The Innovation Exchange — 8:00 AM

Author's Note: This blog written in close proximity to a jazz band playing the greatest hits of Styx and Bachman - Turner Overdrive (BTO) . (Someone likes 70s Canadian rock.) Apologies in advance for any typographical, contextual, or other errors resulting from the hardship of working in this environment.

Executive Summary
Useful session on new uses of novel and existing technologies, with small-group work on fleshing out the specifics of a specific initiative. The session's outcome was a jump-start of a new database of educational technology initiatives.

Details
During initial discussions with other technology administrators, I saw a wide array of strategic technology initiatives that folks in my group are undertaking:

• Tyler Dunphy from Maine is using low-cost online collaboration solution using OpenFire, a real time collaboration (RTC) server dual-licensed under the Open Source GPL and commercially. It uses the only widely adopted open protocol for instant messaging, XMPP (also called Jabber).


• Paul Ross of the University of Denver has set up a v ideo-streaming solution using a MySQL database, ColdFusion middleware (administration views), and Flash and QuickTime media servers to enable staff members to manage their own multimedia libraries, create playlists for instructional use, and enable commenting by fellow faculty and students. Outstanding, and almost all grant-funded!


• A number of folks working on what we collectively termed "Whole-Class Technology Initiatives," solutions to deploy projector, interactive white board, and professional development "packages" throughout schools and districts.


• Moodle for professional development and course management.


• Classroom Cubed, an "iMax in a Box" solution that enables teachers to bring 3D imagery into their classrooms. The implementation hasn't delivered on its promise, with high long-term costs because of a dependency on third parties to produce content.

Our team settled on a collective project to define and support: the use of a wiki within an Oahu school to earn its accreditation. You can see our work at the following link:

http://innovationexchange.wikispaces.com/Innovation+Team+Eleven

Resources
I encourage you to visit the root site of the Innovation Exchange:

http://innovationexchange.wikispaces.com, which should grow in the future as others contribute their ideas.

The real mother lode of searchable initiatives will reside at

https://www.quickbase.com/db/bcf7z3wsj

To learn more about the initiative, visit the Emerging Technologies blog, http://isteemergingtech.wordpress.com/about/.

You can watch an online video by Kathy Schrock about the Emerging Technologies Database here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbqZCybJMTY.

If you are a member of Second Life, you can visit the supporting site to the Emerging Technologies Idea Library at the following address:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/155/146/22

Birds of a Feather... D3M

This session promised little beyond it's title.
Data Driven Decision Making...
Something we've heard said so much in the last few years.
I greedily hoped for more.
I imagined a group of people sharing their application of

• easily acquired, timely classroom data that was
• linked to curricular resources for assessment responses, regardless of right or wrong, and
• coupled with professional learning community tuning protocols so that they would have a safe means of describing why Mary's first graders bombed on Patterns while Debbie's first graders
• further supported by a menu of professional development opportunities that could be mapped directly from student challenge patterns emerging out of each classroom.

The folks in Oklahoma and Mid-Del school districts are working hard to get themselves there.
I can see where they are going, how they are creating their future, building it out of the very tangible challenges of the present, and how they have brought current thinking and emerging technologies into their setting.

Looking at the group sitting on the other side of the audience, I saw a collection of committed young-ish educational professionals, bejeweled with the best thinking of their age. They were a determined lot, polished and cool in the air conditioning, with the beads of wisdom breaking out as the audience asked tough questions.

They had walked through the fire.

It was clear.

They had quite determinedly brought the hand of assessment across the cultural abyss, and from another world, drawn the wisened hand of curriculum, and there in the bright white light of technology, the two were joined in an instructional space that I can see clearly will coexists well into the future of our educational processes.

Who can't see great things here?


Best,
BS

Differentiating Teaching & Learning with Technology

Resource site: www.differentiatingnecc2007.wikispaces.com
Presenters demonstrated a number of reading and writing tools for assistive tech (AT) and diverse learners. Issues of equity, fairness and bringing assistance to where it’s needed most were discussed. The site listed includes links to many readily accessible, free or low cost, online resources.

Two examples: as an alternative graphic organizer, Mind Domo (http://www.mindomo.com/) has features similar to Inspiration, but it’s free & web based. Another tool, Word Web (http://wordweb.info/free/) has a dictionary, thesaurus and word finder with applications for younger students and world language instruction. They also showed many text readers, such as Natural Reader (http://www.naturalreaders.com/ )Application: you want to listen to this blog posting because you can’t find your glasses, select the text you want read and press play! Note: not all applications are dual platform. See their wikispace above for lots more information.

Knezek, Wolf and Key.... More 21st Century Education....

21st Century Education: Technology is making it happen
Don Knezek, Mary Ann Wolf, and Ken Key

Some of the take away message included reinforcing some ideas that have emerged out of the edtech literature in the last six months:
- It’s not enough to know the content, we need to focus on the skills.
- We are trying to bring the focus onto knowledge and skills, and this really represents what the 21st Framework is about.
- A large part of the technology community continues to talk about the technology. The new NETS standards are a tool to better articulate the end game: Technology has a role to play with regard to every aspect of the model presented.

Are we graduating students who are capable of 21st Century jobs?
Anecdotal descriptions were offered of High School grads who fail to take initiative, described by the presenters as not being able to think, who can’t manage entry level positions. The panel called out for self-directed people.

An example was promoted from within the audience, of initiating self-directed
thinking:
- In the context of a remedial writing class, children set the
performance goals for themselves, selecting from within a rubric, reworking
their ideas and submission until it met the targeted acheivement. This aligns
with the goal of Bernhardt, for students to collect and monitor their own
performance, and the overriding goals of social cognitive theory, for children
and young people to grow into life-long, self-regulated learners.

