today in training

We're here in ITHS in a Blogs, Wiki, and Web 2.0 training...

Practicing with friends

HOw's this going to look

New Post - New Position

As of August 30th, I will begin a new position as a member of the Borough of Manhattan Office of Instructional Technology. This opportunity is as exciting as it is un-defined. The public school system in New York is being reorganized for the 3rd time in about 5 years and this office is one of the results of this restructuring.
So, with this in mind, I need to make a disclaimer that ALL of the commentary in these posts represent solely my personal opinions and in no way reflect policy of any office of the NYC Department of Education.
Tonight is my first evening in Maine for vacation after 3 weeks of working with a group of Staff Developers who trained about 600 teachers in the use of new technology tools for their classrooms. And hearing the participating teachers - so many snippets of conversations during these last couple dozen days, just brimming with energetic chatter about new knowledge, new possibilities, and minds full of questions of what could happen. What will they create in their classrooms with these new abilities? What will students see that they haven't seen before inside their schools? And I'm sure new ways will develop. And I'm sure that students will be engaged by these teachers in new, creative ways. And they come into the office and tell me how they've enjoyed the classes and how good the instructors are and asking when such courses will be available again.....But it's not enough.
In a system of well over one million students, and more than 1100 schools, even the training of 600 teachers in the summer is a cup of hot tea poured into an ice bath.
And then, after plotzing on the hotel bed, I switch on the tv, and on comes an advertisement for a New Hampshire state online program for teachers that is available day or night, weekday or weekend, to all the state's educators to help them develop these new skills. There is no cost to the teachers, and no limit to the number of courses they can enroll in. They can follow their enthusiasm and their need to know. And they can do it on their time, on their schedule. And there is no class size limits. This system can accommodate an unlimited public. "Unlimited" is the kind of scale that New York needs. To change the climate, we need to open as many doors to the teachers as we can design. In class, online, on site, at conference, through workgroups, with online forums....the list must be imaginitive and broad.
When we put the same kind of priority to technology in schools as we now put into the assessment agenda, we'll see the new classrooms that belong to the time we live in and not those of our parents' school days.

Our Quarterly Tech Neighborhood Part

Today was the third of our quarterly "Tech Liaisons' Meeting"!
These meetings are heavily attended, and this was no exception!

Our first speaker was Ron Fortunato of the Global Knowledge Exchange

Ron showed us an online resource called "World Wind", and incredible source for useful to teachers across the curriculum with satellite imagery from around the world; a variety of "filters" that adds information about locales, weather, landmarks, etc.

This was followed with an assortment of "Focus Groups" that concerned: Networking, Interact with a WhiteBoard, Videoconferencing, Advanced Powerpoint, Web 2.0 (my group), Inspiration software, iMovie and Claymation.

It's always a pleasure to spend the day at the Tech Center with like-minded folks. Of course most of the professional development happens in the little side conversations...on the coffee line....on the pizza and cola line....Isn't this always the case.

A Little Revolution...

David Warlick's latest post:'The Rise and Fall of the Hit - and the Textbook Industry' is a GREAT call to arms.

Bouncing off of an article by Chris Anderson in last month's WIRED magazine ('The Rise and Fall of the Hit'), David is asking the un-musical question of why don't the educators of this country take the authorship of classroom content back from the textbook manufacturers and put it online in a database to be shared by all?

"Ya say you want a revolution, well,..."
It seems too simple and do-able to be true!
I know of very few teachers who teach By and For the Book. Everyone makes their own material for their classrooms. And they make it on computers, hence digital documents.

Why couldn't a site be developed to gather and catalog this IMMENSE resource?
While it might be difficult to sift through the quantity of material that would develop, if a traffic monitor was attached to each file, with special highlighting of 'New Arrivals' to balance things out, teachers could certainly identify lessons and teacher-authors who are in synch with their classroom needs and certain trusted sources would develop and begin to rise to the top.

For that matter, with money so tight in schools these days, maybe schools should think of syndicating the content that is built by their faculties and offering it for a very minimal fee?
Put the profit where it's needed-in the hands of the school, and let the textbook companies' stockholders get a real job....

This isn't a rant, just a rambling................have to find Google's phone number in NYC and give them a call.......

Feelin' Thtupid-Time to go Back to School

It's been a Lazy/Busy Summer-Lazy July, Busy August. But I've stayed away from the ed-tech blogs presumably to clear my mind...but in the last few weeks I've been feeling "thtupid".
My work with two new schools here in NYC has begun and there are more possibilities than there is time....but it's going to be great. I have had some underlying doubts about what I have to bring to the situation, but I think that has to do with being out of the loop for a few weeks-no writing blogs, no reading blogs and it's interesting that with one morning back on the ed-tech treadmill I'm feeling much better. A good dose of Will Richardson, and my gauge is much closer to "Full".
I've noticed that I don't carry around books like I used to: reading on the subway, new ideas to ponder and put into practice. I don't know if this is symptomatic of more use of the web for information, or a little laziness....But I have missed thinking about this work over the summer. The implications that it has for large issues like human communication, knowledge creation, language development and use, communities of learning-these sorts of things.
Right now I'm steeped in pushing three schools back onto the track after the building custodians have had their way with the desktops/laptops/servers in the building and everything seems like a sudoku puzzle: "Where ARE the keyboards from this room??"
So now it's time to go "Back to School" in more than one way. Time to start learning again and it feels good- I don't like Feelin' Thtupid.

It's Summer Time!

Relentlessly, Summer has pushed aside all other agendas and forced its way to center stage.

While I'm still checking my professional email regularly, I'm trying to wean myself from the ready-made agenda of workworld and listen to other callings.
More leisurely readings of ed-tech blogs....teach myself some needed application knowledge for next year's teachers...get a "bigger picture" of Education....

Today I enjoyed an article by an education writer/thinker- George Siemens about centralized and decentralized knowledge...processes that we (as humans) lean on to contain and order our daily experiences. Very interesting and refreshing from what's often on our "daily plate".

So here's to summer. I'll be in and out through the months of July and August, but I'm going to continue thinking....