David Warlick is working to begin each presentation with something he has learned in the last 24 hours, because above being a teacher, he is a learner.  We are struggling to redefine teaching.  The 21st century teacher is a master learner.

This presentation has handouts at http://davidwarlick.com/handouts

David is telling us how his personal learning network started in 2004.  He realized after reading a couple of other blogs that a blog was not effective as a one way conversation.  He began reading blogs based on comments from other people’s blogs.  Then became aware that this had become his personal learning network (George Siemens, “Connectivism”).

“What is the difference between a social network and social networking?”

David set up a wiki that asked this question, then used the responses to build the presentation

Arturo Guajardo, Austin ISD

Presentation will be posted at http://www.eduese.com

Title comes from the belief that technology can transform ESL instruction.  Arturo works closely with teachers who teach ESL students.  Goal is to present tools for ESL teachers.  Based on research on Common Principles & Strategies for ESL Instruction.

Background knowledge, Academic Language, Sense of Self are the three ESL strategies that he believes have the most connection to ESL instruction.

Background Knowledge:  ELLs will learn new content and language when it is built on what they already know.

LaDonna Conner and Amy Bramhall-Carrolton-Farmers Branch ISD

Presentation will be posted at http://www.beyond4walls.org

Podcasting and iPods int he ESL/Bilingual classroom

How I Learned English:  55 Accomplished Latinos Recall Lessons in Language and Life (National Geographic Books)

Teacher in CFBISD says, “When I tell them it’s going to be podcast, they practice more than when I have them say it to me.”

20 point difference in test scores in one class.

Two students had failed every benchmark in math.  Gave each student a video iPod frontloaded with Unitedstreaming videos as well as Photostory with the math SEs…both passed TAKS the following year, and one student was 2 points from commended.  Was not the only intervention, but it made a difference. 

Sheryl first commented on how much technology has changed even in the year since she was here at Tech Forum SW 07.

She used the Cisco clip “Welcome to the Human Network” as the theme for the keynote.  “We drag and drop people wherever they want to go’.

Are we ready for 21st century learning?  We are 8 years into it.  She is the 3rd year of a Microsoft Partners In Learning grant in Alabama.  Sheryl picked 10 of their best schools…went looking for “where they are” getting ready to begin the 4th year of the grant.  She found the teacher excited and using the technology.  The kids, not so much…they were still watching, not participating.

Sheryl talked to the kids, and asked these 2 questions:

• What teacher stood out to you, and what was the lesson you walked away knowing you had really learned?
  • Teachers with passion
  • Teachers with competency
  • Teachers who allowed students personal choice.
  • Teachers who care.
• What is the worst teacher, lesson, experience in your learning?
  • Teachers who give nothing but notes
  • Quotes to Sheryl from students:
    • “I’m a teenager…I don’t like to read…if you give me 20 pages of notes, I’m going to skim it, plug in the words, not learn it.”
    • “I want lessons with purpose so I can retain it.”
    • From a 4th grader: “You know the word teacher, it has the word ‘teach’ in it”.

Participatory Culture-Henry Jenkins

1. Relatively low barriers for engagement
2. Strong support for sharing creations with others
3. Informal mentorship
4. Members believe their contributions matter.
5. Care about others’ opinions of self & work.

2 years ago…were kids producers of content?

Clay Shirky…Here Comes Everybody: Four stages to mastering the connected world:

• sharing,
• cooperating,
• collaborating, and
• collective action.

The magic happens when the kids collaborate.  Students publish their work and even share with other groups, but what happens when someone from around the world comments on their work?  We have then moved from cooperation to collaboration.

Trend 1-Social and intellectual capital are the new economic values in the world economy.

If we are going to prepare kids for their “right now”, we must make these shifts.  Are we teaching kids to be good digital citizens–to use the tools they are already using responsibly?

Moving from mandated accountability to mutual accountability:

“By the year 2011 80% of all Fortune 500 companies will be using immersive worlds” –Gartner Vice President Jackie Fenn

“Learning to be creates passion.” –Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

“Schools are only one node on the network of learning.” –Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

When we were in school, learning stopped an started at the schoolhouse door…today, learning can take place any place and anywhere.  We have done a great job of preparing kids for the present…the rules have not been created yet for preparing them for the future.

