Browsing articles from "December, 2008"

I learn with others…

Dec 24, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  No Comments
c21L 121008 [ 1:32:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (588)
DENVER - AUGUST 22: Alexia Craven, 8, looks a...
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I am now going to be in the habit of posting the most relevent conversations that I have with those who are around the Denver area. Although you may not be able to hear and see everything that we are doing, I think it is well worth the time to look at and parse through.

I think that the most interesting parts of this video podcast are the ones where we explore Personal Learning Networks and how to set them up in a rapid fire fashion. I truly enjoyed this conversation, and if you are interested in knowing about the other voices, I would check out ColoradoLearns or the Council on 21st Century Learning.

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Strategic vs. Slow

Dec 16, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  2 Comments

Am I just imagining things, or are more and more educators using the term “strategic” when they want to move slowly? Since when does having a strategy mean that there is no hope for reason to feel urgency.
 
I believe in research and I believe in planning, but these things do not seem to have anything to do with how quickly you can get things done.
 
I have had major conversations about making sure that everyone is on the same page before we move ahead with an initiative or roll out a new tool. While I seem to agree in principle, I think it is much more about our wish for everyone to be great, rather than it is based in reality. In reality, you will never have everyone on the same page. In reality, you wouldn’t want all teachers to be doing the same things in their classroom, only reaching the same kids. Why shouldn’t we let the truly exceptional work and ideas be what they can be? Why shouldn’t we run with a great, well thought out proposal, even if it doesn’t fit in with a strategy of standing still.
 
Now, I am not interested in only my ideas. I am not so egotistical to believe that I have a monopoly on change. However, it is my contention that the glacial pace of educational reform is not in place because of a lack of good ideas, but rather, it exists because of a lack of urgency.
 
How do we show the immediacy of how powerful connected learning is? How do we make sure that all of what we say has an overwhelming sense of need? I love the direction that our schools are headed, but I worry that we are going to strategize ourselves out of options for saving public education and reaching our kids. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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Cross-Posting Driving Questions with Kevin Honeycutt

Dec 14, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  No Comments
Driving Questions with Kevin Honeycutt [ 53:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (302)
Conversation Documentation
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As I promised, the audio to my conversation with Kevin Honeycutt primarily about my upcoming Educon 2.1 Presentation is now in the podcast.

I basically used this conversation as a way of fleshing out some of my thoughts on Instant and Always-on Collaboration. I really like what we talked about in terms of using Tags and Feeds differently. I think that there are many more thoughts on these ideas to come, but suffice it to say, I was thinking about them all wrong.

Kevin is quite the captive audience, seeing as how he asked me to come on his podcast. However, I would love some pushback on the ideas, so if you get a chance to listen or watch his video version, please do challenge me on some stuff.

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Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation (2009 Edition)

Dec 13, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  No Comments

Well, we did it earlier this year and most folks asked us to put on a 2009 edition, so we’re doing it again.

You are invited to attend the Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation Conference (2009 Edition).

What is Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation?
Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation is a one day conference/meetup for teachers, administrators, students, school board members, parents and anyone who is interested in education. It will be held on Saturday, February 21st, 2009, from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm at Heritage High School in Littleon, Colorado, USA (different location than last year – here’s a map). We assume most folks will be from Colorado, but everyone is welcome to attend, and we are working on some ideas for virtual participation.

Learning is conversation.

Conversation creates change.

The future of education does not exist in the isolated world of theory and abstract conference sessions. Instead, it exists in conversations. It exists in creating a robust learning network that is ever-expanding and just-in-time. Learning 2.0 is not the beginning of this conversation. It is merely a stopping point, a time to talk about the visible difference that we all seek.

We read. We reflect. We write. We share. We learn. Come join us for a day of conversation about learning and technology.

You can learn much more about the conference on the wiki, including information about registering. Here are some highlights:

Tentative Schedule
We’re still working on the details so this will be updated before the conference. Also, this may expand if we have more folks register than we are anticipating. (To quote Bud Hunt, “This conference stuff is hard!”). We also need folks to submit proposals to faciliate conversations.

Registration
You must register so that we know how many folks to expect and so that we can have enough lunches available. (Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?)

