Educational Technology and Life

This event has been a long time in the making… and there are many more details to come, but registration is now open and I wanted to share it here first. It will be going out via the usual channels at CUE and elsewhere in the new year, but you saw it here first. ;)

Lead Learning 2009: A Summer Institute For Professional Developers

Check-In begins at 2 PM on Sunday July 19, 2009.
Celebration and Reflection Lunch ends at 2 PM on Wednesday July 22, 2009.

The Thacher School
5025 Thacher Road
Ojai, California 93023

Are you an educator responsible for others’ professional development? If so…

It’s Your Turn to Learn!

Lead Learning 2009 is an intensive three-day summer institute designed to help professional developers learn innovative ways technology can enhance their work. This program is ideal for BTSA coordinators, ELD coordinators, Educational Technology coordinators, Professional Development coordinators, and any administrator or teacher leader responsible for training other educators.

The Lead Learning Institute is hosted in a unique instructional environment at Thacher School in Ojai, California. The Institute Faculty uses intense immersion methodology to create a transformative hands-on learning experience for each participant. Room and board is included so all participants live, eat, and even relax on the picturesque campus. A low student to faculty ratio, small working groups, and unlimited access to wireless Internet (and other school resources) makes the institute a powerful 24/7 learning experience.

Participants will learn to use ubiquitous and free technology to gather data, to facilitate better face-to-face instruction, to enable asynchronous collaboration between meetings, and to share the results of their work with stakeholders – or the world. Workshops will explore the role of face-to-face professional development in the age of streaming video and podcasts. Techniques for keeping training relevant and for tapping into participants’ passions will be shared.

The institute will also focus on the importance of professional developers cultivating their own Personal Learning Network (PLN) online. Participants will “learn to network” so they can then “network to learn” when they return to work in the coming year.

Build a foundation for your own professional development by joining us for this memorable event on the beautiful Central California Coast. It’s your turn to learn!

Tuition: $850, Including Room and Board (Accommodations for three nights, arriving Sunday July 19th and departing Wednesday July 22nd; nine meals, beginning with dinner on Sunday and ending with Lunch on Wednesday.)

Lead Learner(s):
This event will be lead by Dr. Mark Wagner, CUE’s Professional Development Coordinator, and a cadre of experienced CUE Lead Learners, including Google Certified Teachers, Apple Distinguished Educators, and special guest speakers.

Register Today:
https://cueweb.cue.org/cueweb/pdw/pdwwebstore.aspx

I’d love to hear any feedback or reactions to this program description in the comments. And as I mentioned, more information will be coming soon on a separate website dedicated to the event. :)

As part of my role as educational technology coordinator for the California League of High Schools I was asked to write an article for High School Educator, a magazine which goes out to every public high school in California. This is a chance to reach outside the echo-chamber of educational technology, so I was particularly excited about writing it. I’m also relatively happy about how it came out. I look forward to any comments or feedback you might leave.

When I was a high school English teacher, I was lucky enough to work in a relatively collaborative environment. The English department had a lounge where we met at break and lunch each day. We shared our questions, frustrations, and solutions… and plenty of funny or heartwarming stories. At the time, the people in that room were the core of my personal learning network.

As great as that was, our learning was restricted to the views of a few colleagues at one particular school. Many other teachers aren’t even so lucky. They may be the only person teaching their subject at the site – or they may feel isolated for a variety of other common reasons. You may be lucky enough to have a core group of people you learn from at your site, or you may be one of the many who feel more isolated than connected. In either case, there are now exciting new ways to take charge of your own professional development and build your own personal learning network using online tools.

Many educators are now exploring revolutionary new online tools with their students: blogs, wikis, podcasts, and more – including new social tools like Ning and Twitter. Some or all of these may be unfamiliar to you, and the unending cycle of new tools can be daunting to many teachers. Fortunately, it’s not necessary to master every specific tool. Instead, it is more important for educators to know how to build an online personal learning network, regardless of the tool. Whatever the medium, participation in a personal learning network requires four critical behaviors.

