School 1.0

• Rituals, rules, and routines
• Focus on the right answers
• This is okay.

School 2.0

• Engaged
• Self-directed
• Project-driven
•  Independent problem solvers
• Teachers and students are empowered
• Learning community

Meaningfulness + Significance + Connectedness =  Contribution

EXAMPLE:

Conrad calls the school during summer vacation, wants to come to school to work on his video project.  He won’t take no for an answer.  The school secretary forwards the call to Principal Tim Tyson.  The principal explains that it is too late to make your class grade better, the report cards have already been printed.  “But Dr. Tyson, I got an A”, Conrad explained.   “You said if the project was perfect, you would put it on the school website and into the iTunes Store for the whole world to see”, he continued.  The next day, Conrad showed up at 9am with two of his partners to get back to work on his project.

For the first time, schools can have access to true global distribution.

MabryOnline & iTunes

• School website serves up 1.5 million files per month on average.
• In June 2007, it served up 4 million files.
• People can subscribe to school content via iTunes.

The deal that Dr. Tyson put forth to his students:

• Your work has to be the best of the best
• Ask yourself: “What is it about your work that is so great that it needs to be out there for the entire world to see?”
• Students from New Dehli, Tasmania, Beijing, Shanghai, Peru, Georgia, Australia, UK are viewing their work.
• Students feel a great deal of satisfaction when their work is globally relevant.
• This is authentic assessment: when an A is not good enough for a student.

When does meaningfulness start?

• First job?
• Graduate college?
• Right now!
• We need to have a meaningful activities for students right now.

Project on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

• The students approached Dr. Tyson with their topic.
• Two weeks later, the students (on their own) had already scheduled a field trip to Emory University to spend two hours with Dr. Chetta in her research lab.  She presented one of the same intro presentations that she does for her doctoral students and physicians.
• Produced a movie that Patrice Weaver said was the best thing she’d ever seen.  Won the film festival.

Students wanted to make a difference, not just report:

• Commercialization of Drinking Water
• Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research
  • Shot everything but the video of the sonogram.
• Child Slave Labor on the Ivory Coast
  • “Social studies, but more grown up.”
• Saving African lives from Malaria
• Captivity of Elephants
• Poverty in China
• Organ Donation
  • Done like the series 24.
  • Students created every scene except for two that were recorded in the operating room by Emory University.
• Immigration in United States
• Genetically Modified Food
  • Students changed the way their principal buys his food.

Not all about technology and connectivity

• “I wish we could get away from this argument in our profession.”
• The effective educator is the one who bridges the gap between technology and meaningfulness.
• Students want to go beyond preparing for the next year, they want to make a contribution today.
• School 1.0 = Taking it in
• School 2.0 = Giving it out
• We need to stop simplifying our students’ education into tiny little segments.

Dr. Tyson’s closing keynote video/slides can be found here.

Link to session information page here.

Higher education institutions are putting their research videos on ResearchChannel.com. Also check out TeacherTube for video.

Recommend the use of SurveyMonkey, ZOHO Polls, SurveyScholar, Zoomerang, and Response-o-Matic for original research.

We need to make sure that were teaching ethical usage of the polling services when we let students administer their own research.

Allow students to choose RSS feeds that they will be responsible for reporting back to the class. This could be used in tandem with writing this news to a blog.

Wikibooks

Respect of intellectual material. Emphasis needs to be placed on attributing ownership to original authors.

We want students to share, but once content is uploaded to the web, they have to ask permission from all of the content owners. Focus on using Creative Commons material.

Advice for professional social networks: use professional user names.

We need to speak up for issues that prevent students accessing the information and tools to which they need access.

Students need access to good (free if possible) to get their work done.

The presenters plugged all sorts of wikis for various levels (class wiki, class/play wiki, team wiki, etc.)

PrimaryAccess.org to put audio and still images together (similar to Snapkast?)

Train thyself: Hitchhkr.com, edtechtalk.com.

Link to session page here.

Tuesday 2:00 - 3:00
Dr Sue Stoddart

Key Words: Effective and Lively!

• instructor presence - must be more present than normally would be in a face-to-face class
• lively - engage students
• know all the tools available to online discussions (see discussions not read, etc)

How do we really get to know students in online learning? - Through online discussions!

Great discussions do not “just happen”. You need to put work in before, during, and after.

