TedxNYED; the Lost Art of Listening

Yesterday, I attended TEDxNYED conference.  There were a lot of great speakers and as always the best part of any conference is talking to like-minded participants and getting new perspectives on issues in education.  One of the people I talked to was Aaron Eyler, who’s prolific blogging I admire.
What I liked about this conference was exactly what I thought I would not like; that there weren’t any tracks, that I would have to listen to one and only one speaker at a time.  I only had my iphone with me because I figured what was the point of a laptop? The people who I wanted to connect were before me and all around me.

I also enjoyed actually seeing live some speakers who’ve I’ve only read about.  Particularly, Henry Jenkins, Lawrence Lessig, George Siemens, and David Wiley.  There combined intellect is so great and their ideas so original that it is literally difficult to sit and try to analyze or critique what they were saying, never the less I had a few thoughts;
First, Lessig blew the doors off any presenter that I have seen in quite some time; he knew what to say and completely executed it flawlessly.  In so far as his content has concerned, he was absolutely on point in drawing a link between copyright issues and the political left.
Henry Jenkins continues to inform my own work as I have become more interested in media literacy as a field because the line between technology and media blurs with each passing day.  His point about how students and teachers are equals with technology really resonated with me vs. all these ‘digital native’ theories.
David Wiley’s ideas about open content are so apart from what is I think my (and every educators) experience in K-12 and higher education with the mistaken notion that what we are doing is truly our own and excellent when excellence is only achievable through sharing.  His sincerity to walk the talk of his ideas was refreshing.

Gina Bianchini spoke from the heart and was both engaging and uplifting.
Amy Bruckman had some interesting things to say but her whole style just didn’t fit at all (too many words on too many slides) too much academic summary, not enough story.
Dan Cohen, Mike Wesch, and Jay Rosen did an effective job summarizing their work and relating it to the topic of education.
Neeru Khosla wasn’t as polished as some of the other presenters and fell into the trap I think we all fall into with presentations; talking about what we are presenting about (explaining), rather than storytelling.
Jeff Jarvis gave by far the best talk (even though I think his language was a bit much for a professional conference).    He tried to help us understand education through the lense of the changing world of journalism.
George Siemens was summarized best by someone on twitter that said they wish they could watch his talk in slow motion because his ideas flow so quickly and where so interesting.  However,  I’m not sure there was any real need to call Jeff Jarvis out.  I think every good presentation stands on its own and the debate about its merit is best left in the minds (and tweets) of the audience rather than verbal jousts between presenters.
Dan Meyer is clearly the teacher we all wish we had or all wish we could be.  However, what he offered in terms of ideas really weren’t that innovative.
Chris Lehmann was what he always is… amazing!

Beyond Standards; The Road Ahead

Here are my links:

YouTube - Professor Risk

“DEHUMANIZED When math and science rule the school”- September 2009 issue of Harper’s Bazaar

College Dropout Hall of Fame

Henry Jenkins

Stephen Downes

Tony Bates

EduCon Day 1; Wrap-Up

I had a great day at EduCon.   I attended four presentations;

What If…In the Digital Age by Jessica Brown, Jeff Evans, Louis Mazza, Paul Wagenhoffer

This was a very interesting conversation about a school that focuses on the arts and the types of project-based learning they do.  Gave me a lot of good ideas.

Zapping the Buzzwords: “Disruptive innovation,” “the widget effect,” and more by Tom Hoffman

I came away with new respect for Tom’s intellect and depth of thought, even though I didn’t particularly agree with everything he said.  His ideas about the influence of business on education were right on.

User-Generated Education: An Authentic Student-Centric Model of Education by Jackie Gerstein

I only saw the last half-hour of this presentation.  I agreed with Jackie’s notion of student-centric learning, but while putting students at the center of our classrooms is important, for me curriculum and student interests are intersecting, but not concentric.  Jackie’s presentation challenged my thinking.

Moving Beyond the Scientific Method by Darryl N. Williams, Ph.D.

Excellent presentation about the need to infuse STEM into the curriculum.  I sat with a few SLA teachers, students, and a teacher from a Catholic High School, great conversation about the scientific method, design loop, and how to connect math, science, and engineering.

