A few weeks ago, after many attempts trying to find a time we could all make, Mark and Shawn at The Tightwad Tech managed to coral Lisa Parisi and myself across timezones long enough to interview us about how we utilize a changed pedagogy utilizing tech (usually for free – hence the “tightwad” connection). Here is a link to the podcast. We had a great time. Give it a listen … and Thanks to Mark and Shawn for inviting us!
Learning is messy!
Professional Learning Networks are all the rage with … um … people that are part of professional learning networks (PLN’s). Why?
So Monday I’m attempting a “Pre – Skype” – Skype with Maryjo Chmielewski’s class in Wisconsin to make sure that our Skype conference the next day will go off smoothly … (BTW, I advise doing that, things always go better) … and everything works EXCEPT they can’t hear us. I advise (using the chat feature) the librarian there to restart her computer (Skype can be a hog, especially if you have been doing a lot since the last restart – I ALWAYS restart my computer before an important Skype connection) and she doesn’t seem enthusiastic about doing that, so I note that Allanah King happens to be on Skype nearby (halfway around the world in New Zealand) and so I send her a chat asking if she can Skype me for just a minute (I don’t want to interrupt her teaching … much) so I can verify the audio problem isn’t on my side of the Skype. 10 minutes later our Skype bell starts ringing … AND ITS ALLANAH! We talk for 29 seconds (per the Skype timer) and confirm that the problem isn’t mine … well and say hi and all (Kiwi’s are so cool!), and we sign off (we don’t want to be a burden).
So my friends in my PLN come to my aid once again … and the librarian hooked up a laptop instead (I suspect the desktop she was using first didn’t have a mic or it wasn’t selected or something), and the Skype the next day went flawlessly and reminded me again why we do things like that (another story).
I love my PLN!
Learning is messy!
Tags: Skype, Allanah King, PLN
So we are already a quarter of the way through the school year and we are still waiting for laptops to arrive and IT to get them online. Not a great start if you are supposed to be a 1:1 classroom on the one hand, but we are ecstatic that it is even going to happen at all on the other. 20 new MacBooks have supposedly shipped and will arrive any day now which will bring us back up to 30 (a “class set” as we say), and as a precursor our new laptop cart arrived last Thursday.
Our old carts were, and are, flimsy and worn and have been broken into several times and bent … the doors won’t close without leaning all your weight on them and shoving, the latches won’t “latch”, and the 3rd prong on the power cord that grounds the electrical system broke off a couple of years ago … but otherwise they were fine.
2 carts are being replaced by 1 which is designed to hold 32 computers, has a timer on one cord so you don’t waste electricity OR you can plug in with the other that is on all the time. It has several other cool features like a trapdoor on the top that opens to give you access to several outlets you can plug equipment you might set on top to use … like my class Elmo projector and the teacher laptop hooked into my ActivBoard.
I must say computer carts have come a long way in 9 years … our old Bretford carts were pretty cutting edge when we got them, but obviously were not designed to withstand the test of time. This new one is much sturdier, has cool features and costs $600 dollars more than what we paid for both the old ones.
Just hope our IT department has the time to come out and get our 1 year old and new laptops on the new wireless system as soon as they come in so we move from having the potential of being 1:1 to the reality of being 1:1. We do have to allow IT to take away the twenty – 9 year old iBooks … I may shed a tear as they go out the door … they were real workhorses and gave their all. They cost $1750 new with 96 megs of ram and Airport Cards installed. Our new ones cost half that each and seem to be just a bit quicker and have hard drives that hold 16 times as much.
Learning is messy!
Tags: 1:1, MacBooks, Bretford Cart,
So for reasons I tried my best to foresee but was out voted on, we got stuck with 3 particularly wonky cell phones and in a strange convergence all 3 mostly died in a 2 day period. We weren’t willing to pay $12 per phone to speed up delivery of replacements, so other than my iPhone my daughters and wife are without phones until the new ones are delivered … Friday.
The upshot of this has been that cell phones are SO prevalent that wherever my daughters happen to be they can borrow someone else’s and check in with us. However this leads to some interesting, sometimes frustrating, occurrences. Like getting a voice-message from your daughter and when you call the number back you get someone that doesn’t know your daughter, and isn’t sure which one of the girls she just lent her phone to during a break during volleyball practice is your daughter … and the first two they put on aren’t your daughter. SO then you try to think of which friends that you might have the number for also happen to be at practice. It gets even more convoluted than that … and it’s only Monday.
Learning is messy!
We still have a few minor loose ends to finish up, but today we finally can say we have completed our Reno Bike Project, project. Amazing what we got done when we got some consistent time to work the last two weeks (although we took three required assessment tests this week). As I’ve mentioned in my last 2 posts, I turned the responsibility for the last 6 web pages over to each of the six groups in my room with minimum direction (each group was given one of the pages to do randomly – they had to do the page they got). At the end of the day Tuesday the pages were pretty sad and I was afraid maybe they weren’t ready to take this on. But Wednesday we looked at each page as a class and brainstormed ideas and I saw major improvement. Thursday we looked at some professionally made pages and things really improved, and today they just went nuts. The wikis really came out well, with only “consulting” duties on my part, mainly at the request of the students … “does this look better or should we do it like this?”