Before - prepare in advance

• clarify goals & objectives - use to evaluate student participation, revisit and reevaluate
• plan guiding questions for discussion
• design activities that will prepare students to discuss - research material/interview for discussion topics
• clarify goals for each discussion
• talk about discussion (what is a discussion? How do you participate effectively in a discussion?)
• set ground rules - provide a rubric! (no “im speak”, etc)
  • Quality of Information
  • Resources
  • Interaction
  • Participation
  • Delivery

During - great discussions are purposefully led

• ask questions that establish what students understand before asking them to do more complex or original thinking - don’t want students to get to the end too quickly. Let students ask each other questions, and evolve discussions. Students not participating this way? Step in, ask questions, and promote students asking questions as well
• ask follow-up questions that allow students to develop or clarify a response. Model this so your students will start doing this as well
• give feedback as they go, tell them how many points they are getting, where they are lacking, what they can do to improve

After - great discussions are assessed

• debriefing or journals - provide record or summary of key points as they emerge. Key things they learned from each discussion, and from course in general. Add entries every week.
• draw connections between day’s discussion and other topics - even a final project. All discussions build on each other up to the final project. Each is relevant to the greater course and can be connected to earlier and later discussions
• evaluate student responses based on ground rules. Not just quantity but quality of responses
• Use your rubric! Follow what it says, don’t grade on things not on the rubric.

Building to more discussions

• how will next discussion build on learning created in the current discussion?
• Always go in with discussions already set up. But allow the flexibility to change if the discussions shift, or if there are problems with a key topic, or if students understand something earlier than expected
• use students’ comments or written responses to address new discussions
• emphasize connections between new topic and earlier discussions

Extend the Traditional Classroom - benefits and uses of online discussions

• student interaction outside of class
• seek clarification for issue encountered in coursework - students can come more prepared if they have questions in between classes
• build on one another’s perspectives and gain deeper understanding - don’t be afraid to learn from students, don’t be afraid if they “know more about technology” than you do
• class preparation - use to discuss ideas to use later in class
• monitor discussions to identify where students are struggling
• frequently asked & straightforward questions
• shy students, students lacking confidence - they can flourish in online discussion! They find that they do have things to contribute, and gain confidence as they go
• chat rooms - one-on-one conversations with students, group work, special topics. (Sue doesn’t use chat rooms frequently, but when she does she doesn’t require them for the grade.) Fastest typers tend to contribute the most. Good for interviews with authors or other people of interest.

Failing Online Discussions

• no community - usually because the instructor isn’t present enough
• no motivation - no requirements, not clear goals and rubrics, don’t know if anyone is actually reading what they’re doing
• unfamiliarity - don’t know how to use the discussions. Use Snapkast, Camtasia, etc to help students learn
• no credit - doesn’t motivate students
• unrealistic goals

Benefits of Online Discussions

• students can think through responses thoroughly and take time to compose and edit before submitting
• can respond, save, and “sleep on it”
• can hear from each individual student as opposed to only the more outgoing people who are more apt to respond traditionally
• interactive learning and accountability - putting your thoughts in text. It’s there, and will be there in the future

Online Discussions are what make online courses courses and not just shoveling a face-to-face course online and expecting students to interact with it.

Free cartoons for instructors from Randy Glasbergen!

Link to session page here.

Monday 12:30 - 1:30
Paul Sparks

prsparks@pepperdine.edu

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it yourself.” - Alan Kay

Create a new identity - Avatar

• fully customizable
• hair/clothes/gestures/etc
• reflection of yourself OR new identity
• can have more than one avatar (”alts”)
• creating identities helps learn!

Participate in Community

• spaces built for interaction
• bars, dances, etc
• people share experiences through their avatars
• real sense of presence

Over 1 million active users in the last year, up to 8,000 private islands. But! Only 60 schools involved in Second Life

McLuhan Problem - create a virtual classroom in Second Life. Get this wonderful new technology….and make avatars sit in desks in rows???

Some ideas:

• create environment based on conceptual ideas of a book
  SLiki (collaborating to create virtual spaces)
• go to an island speaking a foreign language

Collaboration in Second Life

(student thoughts)

• collaborate in ways unique to SL
• think about learning in a different way
• take a concept, build something to represent it
• requires constant communication

Learning in Second Life

(student thoughts)

• take a concept, build something to represent it
• learning curve
• come to deeper understanding of topic and learning

Link to session page here.

