My 2011 Edublog Award Nominations

Best individual blog

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/

Steve consistently writes a high quality and high volume blog.

Best individual tweeter -

@courosa

I have no idea how he tweets this much and it’s all interesting edtech stuff.

Best group blog - Castle Blogs http://schooltechleadership.org/blogs/

I’m not sure if this is what they mean by Group Blog, but the collection of blogs here is written by a great collection of educational experts in their respective fields under one umbrella; Castle

Best ed tech / resource sharing blog -http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/

Again, not a traditional resource sharing blog, but Vicki shares some great tools, tools I’ve never heard of before.  Best of all she puts the tools in a context of how she uses them to improve education and her life. That context is exactly where other resource blogs fall short, Vicki doesn’t review the tool, she tells you how it works for her, what problem it solves.

Best librarian / library blog – http://tametheweb.com/

Dr. Michael Stephens is an innovative thinker.

Best School Administrator blog -http://cultureofyes.ca/

This is a real gem as it is rare to see solid, consistent, and original blogging from a high level district administrator

Lifetime achievement  -  Dean Shareski http://ideasandthoughts.org/

Dean’s sincere, honest, humorous, and offers a fresh perspective on alot of the problems in education today.

My 3 takeaways from #ISTE11

1.  “Technology should be like oxygen.” (Chris Lehmann, Keynote)
Even though technology at #iste11 was like oxygen (it was everywhere) we have a ways to go in making it like oxygen in our schools.  Just imagine if we had the same conference, but there was no ipad/iphone app and all you had was the paper planner?  What if there were no twitter or no cell phone access?  That is the situation we face as educators in our schools and the situation which we must navigate.  Where previously we went to ISTE seeking ways to integrate technology we now seek ways to open a window in our learning institutions to leverage this oxygen.

2.  We have grown up
There were more people on twitter than ever at #iste11 and more than ever people behaved themselves and where constructive rather than destructive.  I think the reason is that people now have experience with twitter and blogs.  Experience teaches us things that training sessions do not.

I also think that twitter and back channels were used productively to disrupt in a good way what would be a normal conference.  Presenters embraced the back channel and people were respectful, but honest about what they were doing, seeing, and learning.  We have a ways to go, but we have come a long way in a short period of time.  There is more work to be done, but we are headed in the correct direction as a conference, now we need to further embed social media into the fabric of the ISTE organization.  The work of @isteconnects is important and we need more work like that going on to connect the organization with its members in informal ways.  (Shout out to Katie Stansberry who I got to meet at the conference, she does great work).

3.  Agency
Students must be given the agency to use technology.  Technology isn’t something to supplement what teachers are already doing or to jazz up their lessons, but rather it is meant to unleash students and unlock their passions.  Again, there are any number of reasons that push back against this empowerment, but the key question is how are we offering students greater agency and how can we overcome the barriers to giving them this agency.

ISTE TIP #1: Poster Presentations

The poster presentations at ISTE are great and you will undoubtedly get more out of them than sitting in a concurrent session because you will actually get to talk to the presenter and have your specific questions answered (rather than just sitting and listening to a presentation).

I did a poster presentation back at NECC 08 and enjoyed talking with the people that stopped by.

Try squeezing in a walk through the poster sessions between concurrent sessions and try to identify the poster sessions you are most interested in ahead of time (as walking around the poster sessions aimlessly will leave you missing what you want to see).

Mondays Sessions at ISTE11

Here is what appeals to me on Monday at ISTE 2011.  What sessions are you attending?  Too many great topics to pick from!
8:30-9:30am

Learning with Mobile Technologies: Rethinking Teacher Practice through Work Flow [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 9

Intertwining Digital Content and 1-to-1 Laptop Learning Environment [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 2

Designing and Doing TPACK-Based Professional Development [Concurrent Session; Spotlight]
Location: PACC 122B

Pre-Release of the NETS for Technology Directors, Coaches, and Computer Science Teachers[Concurrent Session; Lecture]
Location: PACC 108

11:00am-12:00pm
Embedding the 4 Cs in the Common Core [Concurrent Session; Panel]
Location: PACC 201BC

How Laptops Digitize and Transform Learning [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 7

Teaching a High School Emerging Technologies Course [Concurrent Session; Lecture]
Location: PACC 202B

1-to-1 Programs: Here (Pennsylvania), There (California), and Beyond (New Zealand)! [Concurrent Session; Panel]
Location: PACC 113A

WYSIWYG: Guidance for Technology Decisions from Classroom Observation Research [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 3

The Boards are Interactive: What About the Teaching? [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 1

Beyond Robotics: Project-Based Design and Engineering [Concurrent Session; Lecture]
Location: PACC 123

Education in the 21st Century: A New Frame of Leadership [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 5

Big Brother is Coming: Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions about Classroom Cameras [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 8

How Evaluation of MMOGs Supports Game-Based Learning, Design, and Development [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 1