Sheryl shared the following example of true collective action:

Laura Stockman-share, connect, collaborate, collective action.  Laura was a 10 year old who created a blog when her grandfather died called 25 days to make a difference.  She wanted to do and record 25 days of good deeds.     It became an international project, and is still ongoing, almost 2 years later.  WOW!!!!!

Types of communities:

• place
• memory
• interest or passion

Personal Learning Networks

Community–in and out of the classroom

Are you “clickable”-Are your students?

Moving from classroom metaphor to community metaphor.

“They come to you with a chip in their head anyway!”  Tony Wagner-The Global Achievement

Learning Ecology:  http:/www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf

The tools are not the point…becoming a participatory culture using the tools is the point.

In the I knew this, but it really hit me when she said it department:

“We are the last generation of teachers who have the choice whether or not to embrace technology.”

Lance is a dynamic speaker, and so excited about what he is doing with his students, that you can’t help catching his excitement! Many of the tools he discussed I was already aware of…this is not intended as a negative comment, because there were many people in the audience for whom they were new, so it was great that he talked about them.

Tools discussed:
GCast, Skype, iChatAV, Marratech

More on Marratech–purchased 6 months ago by Google, so could really take off. Client is free. Ability for h.264; Can connect to h.323 units, but needs the server-side software.

He is looking for collaborative partners for classroom VC opportunities.

Lance quote: “When you get the vision of what you want, don’t limit yourself to technology grants. ” They used a historical building grant to gut and remodel their school.

Alan started with a fun story:

In 1990, 28% of students who had graduated from college lived with their parents
Last reports show that 69% of students who had graduated from college now live with their parents
Since most of these kids are the offspring of Baby Boomers, this leads to the conclusion that should be called “Boomerangs”.

Alan was at the school claiming to be the #1 school in the country in getting their students into Ivy League schools. He asked to meet with the top 25 of these students. Here is the discussion:

Question: “Do you ever ask yourself what just happened…what was just taught…in your classroom?”

Answer: “Yes, in every class with every teacher.”

Question: “Do you ask for extra help?”

Answer: “No.”

Question: “What do you do?”

Answer: “We work together on the weekend, figure out what each one knows, and helps each other catch up.”

Educators must learn that kids are social by nature.

Lots of kids are walking out of our classrooms every day needing extra help. We HAVE to pay attention to the social way they learn. We must teach children to have a global voice…there is authentic audience around the world.

When students lived on farms and helped their parents on farms, they all had jobs. They were contributing to their community. Psychologically, there is a need to contribute to community. Students need to have “jobs” again, and Alan suggests the following:

Seven jobs for kids (keep in mind, not every child does every job):1. Curriculum review team: students produce content that benefits all and creates a review for all

2. Tutorial design team: Nothing better than kids creating help for other kids.
Alan showed a screencast of “Bob and Paul”, 12 year olds who create tutorials
Suggestion: Every kid on this tutorial design team creates a DVD, mp3, or podcast for other students

3. Official Scribe: have students work together to make meaning of their class work.
“We do not have a culture that values the success of the group over the work of the individual.”
Suggestion: Google Docs allows students from anywhere to revise docs/presentations. Teacher can view revisions and see which students contributed, the flow of the revisions, and how learning takes place.
Perspective…most of our resources are from the American point of view. Example…read about the American Revolution from the British point of view…search “host: ac.uk (academic in Britain) ‘General Gage’” (ac is academic content, uk is British country code)

4. Global communication team:
Suggestions: Find 3 schools in England who are studying the American Revolution who will debate us; Record and create a podcast for iTunes and the teacher’s blog site

Alan’s four rules for designing an assignment:

• authentic audience
• archive (iTunes, blog, etc.) because you want people to comment for a very long time (past the grade).
• assessment is moved across the web…teams of teachers across the web assessing each other’s classes.
• collaborate whenever possible…who “on the planet” can add value to your assignment (local police, other classes across the world, grandmother network, etc.)