Monday 11:00-12:00
Thomas McNeal

Students can take photos and video clips from anywhere. They can interview professionals in the field, and take video of locations of interest. Video taken can then be transferred to iTunes, etc. Using mobile phones for capturing video gets around high costs and maintenance of high quality equipment. Phones are also devices students always have on them, so they can take impromptu videos whenever they stumble upon something which could be used for a class.

Problem! The clips can only be 15 seconds each in length.

Solution: PocketCaster from ComVu
This product is in beta testing - so it’s free! (for now). Students can stream and save video clips without the time limit and do a live broadcast from the phone to a website. You can also record video without the live stream, and the site will archive the video so you can later view them and choose which you wish to use. Students only need a phone that can record video and a data account with a mobile carrier. (Tom has all of this for free from Verizon: they gave him some phones and free service. Other carriers will have varying costs for sending video.)

Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology

Kent State Research Center for Educational Technology

Contacts:

Thomas McNeal
tmcneal@kent.edu

ComVu Media Inc.
Tony Randall
tr@comvu.com

Verizon
Laura Merritt
Laura.Merritt@VerizonWireless.com

Link to session page here.

Monday 8:30-9:30
Cristian Rizzi

What kinds of skills will our children need in 20 years?

• problem solving
• metacognitive skills
• able to use technology
• teamwork
• empathy & passion
• ability to find & filter information

21st Century Learning Skills Initiative

Students are being well-prepared academically, but not prepared for the work force. Group of corporations & educators got together to figure out what we need to teach our students to make them employable.

What they came up with:

3R’s

• Reading
• Writing
• Arithmetic

Also 7 C’s

• Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
• Collaboration, Teamwork & Leadership
• Cross-cultural understanding
• Communication & Media Literacy
• Computing & ICT Literacy
• Career & Learning Self-Reliance
• Creativity & Innovation

There is a difference between learning something and understanding something. If you understand it, you can use it. Collaboration and project-based learning helps students understand.

Think Quest - Project-based learning competition. Website building competition, challenging students to create innovative and educational websites to share with the world.

eDivide - gap between people with access to technology and those without increasing.

• Physical Barriers
• Digital Barriers
• Human Barriers
• Socioeconomic Barriers

Website was created by students working together in a project-based environment, one of the group winners of the Think Quest competition.

What is 21st Century Project Learning?

Students working in teams to experience and explore relevant, real-world problems. The teacher’s role is to be a coach, facilitator, guide, adviser, mentor, or conductor. They should not be directing and managing all the student work.

Key Features of Project-Learning:

• project-centered
• learner-centered
• question/problem
• real-world
• relevant
• open-ended
• focused on Higher Order Thinking Skills
• Collaborative
• Creative
• Multiple Perspectives
• Communication-driven

Oracle Education Foundation (behind Think Quest and Think.com) will be at the vendor fair booth 2232. A team of students involved in the Think Quest competition will be there at 1:15.

Link to session page here.

Session Wiki

The introduction included a quick demo of skrbl.

Introduction continued with a demonstration of clicker technologies. They used the eInstruction system; it seemed pretty decent. They mentioned last year’s keynote where a group of about 1,000 listened to the speaker and participated with clickers. The speaker was able to alter his speech based no responses from the crowd.

One of the questions was related to the generation that you represent. I was the only Millennial in the group.

Participated in a scavenger hunt. The final product is here.

Facts about Millenials.

Compared to Gen X, Millenials outnumber 2:1. Millenials comprise 30% of the population.

Millenials who were pre-teens during 9/11 are more connected to theirselves, more likely to question parents’ morals and values. “Our generation isn’t all about sex, drugs, and violence. It’s about technology, discovery, and coming together as a nation.” “They have values reminiscent of past generations. They appreciate country, family, and the planet.”

We need to be able to tap into the MySpacers mind while focusing on a standards-based curriculum AND using the tools with which this generation was born. How do we do this?

Link to the first part of the presentation regarding the Millennials can be found here.

Web 2.0

Traffic is soaring to sites that involve communities of participation. The problem with this is that Millennials do not have a great sense of information literacy. Most educators are not doing a great job helping students find a good foundation in information literacy. ICT Study results here.

Blogs are being created at the rate of 1.4 every second (120,000 a day).