Chief among these is the need to make connections. This isn’t accomplished by asking others to read, listen to, or view the things you post. This is accomplished by reading, listening to, and viewing what others post. If you read an interesting blog post or listen to an enlightening podcast, leave a comment. If someone else makes a keen observation or asks an important question, respond. Others then have an opportunity to discover you as a like-minded person, whose own work might be interesting to them.

Your responses to others can also help you meet the need to make contributions. Any community is only as strong as the contributions made by its members. Just as you might benefit from posts made by others who teach the same subject or grade that you do, they might also benefit from your experience. If you’ve come across a challenge in your classroom or at your school, chances are many others are dealing with the same issue; if you have a solution, share it. If you have a great lesson, a great project, or a great rubric, post it for others. Your unique experience in the specific context in which you work is valuable – and on a global scale it’s potential valuable to a great many others.

Over time, these interactions will help you build relationships with fellow educators around the world, enabling you to make conversations. I’ve been lucky enough to discover like-minded educators in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Shanghai, Qatar, and elsewhere around the world. I now consider many of these people colleagues and friends. Some of our connections are no longer work related, as we share things about our lives, our families, and our hobbies. Just as you can build friendships through conversations with those who happen to work on your campus, so you can build relationships with others (who may have much more in common with you) around the world.

As a contributing member of a community of colleagues and friends, you and your questions are likely to be well received when you make requests. The best way to learn something new is to ask others who might know more about it. I often find my network of fellow learners to be the quickest way to receive an answer I need – and the richest source of meaningful feedback on new ideas or projects I’m working on. I make every effort to share the materials I develop and the solutions I discover, and in return I find the community I share with fantastically receptive to my own calls for help.

You don’t need to be a tech guru or even a techie teacher to get started building your own online personal learning network. You might start by reading (and commenting) on others’ blogs. Then create your own blog when you feel you’re ready for a place to share your own thoughts. A blog is merely an easily created, easily updated website, so anyone can do it. If you can email, you can blog!

Or, you might join the Classroom 2.0 social network, which is 10,000 educators strong, meaning there is always great new content – and no pressure for any particular member to be responsible for it. It’s likeMySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn, but for teachers who want to improve education in the 21st century. Teachers just like you.

Alternatively, you might try Twitter, a popular “social microblogging” service that allows users to post short messages and to “follow” the messages of others. Start by following someone you respect, and then explore the people they follow. If you see someone new posting links and questions that are relevant to you, considering following them as well. Twitter is an easy and efficient way to connect and share with others.

Of course, you may be more drawn to the collaborative nature of wikis, the auditory power of podcasts, or any number of newer tools, including video chat or streaming video – or older tools, like email listservs or online discussion boards. But whatever medium you choose, building a personal learning network will still require making connections, making contributions, making conversations, and making requests. Practicing these four things can be a rewarding part of controlling your own professional development.

Get Started:

• Join the “edublogosphere”:
  • Pick three blogs to read. You might try these three to begin with – and then see what other sites they link to:
    • http://weblogg-ed.com
    • http://www.davidwarlick.com/2cents/
    • http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/
  • Create and write your own blog when you’re ready: http://edublogs.org
  • Use RSS to read more when you’re ready: http://reader.google.com
• Join Classroom 2.0: http://classroom20.ning.com
• Join Twitter and Follow Others: http://twitter.com
  • Follow Dr. Wagner: http://twitter.com/markwagner

More Ways to Network:

• Create your own wiki (add free): http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers/
• Create your own podcast: http://www.podomatic.com
• Create your own streaming video channel: http://www.ustream.tv
• Find and share other educational videos: http://edublogs.tv
• Create your own discussion group: http://groups.google.com
• Create your own social network: http://www.ning.com
  • Remove the adds: http://tinyurl.com/eduning
• Setup Social Microblogging for Students: http://www.edmodo.com/

To learn more about “Learning to Network and Networking to Learn” in a high-energy face-to-face environment, come to the CLHS and CUE Technology Conference in Monterey, California on December 4, 5, and 6, 2008. http://clhs.net/conferences/tech.htm

To inquire about related professional development opportunities provided by CLHS for your staff at your site, contact CLHS staff or contact Dr. Wagner directly. mark@edtechlife.com

Today was Day 2 of the Technology Conference for Administrators at Tenaya Lodge just outside Yosemite. I presented Learning to Network and Networking to Learn as the second of two keynotes (the first was Chris Walsh’s Learning Everywhere All The Time). A few things about this experience are worth sharing here.

