Response to Paul (on PD must be better)

This post is in response to a comment on my last post which went something like this:

As I read your list I went back and forth agreeing with you.

Do you ever question if it is not how we do PD but the audience that we have hired and put into the “seats?”

Do you think we could stop “doing PD” if we simply hired a different caliber of professionals?

Do you worry that we have to “give(!!!) context, meaning and perspective” to teachers?

Here is my response:

I do think that it has to do with who we are talking to and what messages they will accept. However, I really do believe that if given enough reason to change, everyone will. I believe in the power of people to see something great and to become a part of it.

I also think that we could stop “doing PD” once people start thinking about networks as PD, but I still think we need to give people time away from their classroom responsibilities to actually create that network and to do their learning. We are passionate about learning what is “new”, but not everyone is. Others have to be given the time to do so, even if they are able to be a networked learner. They need to have the space to network.

All learners need to be given a space that has context, meaning and perspective. While I may create a lot of the context for what I do, I live it every day. I cannot expect people who do not blog to understand the context of blogging. I cannot expect people who do not use twitter to understand the context and meaning of a twitter conversation. And, I cannot expect people who do not use wikis and revision history to create a perspective to gain that perspective by doing anything other than actually using wikis and looking at revision histories.

When I say give, I believe that I am giving an experience. The experience is what matters to me. It is what will allow them to start creating context, meaning and perspective. Nothing else will do this and expecting them to create that experience on their own is just a little to harsh for me.

Technorati Tags: learning, pd, response, online, elearning, professional development, paulbogush

SpeedGeek Learning Version .1

LiC Podcast: Design with Forever in Mind Archive

Design with Forever in Mind [ 34:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (989)

Although I was thrown a whole bunch by not having wifi for the first 45 minutes, I think that the session was worthwhile. Here is the archive of all that we have done. I am also including my planning podcast from my drive up to copper mountain.

Presentation:

Drop Box:

Important Links:

Ben Wilkoff Links:

1. Learning is Change Blog and Podcast>
2. Twitter Page
3. Other Presentation on Thursday (The On Button: Instant and Always-on Collaboration)

Presentation Links:

1. Foreverism
2. Math Casts
3. Web 2.0 Game Over

Exit Plan for Vocaroo:

• Wav files backed up to a hard drive/server

Exit Plan for Drop.io:

• Everyone who downloads the podcast will have a copy.

Exit Plan for JamGlue:

• Mp3 files of mixes

Exit Plan for Screencastle:

• Download Direct Link to File and store on hard drive/server

Exit Plan for Screentoaster:

• Mov Downloads before uploading to screencastle site

Exit Plan for DimDim:

• Download and build own DimDim server and store recordings there.

Exit Plan for Twitter:

• Backup twitter with Tweettake

Exit Plan for Google Docs:

• Google Docs Download GreaseMonkey Script

Ustream Archive:




Twitter Archive:

CosmoCat: @bhwilkoff was great to learn about screencasting and audio recording! Hope you enjoy Audioboo! #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:46 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Thanks to everyone for adding value to my session #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:40 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: http://twitterforteachers.wetpaint.com/ #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:13 PM GMT ·
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toniobarton: Learning needs real purpose and real audience. #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:08 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: How do you capture learning? Add to the spreadsheet: http://tr.im/pvz2 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 09:05 PM GMT ·
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villagegreen: #forevertie09 http://screencastle.com/watch/b0c8a1b0ac6aa37d179f945721ee4400

Jun 23, 2009 08:40 PM GMT ·
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CosmoCat: I’m searching for #forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/4A1lo3 (expand)

Jun 23, 2009 08:19 PM GMT ·
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care507: I’m searching for #forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/4A1lo3 (expand)

Jun 23, 2009 08:13 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: I’m searching for forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/MVxM0 (expand)
#forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:13 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: #forevertie09 Devonee – Technology Integration Specialist from Mesa County

Jun 23, 2009 08:12 PM GMT ·
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forevertie09: I’m searching for #forevertie09 live on TweetGrid Search – http://bit.ly/4A1lo3 (expand)

Jun 23, 2009 08:11 PM GMT ·
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villagegreen: #forevertie09 to back channel: I’m Matthew Woolums, Integration Coordinator from DPS. My blog: http://villagegreen.edublogs.org

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: SpEd in middle school in NW Denver. #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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jcope50: #forevertie09 Hi! Jill – Skyline HS Teacher Librarian- St. Vrain – just moved to CO on Saturday from CA!!!

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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toniobarton: #forevertie09 first year HS Computer Teacher from Manitou Springs High School

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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Sara24lynn: #forevertie09 Hello! I am a library media specialist in a K-5 school in Greeley, Colorado.