Examples:

• Math class teacher creates a blog for each class he teaches, makes students contributors.
• Middle school teacher assesses student’s understanding of a book by allowing them to blog their assignments/comment on others’ posts.
• Using flickr under Creative Commons licenses for instructional purposes.
• Creating a YouTube channel for a class, Chinese father posting “History of…” videos that he helps his children make.
• TeacherTube
• Odeo, Pod-o-matic as solutions for recording your own podcasts…really simple.
• Vox is mySpace for grown ups. Not cool for kids
• TakingItGlobal - kids taking service projects to the web.
• Gliffy, bubbl.us - Collaborative mind mapping
• Skrbl - Collaborative white boards
• MyNoteIt - Collaborative online note taking.

The Web Tools for Educators wiki can be found here. There are links to all of the above technologies plus many more. Treasure trove for new instructional technologies to analyze.

Highlighted the Intel Educational tools, specifically, the ranking engine.

The example ranking involved values for a K-12 district. We were supposed to arrange them based on the values that we found most important for developing 21st century. Here is a comparison between my choices (left) and the class average.

Here is a scary example, comparison between me and one member in the class…

Yikes!

Long, hands-on use of wiki software.

Examples of teachers using Web 2.0 applications.

If you want a really powerful assessment management system, take a look at TaskStream. Unfortunately, this is a proprietary system, but I will go take a look at it on the vendor floor. Lesson builders, rubric builders, student e-portfolios, assessments.

We want to move towards interoperabiltiy in all of these technologies so that students can move their data between different systems; at least an export of standard HTML. Unfortunately, right now, we are working in ’silos’.

Two components to an ePortfolios:

1. The working portfolio - the digital archive
   • An accumulation of artifacts
   • Tagged with metadata
   • Accumulation of personal information
   • Reflective Journal (blog)
2. The presentation portfolio
   • Multiple different views
   • Multiple different purposes

The purpose determines the process. You should first ask yourself “what are we trying to do”.

When students move from a paper portfolio to an electronic portfolio, they start linking. When students start linking, they start developing thoughts more meta-cognitively. An electronic portfolio also allows for more collaboration between students.

What is the best tool? It depends!

MySpace profiles are training wheels for ePortfolios.

There are many free Web 2.0 technologies that are appropriate for creating ePortfolios. They are mostly free, however, you may run into issues with student data on third-party servers.

The idea is small pieces, loosely joined.

Student ePortfolio

Know thyself - A lifetime of investigation.

Check out: John Zubizarreta - The Learning Portfolio

Purposes of Assessment

Assessment OF Learning (Formative, past to present), Assessment FOR Learning (Summative, present to future).

An enhanced continuum of assessment for learning: see handout p. 5. Also see the differences between the two portfolio types on p. 5.

Helen noted that OSP is terribly frustrating because it is template driven…she cannot create her template in OSP.

ePortfolio 1.0 - Hierarchical, Portfolio as a test, data-driven, standardization focus, feedback from authority figures, web-based forms, positivist, accountability-driven, proprietary, digital paper (text/images), local storage.

ePortfolio 2.0 - Networked/emergent, portfolio as a story, learner-driven, focus on individuality and creativity, feedback from community of learners, small pieces loosely joined/mashups, blog/wiki, constructivist/connectivist, learning-focused, open standards, digital story (multimedia), networked storage.

Unfortunately, accountability (state tests, NCLB, etc.) can get in the way of this type of learning. We should try to make portfolios a part of the requirements for the standardization.

Mahara - Social networking, blogging, digital archive, several views of their work for different audiences with different permissions. Open source.

Web 2.o as an architecture of interaction allows a pedagogy of interaction in the form of ePortfolio 2.0.

Tools demonstrated: Wikispaces, Protopage, Wordpress, GoogleDocs

Hands-On Activity

Karen’s Wikispace Portfolio

Three questions to ask yourself when adding to your ePortfolio:

1. What? (Artifacts)
2. So What? (Reflection)
3. Now What? (Future learning goals)

Non-structured portfolio:

• Advantages for students: allows lots of creativity
• Disadvantages for students: may draw a blank, no direction
• Advantages for teachers: freedom to direct, get to know students better
• Disadvantages for teaches: grading can be problematic.

Overly-structured portfolio:

• Advantages for students: easy to follow templates to add content
• Disadvantages for students: structure may be frustrating
• Advantages for teachers: easy to grade
• Disadvantages for teaches: boring to grade

Digital paper = text and images, digital story = tell your story in your own voice.

Digital paper + multimedia (audio/video) = digital story.

Final wish: may all your electronic portfolios become dynamic and interactive celebrations and stories of deep learning and understanding for their lifespan.

Link to materials.

Link to session page here.

Helen Barrett is using ProtoPage She also recommends Zoho!