Cost
Free, baby. And lunch is included, thanks to the generous support of Littleton Public Schools and St. Vrain Valley Public Schools.

Wireless
BYOL (that would be Bring Your Own Laptop) – we’ll have wireless access to the Internet (filtered) – we may test our capacity to handle density of machines, but hopefully things will go swimmingly. If not, we have wired machines in various places you can access.

Questions for Students
We’re having a student panel discussion during lunch. Here’s your chance to submit some questions for them to consider.

Invite Others
We strongly encourage you to invite other folks from your school, district, neighborhood, or learning network to attend as well. It would be great if everyone could bring at least one person with them that is perhaps new to this conversation.

Call for Conversations
Hey, did you miss it above? We need folks to submit proposals to facilitate these conversations. This doesn’t happen without you.

Questions?
Feel free to leave a comment on this post or on the FAQ page on the wiki.

Promote Learning 2.0
Did we mention that you should tell others? Blog about this. Link to the wiki or this blog post. Download a flyer (pdf) and print it out.Or use this nifty image.

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Head on over to…

Dec 11, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  1 Comment

Head on over to Kevin Honeycutt’s driving questions podcast at http://kevinhoneycutt.org/ and click on the driving questions podcast. I had a great conversation with him this morning about change in schools and ways to create instant and always on collaboration. I will be posting my audio and notes from the conversation but his is already up because he is much more diligent at getting things online.

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Pride in resistance to change.

Dec 9, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  1 Comment

I had a meeting today about transitioning to a google apps for your domain installation from an exchange server.
 
This sounds like a pretty easy sell, actually. It will save something like $13,500 a year. In the end it was, but not for that reason. It was only easy because admin didn’t have to change their workflow in any way. They would still be able to use outlook exclusively. It would only be the “back end” that would shift. This idea took me totally by surprise.
 
It wasn’t because I want people to completely shift the ways in which they do things just because I think it is better. It took me by surprise because it basically meant that the admin did not want to learn anything that they did not already know. That alone makes me sad. The idea that the current way of doing things is ever “the way” of doing things strikes me as defeatist. I don’t think I could handle setting an institution based on that model. Perhaps that does work for some people, but I don’t see how.
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Anything that can be archived, should be.

Dec 7, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  2 Comments

I was teaching yesterday using xtranormal (http://www.xtranormal.com/profile/horizon) and edmodo. I found myself trying to justify why I wanted to archive all of the learning going on in the room. As if somehow there were people watching and asking why I was doing what I was doing.
 
I waited, but no one asked the question.
 
In the end I want people to challenge my thinking. I want other teachers to ask what the virtue of chronicling all of the thoughts of students is. This is what I would have said, if anyone had put my pedagogy to the test:
 
Learning is not tangible. It isn’t something that all students just come to and recognize easily. It must be made visual and reflective. It must be made into an object to be manipulated. If we are not archiving everything for our students (or if they aren’t doing it themselves), how will they ever be able to say “I can use this.” If it we don’t save our students thinking, how can we ever know that it really happened? How can we know if they or we did a job woth doing?
 
Learning is not for a day or a class period. We need to stop treating it like it were.
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Guest Teaching 12.05.08

Dec 5, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  No Comments

Cores 1-4:

  1. Discuss-on:
  2. Brainstorm ways in which you would like to “reframe” A Christmas Carol:
  4. Well, let’s talk about how we will be reframing A Christmas Carol using animation and microblogging.
  5. First, XtraNormal will allow us to completely create the scene, choose the characters and their actions, and even add background music, all without having to record a single video frame or sound file. Let’s take a look.
  6. Next, Edmodo will allow us to have some conversation around what we are creating and learning. It will allow us to all think out loud without having our thoughts become too entangled (or having it get deafeningly loud in here). It is the way that we will honor the process of creation and not just the product at the end.
  7. The conventions of microblogging are as follows:
  • Write down exactly what you are choosing to do with your project (which scene you are using, which characters, etc.)
  • Write down why you are making the choices you are making (why put Scrooge on a beach, etc)
  • Write down questions that you have about your project (why is Scrooge so angry; does he have to be in our reframed version?)
  • Reply as much as you can to others.