First of all, of course, I want to share the workshop wiki for Learning to Network and Networking to Learn, which include the slides, outline, and links to all the examples I mentioned – or planned to mention. ;)

Though the examples shared include many read/write web tools (such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking, twitter and more), this workshop focuses on moving “beyond the tools” to look at what it means to create and participate in an online Personal Learning Network (PLN). So I thought it appropriate to include people from my PLN in the presentation. The slides were presented through Google Docs, so a related sidebar discussion did crop up. Happily it also included a surprising number of people who were in the room with their own laptops. If you look at the presentation you’ll also see I included very small text in the lower left corner of each slide meant to help the online visitors participate in and contribute to the presentation. (This is an idea I believe I picked up from Jen Jones.) However, this only works synchronously… people had to be available at the time I was presenting to take part.

So, the night before I added a discussion question to the wiki and posted an invitation to twitter asking people to share their stories about the impact of their PLN. The responses were rich and provided another means for the participants to continue their learning after the presentation. This is actually the biggest “take away” I have from this event in terms of something new that worked. In any case, the invitation to share still stands. I’d love to pass on your stories to future workshop participants (or even those from today who return to the wiki).

I had tested ustream just prior to the presentation and hoped to set it up at the beginning, but things were two well choreographed to allow that. The program was running behind and my introduction was smooth, so I didn’t take the time to setup the recording at the podium. However, with about 20 minutes to go in the presentation it came time to talk about ustream, so I went ahead and fired it up. Shortly after I hit record and at least captured the last few minutes of the presentation. I’ve often resisted ustreaming my presentations because it seems to take away from my focus on the participants in the room – and because it can put the face-to-face participants “on the spot” and actually reduce participation. In this case it seemed to go over well, though, and I’d like to try to find more ways to bring it into a session in a way that contributes value, not just wow factor.

When I remember not to shut the window, I’ve also taken to using Jing to capture a screencast of the sidebar conversations in these events (after the fact). I simply scroll through the conversation (quickly) and record it for review later. Here are two examples that captured some of the “backchannel chat” happening today: Google Docs Chat & Ustream Chat. (I think I lost some of the ustream chat and perhaps some of the Google chat by closing the windows at one point, though.)

Now that I’m sharing these, I wish I’d be better about capturing everything… and about following along with the chat and encouraging them to answer the questions and contribute. This is something else I’ve found – that unless I recruit someone else to moderate the conversation it tends to drift away from the presentation. ;)

The last thing I want to share is a compliment/criticism I received at the end of the day. One participant, a principal I believe, came up to tell me that he was more engaged in my keynote than any other session at the conference, primarily because the back channel chat allowed him to interact with some of the others in the room and from around the world. This was fantastic! But, he was telling me this after also participating in my Two-Way Teaching with the Two-Way Web breakout session in the afternoon, which wound up focusing on blogs and wikis. This session was more about how to use the tools and it included more educational examples – and more opportunities to ask questions – so it was fairly interactive (and practical) for a one hour breakout. However, he said that even though this session was “every bit as important” it was less engaging… because I didn’t include the back channel chat and online participation. For me, it was an awesome illustration of the truth of what “we” back channel chat and learn-by-doing advocates preach – and a reminder that I need to always put my best practices into play, not just when I’m modeling them.

I may know something about “Networking to Learn” now, but I’m definitely still sorting out this “Networking to Teach” business. Still, today seemed like a good day and the things I’ve shared here are bits I can build on for the future.