We also put the final touches on our PSA (video) which had to be re-edited to change the URL it references. So today we burned multiple DVD copies to send to local TV stations.
So what went into doing this project?
*We had a class meeting when this opportunity first came up to decide whether or not to take on the project in the first place.
*We took a field trip to the Reno Bike Project where we shot video and took many of the digital photos we archived on our Flickr accounts.
*We had guests visit our classroom and talk to us about the Reno Bike Project, bicycle racing and the health benefits of bicycling.
*We researched on the web for information for all the wiki pages we designed and to learn more about the science curriculum that was much of the basis for this project.
*We used our Diigo account to archive and annotate much of our research.
*Maggie Tsai from Diigo visited our classroom and taught students about Diigo and encouraged them about the work they were doing.
*We storyboarded, wrote (as a whole class shared writing) the script for our PSA.
*We had numerous discussions about the order of scenes and wording and which clips made the most impact.
*We practiced and then recorded the voiceovers for the video.
*We designed posters, one of the loose ends we need to finish … we have to change the URL on those before we publish them … will probably put some on our Flickr account later.
*We peer edited each others’ work over and over checking writing style and content and whether or not links worked correctly or whether someone could be understood on the video.
Students set up various photos to use in class and outside and took them themselves.
*We Skyped in Will Richardson to talk about healthy eating habits, specifically being a vegetarian.
*We blogged about various aspects of the project.
*Students designed graphics for the PSA and for images on their wikis and posters.
*Students designed the layouts for their wiki pages.
*Students noted “experts” (classmates) at certain aspects of getting the formatting of their wikis to look “right” or import a photo and would enlist their help … which was fun to watch. “Why is she over in your group?” … “Because she knows how to get this photo to show up on the right part of the page with the caption under it and she’s showing us how.”
*Lots of collaboration, planned and not (see above).
*Lots of “messy” learning … mostly NOT planned. : )
*I’m sure I left out lots, but it’s getting late.
Learning is messy!
Tags: RenoBike Project, messy learning, Skype, Flickr,
Twitter is all over the news, magazine and online articles, the talk shows, comes up in the plots of various TV shows, now Apple is rumored to be buying it. Now that Twitter has gone “Mainstream” (or more mainstream?) I get about 5 pieces of “Twitter-spam” a day. Nefarious characters that want to follow me (that I block), to companies or representatives that follow me because something about them appears in a Tweet. “So-and-so please Skype me about that,”…. and 5 mintes later 3 people with some kind of tie to Skype are following me. Does this bode well for Twitter? Is this like a sports star getting the photo on the cover of Sports Illustrated and then having a spate of hard times? I guess we’ll find out.
Learning is messy!
Tags: Twitter
My school, which was built on the cheap in the early sixties, is about to get a major overhaul this summer. Part of that is going to include a new state-of-the-art wireless internet system. That’s great news. However (don’t you hate howevers?), I’ve been informed that our 9 year old iBooks probably won’t be able to access the system because they don’t have the correct security software (I believe it’s a WEP thing). I do have 11 newer Macbooks, but that sinks any hope of 1:1 for next year. In reality things weren’t looking good anyhow. I’m really down to about 22 or so working laptops (2 – 4 more sort of work) and the folksy-ness of using 9 year old computers, which worked well for a long time, is starting to wear thin. They are finally showing their age in major ways.
This of course coincides with the economic crash and my state being last in funding education … our governor announced yesterday that he wants to cut education even more now. Therefore funding isn’t looking good. So my newest challenge is to come up with 19 new Macbooks (BTW netbooks are out, our IT dept. doesn’t allow them, yet) or HP’s (certain models only). I’ll have to do a bunch of my own “messy” learning to come up with a way to make this work.
Learning is messy!
We continue to work on our Reno Bike Project, project when we can. Just to review, we started this project in December, but various things have eaten away the time we would like to be spending on it … and its just really hard work doing everything really well.
What is great about this project is that it forces my sixth graders, in their last year of elementary school, to bring all the skills they’ve learned to bear on it. We have produced (un-narrated as of yet) 23 seconds + of a 30 second PSA designed to induce people to donate their old bicycles to the Reno Bike Project, which will fix them up and sell them for cheap (and give away many too). We are working hard now (as I write this there are 4 students that came in on their own during recess to work on it) trying to design an ending graphic for our video that displays a web address (for a web site we are designing) and other information.
The only software we have for that is Appleworks, so everyone has been focused the last 2 mornings on getting this graphic done. We looked at the end graphics to over 10 professionally made PSA’s to get ideas (keep it simple we noted).