As for the requirements for the movie, please use the following guidelines:

  • Have no fewer than 5 dialog exchanges.
  • Do not copy and paste words from the book/play. Rethink the dialog so that it is appropriate for the scene that you have created.
  • Block out the entire scene before you click Action!
  • Don’t forget to have tell your microblogger what you are thinking.
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    I have a goal I need help with.

    Dec 4, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   E-mail Help  //  No Comments
    Hey, its Katie from your digied group.  Next year 2009/2010 I would like to use the ability to blog and skype in order to communicate with other middle schoolers in other countries.  The things I need help with are: a good blog site, how to really set up and skype with a Mac laptop, and how to find schools in Europe, Japan and South Africa that we could communicate with?

    This is for sure an awesome project that you are starting.

    I would say that there are a few things that you would want to consider in starting this project. What kind of blog are you looking to take on. Do you want to only have your own work posted on the blog and then have other’s comment on it? Would you like the ability to add students to your blog and have them create content on it? Or, are you really just going to use the blog as a way of connecting with these students from other countries (i.e., would you rather have a micro-blogging site that allows you and others to write specific messages back to one another)?

    If you are looking for a really good and stable blogging platform with a lot of features that is not blocked anywhere, I would recommend edublogs. You would be able to blog and have other’s blog on your site by setting up accounts for them. I used edublogs for a couple of years before I decided to move everything on to my own server.

    I would say, though, that if you are looking to have a lot of collaborators and such, you may want to take on a microblogging format, meaning that all of the messages would be short (140 characters or less, usually). This would allow for a rapid exchange of information and connection from students. It would also allow students to exchange longer works with each other as files, while keeping their reflections and reactions nice and short. I would recommend either Edmodo (which sets up a private classroom or project space… here is an example of what it looks like in a classroom) or ShoutEm (which sets up a more public space where students have to set up logins, but the whole world would be able to see it easily).

    As for setting up skype with your mac laptop, there are couple of good resources that I like: http://newley.com/2007/10/08/how-to-use-skype-a-tutorial/

    or

    Both of these are pretty good at helping you through any of the snags that may come up in setting it up. The PDF link also has some follow up resources for skyp in education.

    As for finding schools and teachers to collaborate with, I found a pretty decent list of places to look for collaborators at Wes Fryer’s wiki.

      1. ePals (http://www.epals.com/)
      2. iEARN – International Education and Resource Network (http://www.iearn.org/)
      3. Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) Collaboration Center (http://www.cilc.org/c/community/collaboration_center.aspx)
      4. Global Schoolhouse Projects Registry (http://www.globalschoolnet.org/GSH/pr/index.cfm)
      5. TWICE Videoconferencing Collaborative Projects and Exchange Projects (http://www.twice.cc/projects.html)
      6. K-12 Online Conference (http://k12onlineconference.org/)

    I would also add Teacher’s Connecting (http://teachersconnecting.com/), which is Ben Hazzard’s (of the Smart Board Podcast fame). Abviously, you only need a few takers, but I really think that sending out a wide net is a great idea.

    I would love to talk more about your ideas for the project. Where do you want to take it?
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    Waiting on something big.

    Dec 3, 2008   //   by Ben Wilkoff   //   Uncategorized  //  No Comments

    I have to say that as I am preparing to write and create my presentation for Educon 2.1 (http://educon21.wikispaces.com), I am struck by the need to do something very big. I really would like to have all of my efforts to instill an attitude of change in those around me come to a significant point. I would like to have a moment to sit back and reflect, which is what this blog is supposed to be all about. In fact,I have been doing far too little of that recently. Perhaps the doing is getting in the way of the thinking.
     
    I had a meeting earlier with the head of the Digital Educator program in our district, and we spent probably about 2 hours meandering through tools and never pinning down what is truly important to pursue with teachers. Is it really important that teachers be able to know how feeds work? Is it really valuable to create a social network for this particular project? Or, is it vitally important that we help everyone create their own networks? Why is it so hard for me to solidify my ideas of what is truly mastering the art of conecting and collaborating with others?
     
    So, as I go forward with this presentation, I will be pursuing the big reflection, but not at the expense of the small reflection. I would say watch this space, but until I say something of value, odds are that it is pointless to say something like that. We are only as valuable as our most recent idea, right?
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