5. Official researcher: answer questions by going to the web, continuously, all class long. All resources go into the class search engine.

6. Legacy team: these students do whatever it takes to bring added value to the lesson

7. Resource Builder: this job is for the whole class, as well as other teachers, classes, etc.
Suggestion: Google custom search: google.com–>more–>even more. 100 people can build a search engine together, anywhere in the world! Contribute all the resources they find to one search engine. The person who started it can see exactly who contributed.

This year the Region 16 ESC Instructional Technology team (Debbie, Jennifer, and Heather) along with Mindy, our Career and Technology consultant who attended with us this year, created a wiki to record our experiences at the 2008 TCEA conference. Each of us attended separate sessions and updated our own individual pages on the wiki. Rather than double-post, here is a link to the wiki: http://esc16weblearning5.pbwiki.com/.

Here I am, back at TCEA one year after creating this, my first blog, and there are only 6 (this makes 7) posts. What can I say…I have no excuse. I was so fired up when I created this that I was SURE I’d be making weekly, if not daily, contributions to the blogosphere, but I guess real life got in the way.

That’s not to say that I haven’t learned a LOT from and about blogging in the past year. I have become a blog-lurking junky. I have subscribed to several educational blogs that I read religiously. In fact, I use Bloglines to subscribe to my favorites, and I installed the Bloglines Notifier so I can read them as soon as their authors update them!

This has been an amazing year in the advance of technology in education…or at least I’m more aware of the advances. Social bookmark sites such as del.icio.us have changed the way we share resources; flickr has changed the way we share photos; wikis such as pbwiki have changed the way we collaborate; not to mention video sharing and podcasting! Wow!

Some days I feel like a sponge, just soaking up as much knowledge as I can. Other days, I feel like the sponge is saturated. But every day, I am amazed by the huge community of teachers and learners, adults and children, who are taking part in this vast world which has become known by some as Web 2.0.

So, here I am, back at TCEA a year later, making a new commitment to be more than a lurker; to become a contributor. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m sitting in Five Easy Steps to District-wide Blogging Tools, presented by Miguel Guhlin and teachers from San Antonio ISD showing examples of student blogging. This is so exciting, and I can hardly wait to go back and share with the teachers of Region 16.

Miguel brought teachers with him who already have classroom blogs in place to show real examples. The first example is of Paul Gates’ Second Grade class at Madison Elementary in San Antonio. According to Paul kids are asking to write during free time so they can work on their blogs!!

The campus instructional technologists also shared their experiences with blogging at each of their campuses, and one idea is the use of poems and creating diagrams using Kidspiration which are posted with the blog. Students enjoy reading and commenting on each other’s work as well as writing their own blogs.

The district is experimenting with various platforms, working slowly to make blogging an effective tool. Right now WordPress and b2Evolution are the two that have risen to the top for San Antonio ISD.

Right now, the blogging is at the K-8 level, but the team is in the process of finding the best combination of safety and rights management to include grades 9-12.

Now we’re getting ready to start on the technical side of setting up a blog, and I am going to close so I can really pay close attention.

The Swish workshop I facilitated this morning was great. Swish is a program which creates .swf (Flash) animation files, and it is so much easier to use than Flash! Also, their education discount is unbelievable…80% off the retail price!
It’s been awhile since I used Swish, and I had forgotten how user friendly and powerful it is. I’m going to have to practice lots more in preparation for the workshop I’m teaching next month.

I faciliated the Podcasting 101 workshop yesterday presented by Dr. Tim Tyson, principal of Mabry Middle School. Wow! That was such a fun and amazing session! Again, the educational possibilities are endless.

The students of Mabry MS create and publish their own podcasts, which are available on iTunes for the parents and students to download and play. According to Dr. Tyson, students actually voluntarily spend much more time on their writing, revising for a polished product! As he said during the training, when is the last time you had a student ask you to let them make more revisions and improvements to a writing assignment??

Now I have to figure out the tools to translate all of this to PC, because the workshop was done entirely on Macs using iLife06. It may not be easy, because that suite made the process so seamless, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.