As often happens a few students got discouraged at first because they way we are doing this is very unforgiving … basically if you make any mistake or want to change something you have to start over … which is a pain, but has also lead to increased focus and introspection. I reminded them that this was their very first experience doing this ever, so maybe they needed to cut themselves some slack and allow for a bit of a learning curve … since then we have seen some nice progress.
It’s only a bit over 6 seconds of time in the PSA, but my students are learning that filling that measly 6 seconds is as time consuming as any other work they’ve ever done.
Learning is messy!
Tags: RenoBike Project, PSA, Project, Appleworks, iMovie
UPDATE: 6/20 – I’ve pasted the response from ISTE to Miguel’s post about this subject below. I commend ISTE for listening to members’ concerns and responding rapidly and responsibly.
Letter from Leslie Connery
Hi Miguel – We received substantial feedback about this issue and have had great internal conversations in the last 24 hours about how best to respond. We needed to listen to and address the valid concerns of ISTE members while also protecting the rights of the people who have agreed to present at NECC. The statement below addresses how we’d like to handle this for NECC2008.
Post NECC2008, we are planning to convene a discussion around the issue of broadcasting presentations and to work together collaboratively with podcasters, bloggers, presenters, and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for NECC2009 that meet the needs of the education community. ISTE recently disseminated a code of conduct regarding video and audio recordings at NECC 2008 which has generated some thoughtful and energetic discussion.
We welcome your interest and comments and would like to clarify and amend the code of conduct for NECC 2008. For NECC 2008, ISTE’s permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops.
However, for NECC 2008, written permission from the session or workshop presenter is required prior to capturing a video or audio recording. Any permitted recording should respect the presenter’s rights and not be disruptive.
Under no circumstances may any length or quality of video/audio capture be used for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without express written permission from both the session presenter(s) and ISTE.Â
Thank you. We look forward to an ongoing dialog about fair use.
//Leslie
Original Post Below:
Twitter was abuzz this evening after Wes Fryer and then Miguel Guhlin posted about ISTE’s new (or maybe not new) policy regarding recording audio/video of presentations and events from NECC 2008 in San Antonio next week. The policy states that to record you must have the permission of the presenter (which is fine and just common courtesy) AND permission from ISTE … which may be a problem depending on how easy and timely it is to obtain.
Amateur video/audio capture is permitted of ambient environments, informal exchanges and sessions, and sessions and activities not organized by ISTE, etc., provided that appropriate permissions have been granted by the parties affected. ISTE assumes no liability for copyright and/or intellectual property violations that may occur as a result. Amateur video/audio capture is also permitted in NECC sessions and activities provided that the length of capture does not exceed 10 minutes AND appropriate permissions have been granted by the presenter/s.
Under no circumstances may any length or quality of video/audio capture of NECC sessions be used for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without express written permission from BOTH: 1.) the session presenter/s, and 2.) ISTE.
As always, if you have any questions pertaining to your presentation or the conference in general, please feel free to contact us: For sessions, neccprogram@iste.org; for workshops, neccworkshops@iste.org.“
This may not have emerged as such an issue except that sharing the goings-on at NECC last year via Skype, and since then the advent of USTREAM and other sharing technologies and their use at conferences since have whetted the ed-tech worlds appetite (for good reason) for quickly having access to the learning and conversations – formal and informal – that come out of a conference like NECC.
The other disconnect here is that unfettered access to information and tools on the net is supposedly one of the goals of ISTE … it’s definitely a goal of every ed-tech proponent I know. So this does seem like a step backward. I suspect that no one made a decision not to attend NECC this year because others would Skype and Ustream sessions. However, it sure seems that the sharing that happened last year, mostly via Skype and podcasts, probably was an incentive to many to take the plunge and experience NECC live. If this was done because those in charge are afraid that sharing over the net will cut attendance I feel they made a huge mistake … a bad call.
I have seen some commentary that perhaps this is about ISTE covering its behind against suits over copyrighted material and they put this out there to look tough, but will really just “not notice” what may go on otherwise.
Some have started email campaigns and other forms of protest, it will be interesting if ISTE comments anytime soon, before NECC 2008 commences.
Another example of messy learning!
Tags: NECC2008 controversy
Think it is interesting how several edubloggers have again been disconnecting from the network because of the feeling of “network/technology overload” and the feeling of needing a break (which I understand completely) or not really taking a break but coincidently not blogging because of feeling overloaded. The latter example is constantly thrust upon me (and I’m sure many of you) just because of the nature of being a teacher.
However, when things slow down around my teaching job that is when I yearn to be part of the network … all that pent up… seeing what is going on and being discussed and not having the time to be part of it finally getting a chance to be unleashed. I’ve actually noticed now that I often DON’T blog or comment on certain topics just because I know I won’t have time to deal adequately with comments or blowback that beg for a response from me. It’s kind of a self imposed censorship really.
Learning is messy!
