ElasTECHlearning

“Every classroom needs to be a global communication center.”

That’s one of the first things Alan said today during his talk at Hamburger University in Oak Brook, Illinois.

I lost connectivity after typing the above for a few hours, so I’m going to post the sloppy notes I’ve been taking. Think of this as low rent live blogging – I’ll try and clean them up a bit.

On web safety:

Draft code of ethics with group of kids

What do you do when someone harasses you of Facebook, et al.

Bring in as many people as needed to explore the complexity of a problem.

On digital literacy, globalization & collaboration:

When trying to understand other points of view make sure your hits (google) are from the other point of view or from the point of view you are looking for. (site:tr for Turkish hits rather than western interpretations)

Students use the web more than print, books. First tool used for homework.

Information & Global Communication – What information should people have, not what tech should they have, what should our relationship be, can we redefine the role of the learner?

(Note to self: Create blog post about Google custom search: building a search engine everyday – different children in charge of adding to that engine)

Change your investment in technology by changing teacher evaluations

Family learning plan: in houses where the tv is he big piece of tech: flip cam, record reading with child, burn to dvd – teach parents how read with their child.

Use tech to continually provide positive feedback to the home – praise, stories of achievement

(Alan’s having tech problems at McDonalds – it’s not just you, it’s not just us.)

To students:

Bring me an assignment from any teacher on the planet & tell me why you want to use it

To Staff & Prof Dev:

Help colleagues let go of control

Focus Staff Dev on pedagogy & instruction rather than just tech training (have teachers bring two STUDENTS to staff dev) – I fixed the student typo

What it means to be a life long learner – self directed – you don’t need to be told what to do

On Podcasting:

What & when to podcast
All week one kid is the recorder & one kid is the interviewer (maybe photographer)

(my note: you have to share & celebrate it to make it real, authentic, exciting)

Podcasting et al is penmanship for the digital age.

Can learn podcasting in an afternoon, cannot learn

rigor, design

(share on web, feed to iTunes, burn to dvd)

Use web (wiki) to take class notes. Kids take notes – kids check for accuracy  – kids post

Be a role model as a leader if you want to see change in the classroom.

Some kids already get the math – turn them into the tutorial/design team. Create animated (desktop capture) tutorials – post on web, mobile device, iTunes, dvd) When one kid does it, others will want to.

Have got to get (all education) out of the classroom!

When you create capacity to communicate, and you make it easy, exciting & fun, people will contribute.

Shift of control to students, they create serious work that benefits the whole class. The students own the learning

Don’t send a human being to do a machine’s work. -The Matrix! (fixed the typo!)

All curriculum should be moved to he web. Humans (teachers) are too valuable – should be used to guide critical thinking, not delivering curriculum.

Example: US v British point of view on the American Revolution

Require all students to:

understand & use RSS

Know how to vet websites (ownership, validity, bias, source level)

Know who links to a site – Click here to see who links to our website!