When we were given the charge to solve these challenges with examples from our environments I turned to introduce myself to the 2 people nearest to me.

I met Pamela Randall of Monroe College and Bob Graver of DeVry University, and we talked about what we might like to add to the new NETS model, as well as examples of application we have observed and where they integrate into the new NETS model. Our ideas were not nearly close enough to the classroom.

There were some very good examples from the audience.
Here is the one I found most interesting....
An Application from the audience:

Technology Convocation: What is that – a day of conversation with 130 people in
a room – what do we know about changes in kids, what are we doing for the
graduating class of 2020, and what are we doing for the leadership of 2020 – the
first year teachers.

The session wound down with a question, and a reiteration from the panel regarding the importance of the work that resulted in the new ISTE NETS standards.

What are we doing to teach teacher educators to integrate technology tools into their instruction? Ken Keys reinforced the expectation that tech-champions need to work harder in their learning environments to reinforce the drive for technology.

The panel concluded by stating that the ISTE-NETS process has broadened and brought into alignment the International goals and the national expectations.

... all of which I might have learned if I read Doug's blog about the release of the new NETS2 earlier in the week.

Best,
BS

this new century
is getting old...

Tuesday's Key Note: Creativity and the Emerging Face of Education... from BS

Tuesday’s Key Note Panel: Creativity and the Emerging Face of Education

Wow! I have never met a person like Elizabeth Streb. She is ON FIRE with the energy of movement. Visit her site at http://www.strebusa.org/

She was one of four engaging speakers sharing their expectations for schools of the future. Perhaps the most unusual background, she is a renowned choreographer with a degree in Physics, hosting a dance and performing arts experience in New York City. Her most powerful suggestions arrived in three parts:
- To seek creativity and innovation, begin with seemingly impossible questions
o She offered some of her own, such as, “How can I make two objects occupy the same space at the same time?” When you watch her videos you will see how she manages this.
- Read the title of every book in the book store in the section that interests you
o Hmmm…. An interesting idea. Even before you can begin to organize your own thoughts, Streb recommends that you survey the things that interest you to form the contemporary scope, a conceptual framework
- Pursue what interests you, and what comes naturally to you
o How many times, as a child, was I warned, “Don’t take the course of least resistance!” Elizabeth Streb instead recommends that young people do just that, to pursue their interests – and, after earning my own degrees, as well as supporting other people in the pursuit of advanced degrees, I couldn’t agree more. Often, the course of least resistance will guide you to the right place for you to do your best learning and make your greatest contribution.

Other sound morsels that were appetizing included:
Mike McCauley, creative director of a Major Chicago Communications agency:
o Seek out your own cathedrals in finding creativity and innovation
§ What do you revere?
§ What has long-standing significance in your own history?
§ Use these ideas to frame your work and ambitions
Mike shared a heartfelt experience he had of creating a Hero’s Welcome for the LA Marathon. He described Mile 20, where even the heroic of heart struggle with quitting, his company placed an inspirational experience, in the form of a short Tunnel in which played the theme from Rocky, propelled people forward. It worked, in a way that was far greater than his original vision.


When building the alchemy of the creative team, Mike also suggested that you add and remove people, and not just those people with the right titles, but those who bring in a different perspective. He recommended a secretary on a distant floor, or a person in the lobby.

Mary Cullinane, the classroom teacher and assistant principal that Microsoft hired to help with the design of the Philidelphia School of the Future, was also a panel member. One of the most engaging descriptions she offered was her transition to the Microsoft culture. Not only do employees all have an office with a door, but her office and Bill Gate’s office were very similar. The Microsoft work setting is also designed around conversational spaces, where people can gather around ideas, and draw in contributions from passers-by. What Cullinane found most interesting about her new setting was “thinking time.” The Microsoft culture expects that people will sit and think. It almost looks like you are doing nothing, Cullinane noted, and this is not only ‘OK’, but expected from people.

Why Whyville? www.whyville.net

This session introduced an alternative to the highly touted Second Life virtual community. A highly engaging Twitch game gets them started, and then leads to deeper exploration. Students play educational simulations to obtain currency in your virtual world. Status awarded to the avatar/face you create, that increases with each login. Economy is a critical piece of the process and feedback loop, as students earn ‘clams’ for various tasks.

Example: nutrition project; citing real nutrition facts re: healthy food consumption practices. Interesting overlap between real life choices and playing in this virtual world. They also have a bio-tech simulation activity, and will be releasing a tropical storm in the community today. The speaker suggests that this form of virtual online community is potentially more valuable than 2nd Life because it is focused on and built around actual science and factual information. The National Science Foundation is involved and supportive of this project. For more info: see Virtual Playgrounds by Yasmin Kafei

The entire trend of simulations and virtual communities was a clear theme at the conference, and raises some challenging questions for educators. As mentioned, whether we like it or not, our kids are in these kinds of environments. One finding from the site is that the content seems to matter less then the opportunities and depth of collaboration. They are also tracking gender difference regarding site use, noting that girls tend to work in groups, and boys will pursue independent games/tasks. More info: www.whyville.net

Framing Research on Educational Technology

Hosted by members of the National Technology Leadership Coalition, this session explored current research on the impact of technology aligned with primary content areas. One of the threads of the discussion was the unfortunate gap between those in higher education doing the research, and the practioners in the K12 environment. Apparently this national organization (NTLC) is interested in helping public educators make connections with researchers.

Concept: Technology as a Trojan horse for educational reform. As hardware, networks and software become part of the educational fabric, there is an understated assumption that teachers will adopt new pedagogy and adapt their practice. Then we are surprised when the resistance goes up. This is worth further discussion. There was an article by Judi Harris cited and I will provide that link on this posting.
SN