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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lbreed: #forevertie09 Hi! Lisa from Evergreen Middle School! I am looking forward to learning about authentic assessments.

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: Name is Matthew (obvi). Work in DPS. #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:08 PM GMT ·
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Sara24lynn: #forevertie09 Audioboo.fm is an audio tool for iPhone My audioboos http://audioboo.fm/profile

Jun 23, 2009 08:07 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: @forevertie09 mind being blown; didn’t realize so many tools out there that I didn’t know about. Not in the know at 25?? #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:03 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: How do you use audio to capture learning? Call 646-402-5701 x 25286 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 08:00 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:54 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: I’m getting real-time search results at TweetGrid http://tweetgrid.com/ #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:54 PM GMT ·
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RickTanski: @jenwagner Slide 10 on http://tieconference.wikispaces.com/1117 #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:51 PM GMT ·
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toniobarton: #forevertie09 I like http://www.vocaroo.com/ recording website, easy to use.

Jun 23, 2009 07:50 PM GMT ·
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dlevesque: vocarro does not work on a eeepc #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:47 PM GMT ·
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erhubbell: @bhwilkoff Hi everyone! Looking forward to great conversations today. #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:39 PM GMT ·
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matthewadennis: Will the iPhone be forever, Ben? #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:31 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: @bhwilkoff was giving it rave reviews! RT @courosa: @zemote I see Edmodo on the screen at #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:29 PM GMT ·
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sroseman: #forevertie09 how do i get rid of the echo

Jun 23, 2009 07:29 PM GMT ·
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zemote: @courosa awesome!!!! thanks for letting me know #forevertie09 , if anyone has questions, forward them on

Jun 23, 2009 07:28 PM GMT ·
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courosa: @zemote I see Edmodo on the screen at #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:27 PM GMT ·
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courosa: #forevertie09 re: learning that lasts 4ever,think about boyd’s media attributes” persistence,replicability,searchability,invisible audience

Jun 23, 2009 07:25 PM GMT ·
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dlevesque: #forevertie09 why last forever?

Jun 23, 2009 07:23 PM GMT ·
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RickTanski: @bhwilkoff Hello from an office in Colorado Springs #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:22 PM GMT ·
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McTeach: @bhwilkoff Hello from Sunny Northern California! #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:22 PM GMT ·
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ericolsen: Will the computers ever work?#forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:20 PM GMT ·
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courosa: #forevertie09 Hey Ben, hi from the St. Louis airport, soon to get back to Canada.

Jun 23, 2009 07:20 PM GMT ·
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villagegreen: Sitting in on design with forever in mind at tie #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:20 PM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Say hello to all of the folks at #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:19 PM GMT ·
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RickTanski: @bhwilkoff 3 hour session! I’m going to kill some bandwidth bits for sure. #cotie09 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:10 PM GMT ·
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mjmontagne: tuning in to a bit of @bhwilkoff ‘s workshop #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 07:09 PM GMT ·
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debh2u: RT @bhwilkoff: Session wiki page http://tieconference.wikispaces.com/1117 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 10:53 AM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Session wiki page http://tieconference.wikispaces.com/1117 #tie09 #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 05:55 AM GMT ·
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bhwilkoff: Creating a hashtag for my session tomorrow at #tie09. Come and Join in the session with #forevertie09

Jun 23, 2009 05:54 AM GMT ·
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New Responsibility

I was thinking about waiting until I got a little further into the
project to start blogging about it, but since I made the choice to
start blogging daily, I have really found that this forum let’s me
think through all of the things that I need to.
 
So the new responsibility is this: I have been put in charge of
administrating multiple moodle installations in our district. The
reason why this new charge I have been given is so strange to me is
that up until 2 months ago, the only “official” moodle installation in
our district was at a high school in parker, which I had little to do
with.
 
 The reason for the shift is nothing short of an economic and
pedagogical perfect storm. Our district had slowly been building the
capacity for more and more teachers to start asking for a way of
teaching and engaging with their students online, and with the failure
of our bond election, the only choice for an LMS was to have someone
who was already working in open source to implement and support a
solution like moodle.
 
The best part is, however, that no one I have talked to thinks that we
are settling for something. From all of the initial conversations, all
stakeholders believe that professional development, online learning,
and blended learning fit well within a vision of moodle that includes
outside assessments and google apps for communication.
 
I guess the only reason for this post is to ask for advice. If you
were asked to design and implement learning environments for an online
school, a professional development program, and a blended model
(online and in centers/schools) using moodle, what would you make sure
to do (or not do)?
 
While I have a definite vision for the way forward, I am not the
smartest person in the room (considering that I have no idea how big
this room is). I want to know more… Always more.

