martinez – video on gaming – playing with actions help students understand concepts

Lastly, please check out the EdTech Posse: Live from Winstons for an overview of conference thoughts.

This semester I have the opportunity to work as a tech assistant on another intriguing and mind opening graduate class, Ed 870 – Social Justice and Globalization.  The description from the syllabus is as follows,

ED 870 explores the research and classroom practice of themes including how to be an activist teacher, health and nutrition, basic education, HIV/AIDS, child protection, gender equality, diversity/multiculturalism, First Nations, infrastructure services, human rights, democracy and good governance, notions of citizenship, private sector development, the environment/sustainability, how to make a positive difference; considers the implications of integrating these themes into the mainstream curriculum and into our professional lives.

Needless to say, I am learning a substantial amount from the course professor, Dr. Marc Spooner, as well as from the U of R’s Centre for Academic Technologies Manager, Glenn Enright and my fellow course assistant, Evan Thornton and of course, the graduate students. Dr. Spooner appreciates and embraces the realities made possible by technology to connect individuals both synchronously and asynchronously. The course runs face-to-face on Wednesday nights and full recorded broadcasts can be found here. The students have responded with blog posts, to snippets of recorded conversations from class recordings. Evan has done great work managing the course blog and creating this first assignment video. My role is to set up and run the in-class technology required to stream and record, as well as connect to virtual guest speakers and experts.

As I have mentioned, this course is one of the coolest episodes I have witnessed during my brief education career. I have seen global connections happen between a number of elementary and high school classrooms, and within several ed tech university courses. This, however, is one of the first non tech courses that has effectively used technology to reach beyond the walls of the course itself.  Last class we connected with Dr. Anthony Hall’s course on Globalization Studies from the University of Lethbridge. Dr. Hall & Dr. Spooner addressed both groups with their knowledge, introduced the students, noted similarities between learning and gave the students in both rooms an opportunity for dynamic conversation and questioning. Two classes, two universities, two smart professors, an awesome exchange. I ustreamed the whole event (in two parts) to the world live.

Our next class is two weeks away and the plan is to have Ignacio Chapela, a microbial ecologist and mycologist at the University of California, Berkeley, visit via skype to share knowledge of the biotechnology and food industries.

Later in the semester we hope to be visited by the controversial Bill Ayers, professor at the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Formal education is changing. The walls are coming down. I have front row seats.

Dean is one of my many mentors that have modeled these major learnings. I have learned how to use social web tools to connect and collaborate with strangers and new friends around the world; access knowledge and information I never knew existed; share resources, thoughts and opinions; discuss pedagogy, book reviews, teaching practices; build a personal learning environment; feel confident playing with new media creation; and think about my future classroom in a way that is more social, more active, more engaging, more empowering and more meaningful. I have learned to be a better learner.

With all of this said, here is Dean’s podcast recording from the class.

Podcast42…student voices

Not only was Dean’s class influential, but I am fortunate to live in the same town as Dean. This has lead to extended personal learning through a number of invitations to sidekick him on classroom adventures to observe and work with students in Prairie South Schools and to sit in on training sessions he offers to his teachers. Together we had a post-conference run down and reflection on ride home from the TLt Summit in Saskatoon last spring. He just is there when I have a tech/ed related question. Because of all of what he means to my own learning, and all leadership he offers so many educators, I was more than happy to sit in and visit his class for the evening.

In that third tweet, I shouldn’t have used the typical teacher talk to refer to the classroom conversation as a ‘lesson’. For this post I will save you the details about the ‘conversation’/'learning experience’/'time together’, but I suspect bits and pieces will come out as I share my perspective.

Anyway, this tweet triggered a few replies. Through the early evening, we threw a few tweets back and forth. Eventually, I picked up a short conversation with @mindelei (that is the only name I know know her by.) As a brand new teacher, I like following and tweeting with Mindelei, because she is a pre-service teacher and writes well. We shared meaningful discussion and questioning on teaching about the ‘idea of cool’.