2:30-3:30pm
Bringing STEM Alive in Immersive Multiuser Virtual Environments [Concurrent Session; Lecture]
Location: PACC 203A

Building Learning Communities with Google Apps for Education [Concurrent Session; Panel]
Location: PACC 201BC

A Leadership Framework and Instrument for Technology Innovation in Schools [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 3

Mobile Wireless Devices that Empower Engagement, Learning, and Assessment [Concurrent Session; Spotlight]
Location: PACC 201BC

Integrating TPACK into Preservice Teachers’ Learning Experiences [Research Paper; Roundtable]
Location: PACC 105B, Table 4

5:30-6:45pm
A Discussion of Secondary IT Certification Programs [Concurrent Session; Birds-of-a-Feather]
Location: PACC 107B
Developing a Comprehensive Technology Assessment Strategy [Concurrent Session; Birds-of-a-Feather]
Location: PACC 115A

EduCon Reflection; Dr. Remix

In reflecting on my Conversation with @budtheteacher at EduCon2.3, I want to thank everyone who participated.

My first reflection is something that Bud said that I didn’t want to jump on during the presentation but that I definitely disagreed with. He said, ” if you look at our Google Doc outline you could see what I contributed and clearly see what Bud contributed by tracking the edits”.

No, Bud, sorry, you can’t, yes you can see the changes we both made, but if someone looked at that outline, they can’t really attributed it to you or to me. Perhaps they could cite it, but I don’t think they could attribute the work there to either one of us; but rather to our collaboration. Just like our conversation was authored not through the individual contributions of Bud, the audience members, and me, but by all of our working as a collective, collaborative team for the good of working through the notion of what citation is and where it lives in our lives as educators.

My EduCon Schedule

What sessions are you planning to go to at EduCon?  These are the ones that I think I will attend:

Conversation: “I’m From the Education Department and Am Here to Help” and other bedtime stories: A conversation about how to make and influence policy with some who do.

Conversation: Leadership – A Missing Piece: Reimagining School and District Leadership

Conversation: Design Thinking: 21st Century Skills for the Real World (Not Just School-Centric Practice)

Conversation: Dr. Remix; or how I learned to stop worrying and love citation

(hey this is my session, I have to attend…hope you do too, should be fun)

Conversation: Why Johnny Can’t Read: A Conversation About What It Means to Be Literate…Today

Conversation: A Call For All Educators! How Do We Get More “Connected” Principals?

Conversation: Charting a New Course

Conversation: What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Conversation: The same as it ever was, but does it have to be?

Conversation: Making Kids Professionals: SLA’s Rough Cut Productions (Research And Design Lab)

Conversation: Ctrl+Alt+PD: Shifting School Culture with Technology and Collaborative Professional Development

Conversation: Beyond the Classroom: Change from Here

Conversation: The Reality of Enabling School Change: A Story of Risk, Hurdles, and Hope

Assessing Technology Literacy; Hitting the Moving Target

K12Online 2010; RoboFusion

Lego Education

Sea Perch’s National Site

Drexel’s Sea Perch Program

Cricket Robots

NASA Robotics

Restating the Equal-Odds Rule

The equal odds rule states that

“the average publication of any particular scientist does not have any statistically different chance of having more of an impact than any other scientist’s average publication.  In other words, those scientists who create publications with the most impact, also create publications with the least impact, and when great publications that make a huge impact are created, it is just a result of “trying” enough times.”

Now can we expand this rule to more than just scientific publications?

those…who create… with the most impact, also create…with the least impact, and when (something) great make(s) a huge impact (is) created, it is just a result of “trying” enough times.

Sounds right to me and if nothing more is a great motivation to increase productivity in all areas.

Learn by Doing

Today, someone will come to you with an idea and will ask, “Can we do it?  You will be reading an article about a new technology and suddenly you will have a great idea about how that technology can be implemented in your school, but will you do it?

Any time we consider a new idea (especially in this economy) the first question we have is can we afford it?  I suggest you instead consider the consequences of your inaction; what will happen if I don’t do this?  At first, the answer seems clear; nothing, but think again,  the world is changing at an alarming rate, no longer must you innovate to stay ahead, rather you must innovate to even hope to maintain your current position.

Perhaps, however you don’t feel comfortable with the innovation in question and would rather “study it” before implementing anything (even a small pilot program).  What you are really saying is that you don’t want to commit anything other than reading and talking about it rather than actually doing something.  Well, while you are ‘studying it’ someone is trying it and ‘learning by doing’ a valuable lesson and that lesson will inform their practice.  That is one lesson you will not have learned, but perhaps you can “read about it” later while you continue to “study it”.

The essence of a school is to be a model of learning; the organization should be the change it wishes to see in it’s classrooms.  Isn’t the change you want to see in classrooms; students learning by doing?  So why not be that change by helping your organization learn by doing through innovation?

Today and everyday going forward, find a way to do something you weren’t doing yesterday.  Learn by doing something today.