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Twitter and Google Reader for Productivity

Goomoodleikiog: Naming things is important

So, this came across my tweetdeck today:
http://sites.google.com/site/goomoodleikiog/Home
 
It outlines in very specific terms one way of integrating Google Docs,
Moodle, Wikis and Blogs. I say very specific because one of the
general hallmarks of the 2.0 version of teachers is that we tend to
all be pretty good at explaining things in vague terms for others and
specific terms for our students. We tend to be able to project a
vision to the outside world and not be able to back it up with the
specific ways of getting there, the ways that we got there in our own
situations.
 
The videos at this space are concrete (in-progress examples of just
how a classroom can run). The pedagogy page is a brilliant explanation
of how all of these tools should fit together, and it may be one of
the first coherent things I have seen that isn’t just a list of tools.
 
However the real reason for this post is not to talk about the site
itself, but rather the name. Goomoodlewikiog, although a mouthful, is
specific in terms of its purpose. It projects exactly what it aims to:
a collection of interrelated tools.
 
I believe that we should always be intentional in naming things that
we want to be associated with. We should always frame our
conversations in the terms that we want to be speaking about on a
daily basis. And although I’m not sure that I’m going to be using
Goomoodleikiog on a daily basis from now on, I am glad that someone
is.
 
My question is: what other terms do I need to make more concrete? When
is it time to drop Web 2.0 and start talking with language that
actually means something?

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Too busy to work on workflow

The other day I was working with the principal of our online school on
creating a workflow for contacts, email, and calendar that would allow
her to add, read, and create from anywhere, meaning more productivity
for her.
 
I am pretty convinced that we need to be addicted to creating a better
workflow for ourselves, but that is a longer blog post. The reason for
this one was that Chris Lehman left a comment on my last post
expressing that he had a similar idea of people who were just too
busy. His post is right here:
 
And here is my comment on it:
http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?url=archives/361-Hardest-Working-Teacher-Syndrome.html
 
I recognize that this happens everywhere. I love that you have a
better name for it, though. (The hardest working teacher in the
building syndrome)
 
I know that you were talking about teachers when you wrote it, but I
really think that admin and IT need this post quite a bit.
 
The lack of help, support, and sharing that goes on because we are too
busy is truly troubling. Taking time to recognize that busy (or hard
working) is no excuse for not sharing what you are working on or
taking time to see what others are working on.
 
I think recognizing that an addiction to finding a workflow that
actually works is not optional anymore. If a teacher or admin is “too
busy”, their workflow is probably out of whack. That doesn’t get
talked about enough in our conversations. We just assume that others
aren’t duplicating efforts all over the place because we don’t.
 
If everything (our learning) is connected, nothing is out of place,
meaning that we don’t have to add more, we just make it flow better.

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Virtual attendees unite.

I was thinking some more about Sloodle and Second Life in general
today and a thought struck me: why don’t all conferences have a SL or
Open Sim component?

Why do we struggle to pull together people from all over the state,
country and world into 2d places like blogs, wikis and aggregator
pages when all we need is a decent SLurl to direct people to in order
to connect? Now, I know that the WebHeads in Action do Second Life
events all of the time, but as far as I know they do not have a
face-to-face component. As for the face to face conferences I have
been to, not one of them invited those watching the elluminate or
usteam feeds to join in on an SL roundtable.

Do conferences need to artificially separate those who can see one
another with those who cannot?

Why can’t we put the usteams into a SL environment? Why shouldn’t we
allow the hallway conversations to happen for virtual attendees?

In other words, I would like to do this soon. Anyone already tried it
successfully?

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Challenging question…

Earlier today I was talking with a colleague that I highly respect who was challenging the premise of my blog post from yesterday.
 
She was saying that if I truly wanted to recast education as a new character that I would need to define what it is that I can do with connected learning and technology that I can’t do otherwise.
 
This particular teacher (and tech integration specialist) has a wonderful way of pushing me to think about whether something like google docs is really any better than butcher paper and different colored markers. Whenever she asks questions like this, I really do take pause. So I put it to you. What is it that we can do now that isn’t just the logical extension of what has come before? What collaborative exercise is not just a gallery walk in disguise? (I have my ideas, but I would like to see if anyone wants to take the same bait that I was given.)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

I bought a house today!

This post doesn’t have a whole lot to do with educational technology, but I really had to let everyone who might care to know that my family is moving into a new house. It is our absolute dream home.

I have toyed with the idea of putting up the video tour that I did in order to show my parents, but I’m not totally sure that anyone that reads my blog casually really needs that kind of a detailed view of where my children sleep. If you truly would like to have that kind of voyeurism in your life, send me a direct message on Twitter.

For now, though, just know that I am happy with our decision, and that I cant wait to move in.