I claimed that it is important to discuss ‘cool’ with students. That everyone has their own unique sense of ‘cool’. Referring to the students, I tweeted about coolness as part of one’s ’self’. Everyone is cool in some way. I tweeted about modeling ‘cool’ and that students are shown many examples when we teach about hero’s, share best practices and point out ‘cool’ acts.

I wrote that, too often ‘cool’ equates with ‘popular’ and that is false. Coolness is not about social hierarchy at all. It is about strong values/morals/ethics, neat interests, talents, being real. To me it is about being calm, collected and with ‘it’. Again, this is my perception of the concept, if you don’t agree please share. I know this is not the general perception of cool.

Mindelei and I ended up seeing eye-to-eye, I think, and we concluded that the debate we were having was moot as it was hinging on semantics. I have invited her to follow this blog post to discuss further, if she wants.

Whoohoo, success. Learning is awesome! Thanks for making the connection between us Twitter! That is what these social tools are about.

But wait… it is not over.

I came across another recent follower that had a perspective to share. Unfortunately, he was critical of our discussion and tweeted without the @thekyleguy pre-fix to notify me of his issue with the discussion. I was taken back by these public tweets as they insulted my character and incited some further reflection. After a hike to clear my mind, I decided that blogging this to wider forum would create a learning experience. Bringing this issue to light here, ignites the topic of practicing digital citizenship and courtesy. I will share this followers’ perspective and subsequent questions that I am left with.

(Update: Chad admitted he may of mis-understood the discussion tweets and apologized through direct message this morning. I have accepted his apology but feel as though this scenario raises too many valuable topics that do not get discussed enough.)

I have copied & pasted a screenshot of Chad’s tweets from last night. Start with the tweet at the bottom.

Please, keep in mind these tweets on their own are out of context. We don’t know which which part of the discussion @cbrannon started reading my tweets. I want to learn more from this. We need to discuss further. As a sub, I want to learn about being a ‘real’ teacher. Assist me with these issues so I can carry myself better when I enter the classroom and the staffroom.

Often twitter is described as a large virtual staffroom where teachers from all over the world gather to share resources and talk. The problem here is that these patronizing tweets were shouted without direction to the whole staffroom, rather than being whispered about privately as they would likely be in a real staffroom. I come to the virtual staffroom to reflect upon and to question teaching practice and pedagogy, both my own and that of others whom I learn from.

I welcome criticism and questioning of my idea’s and thoughts, in fact I am always calling for honesty and feedback. Usually, I defend my stance or learn from the questioning perspective. In this instance, I don’t feel as though I need to defend myself against Chad’s tweets because we have determined that he mis-understood the discussion. I am, however, interested in the definition of ‘real’ teacher, the manner with which this issue has been raised, and thoughts on discussing the idea of ‘cool’ with students.

<INSERT THEME MUSIC>

Readers, I now pose the hard questions to you.

Is being ‘cool’ important to students?

Should ‘real’ teachers and students talk about the ‘idea of cool’?

Why hasn’t @cbrannon heard ‘real’ teachers talking about it?

Do you talk to kids about being cool, about bringing out their passions?

Isn’t this opportunity for authentic learning experiences?

Are substitutes, ‘real teachers’?

What is your idea of ‘cool’?

and on a personal note, do I come off as an “expert without experience”?

*You can follow all of my twitter conversations in my archive.

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?

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.

This is a shout out for Kelly Christopherson. Kelly works tirelessly connecting online and ensuring he runs the best school possible. In his writing, Kelly devours the idea of online learning networks in real ways. The perspectives he shares at Educational Discourse are rich with reflection and advice for balancing an online learning community with the daily demands that teachers face. When he is not drafting a new post, @kwhobbes shares insight with his twitter colleagues, builds Ning communities for fellow Administrators to connect and attends a wide array of online professional development opportunities. I share Kelly’s blog because he is representative of an administrator that has shifted his thinking about learning.

Photo Credit @kwhobbes Twitter Profile