Can’t wait for another day of learning tomorrow.

EduCon; The Road Ahead

Can’t wait to go to Educon tomorrow.  Putting the finishing touches on my presentation “Beyond Standards; The Road Ahead“.  Here are some of the sessions I hope to attend.  The bookmarking feature on the EduCon web site is something every conference needs.

Here are my EduCon Bookmarks

• Tinkering Towards Technology Fluency
• Zapping the Buzzwords: “Disruptive innovation,” “the widget effect,” and more.
• Field Guide for Change Agents
• Managing Life and Personal Learning Environments in the 21st Century
• The “Decoupling” of Education and School: Where do We Begin?
• Leadership 2.0: Who Do We Need Our Leaders To Be?
• In front/behind the Network
• Educational Technology and the Law: Stump the Lawyers!
• (Re)Imagining Social Media & Technology in Teacher Education
• Managing Filter Failure – Getting to the Good Stuff
• Taking Play Seriously
• Beyond Standards; The Road Ahead
• Metacognition: The Real 21st Century Skill.
• The Many Hats of a Technology Coordinator
• Multi-Touch Technologies in Education

Building a Niche vs. Institution Redesign

Interesting ideas here from Richard Florida that I think apply to education and the educational technology community specifically; are we as educators focusing on redesigning our institutions for the 21st century or are we focused on building niche education spaces for 21st century learning? Both are necessary.

Next week, I will be at EduCon and part of what makes Educon great is that it is 500 people who are passionate about learning, talking about institutional redesign (and sharing niche practices) .

Has Screencasting Tipped?

I recently produced the K12online presentation; Google SketchUp Unleashed. You may be wondering what software I used to do this presentation?  Well, I have used a variety of screencasting and editing software in the past and I always found it quite lacking.  Almost all of the good screencasting software on Windows or Mac is not freeware and there is virtually nothing for free on the Mac-side.  Here is a comparison of 12 free screencasting tools. I really wanted to edit on the Mac using iMovie09 since I am so familiar with it because I use it extensively in one of my classes, which meant I wanted to record in a format that I wouldn’t have to convert.  Therefore I wanted to record the screencast on the Mac to make the workflow easier.

Enter Snow Leopard…

I picked up Snow Leopard when it came out in September thinking that I would upgrade when all the bugs were worked out.  Then I happened to see that Snow Leopard supports screencasting natively in the new version of QuickTime, so I took the plunge and upgraded.

I recorded my whole presentation in QuickTime and edited in Imovie09.  I really think that just as Itunes allowed podcasts to reach a tipping point (when mass adoption happens), so too can Snow Leopard be such a tipping point for screencasting because basically it is all in the box and very simple to use.

Personal vs. Social; Learning

This slideshow and podcast of Stephen Downes presentation called “Pedagogical Foundations For Personal Learning” is worth watching and listening to.  His ideas about what learning is vs. what we do in schools currently is quite interesting.  This presentation is an example of new, cutting edge ideas that aren’t flowing out of K-12 professional organizations like ASCD, but increasing are coming from higher education and e-learning.

He doesn’t actually speak of K-12 schools, but taking what he says and applying it to K-12 would certainly turn upside down some of our most sacred K-12 cows; instructional practice, assessment, and teacher evaluation.

What is making you think?

What have you seen that is making you think, challenging your notions of schools and learning?  Here are a few things that have challenged me recently.

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

ISTE Keynote; Wondering who to vote for?

Here are video clips of the five candidates for ISTE Keynote (click on the name to go to a video of them speaking).  I think you can learn a lot about these people and their work from these video clips.  It isn’t their biography or their accomplishments which should make them the ISTE Keynoter, it is the quality of their message and their ability to convey that message to the ISTE audience.

Chris Lehmann

Alan November

Jeff Piontek

Peter H. Reynolds

Gary Stager

The Future of Education

Just thought this video of George Siemens talking about the Future of Education was some of the brightest and most articulate sharing of the problems and possibilities of schooling today and in the future.