Jim’s posthaven

Student as Contributor: The Digital Learning Farm

I am sweet, why hasn't the world listened to me?

Alan November, Senior Partner, November Learning

"The real revolution is information and relationships."

"We are techno lusting nerds."

If feed back on homework is not immediate then the mistakes made start to sink in and become part of the brain pathways. By 36 hours without feedback ideas are set and the homework has done more harm than good.

"All learning is social."

"Kids are more interested in listening to a child explaining something than a teacher."

'Every teacher is a learner and every learner is a teacher."

"Kids will work overtime if teacher invites them into the teaching and learning process."

"Why don't we bring kids to staff development?"

I love Alan November's ideas. I was surprised to find out that most of the young teachers at the conference had not heard of him but felt like his message was old and tired. They said they had it all through their education classes. I was glad to hear this but also somewhat surprised, not all new teachers have caught the vision.

Student Cell Phones in Learning

Lot Of Interesting Things To Do With Cell Phones

Liz Kolb, Lecturer, University of Michigan, and Adjunct Professor, Madonna University

Liz thinks very creatively about how to use cell phones in learning. What I appreciate most about her is she think way outside the box on how to use tools, which I also like to do. 

Jumbli.com - online word game. no control but could be a fun bell ringer.

contxt.com - online business cards. Could also be used to build scavenger hunts.

dailybooth.com - public place to send pictures to from cell phones, like a twitter for cell phone cameras.

It is time for me to figure out google voice.

She showed off scvngr.com which I love but is a big deal to get ready.

Liz was off her game today.

Getting Teachers to Adopt Technology: What to and not to Do

This guys gets it.

Rushton Hurley, Executive Director, Next Vista for Learning, and Teacher, Santa Clara Unified School District, CA

Two things technology must do for him to use it

Six Don'ts and Dos

1. Don't require teachers to be experts in technology. Do remind them of their expertise.
2. Don't tie everything to standards. Do show them something fun.
3. Don't sit everyone in a lab for training. Do allow for regular and short sharing time.
4. Don't limit technology to labs. Do showcase what can be done outside the lab. This ones is a little less important int our 1 to 1 environment.
5. Don't buy expensive software a teacher has not used. Do learn what is freely available.
6. Don't blanket the school with expensive hardware. Do use targeted spending to focus purchases. No matter what you do you are going to tick someone off. Do not shoot for equity shoot for putting stuff in rooms where it will get used. If the people who do not get the technology a mad and they do something about it, great. If they are mad and they don't change give more stuff to the people do stuff. If you flip this around the people who get mad are the people doing stuff, and you want to encourage them not discourage them.

Kids tell stories in thousands of new and different ways, let them!

My laptop has a webcam, now what?

So many teachers and student use these things around here, I wonder if other people need to know the power?

or

It was the catchiest title I could come up with and I am working on a theory that catchy titles are the key to presenting.

Me.

See attached photos of slides. They will not be of much value since they each need the story and the slides do not have video. Sorry no audio. I wish I had the ability to remember to record myself at these things.

I love presenting. It forces me to reflect on my teaching and tech coordinating and bring out in front of people what good is happening around me. I tried out two specific new things this year that I think may have helped.

First, I spent a lot of time on my title. It may not seem like it but I did. The title above is the best I have ever had. I liked that it was current: many PC people are new to having a webcam. I liked that there was no mistaking what the presentation was going to be about. I thought it communicated that there would be stuff in here to try out on Monday (a way teachers often decide what to do at conferences) while I knew I would get at picture theories of education during the whole thing. I wanted more than my current average at MACUL of 15 people in the room.

Second, I think I realized that there are three tiers of presenting at conferences. First tier is the true story tellers with a big philosophical point. Dan Meyer, Alan November, Will Richardson, David Warlick, Gary Stager all weave stories and presentations to make you think big thoughts. Second tier presenters show you a lot of things that you can do and try to weaver their big picture stuff into that. I think this is second tier because I might only get a few nuggets out and I will probably have to find them myself a little. Plus it is easier to make these presentations. Line up 25 good ideas and go. There is another tier but I would like to stay positive. 

If you look at the slides, my presentation was essentially 21 good ideas about using webcams. I weaved through that some good rules of teaching, and how to use other devices than webcams that you may have around to achieve some of the same goals. I was really happy with how it came together.

I think my title worked. I had about 50 or 75 people at the presentation. The room was pretty big, so it was not full, but close. Aside from my title I was in the room that on the program had me right below all the headliners. That probably helped. The room I was in was literally the farthest room from anything, which might have hurt. I was very happy with the turnout. And I think no one left, which is another good sign for my title. I got a lot of positive feedback from the people who stayed after as well.

I could do some things better. 

• I need to put my slides up before the show so that my sharetabs.com link includes a link to the slides. 
• I need to make my sharetabs.com before the morning of the event.
• I need to be ready to present 20 minutes early so I can greet them at the the door. By ten minutes left when I was ready to meet people at the door the room was half full. By the way, greeting people at the door is an essential and under utilized presentation technique. 
• I should consider the whole presentation being websites, although with all the videos that are of unknown copy write status, I really could not.
• I should have short Google Form for evaluation that people can go to for feedback.

Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter