Follow this link for more: http://edublogs.org/2011/08/08/unveiling-wikis-maps-more/

The Administration Building & Algonquin Middle School are up & running on the new AT&T fiber-optic network.

We are planning on turning on three more buildings Tuesday November 3; Forest Elementary, Central Elementary, & Building & Grounds.

Stay tuned for more.

Sonoma Underground,
originally uploaded by sethbowers.

I shot this pic the last week of September with my iPhone. I am standing in the administration parking lot and Forest Elementary is in the background. In the foreground are workers from Sonoma underground. They are boring underground to install conduit for our new fiber-optic network. We are still on target for a 2009 install!

Since the FCC has just put the kibosh on telemarketing robocalls (see New York Times article) I thought it might be helpful to post a link to the National Do Not Registry for all kinds of unsolicited telemarketing.

If you want to call to sign up for the Do Not Call registry the number is 1-888-382-1222.

To register online or to register multiple numbers at once head to www.donotcall.gov.

For more information about cell phones head to the Federal Trade Commission’s page here.

And yes, I’ve registered!

“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!

Even on vacation I’m able to keep up with what some of the leading tech educators are thinking and doing – via Twitter. The video above, from the always great CommonCraft, is a great explanation of a difficult topic. (And if you follow back to ‘Twitter in Plain English’ on the CommonCraft site you’ll see the power of comments at work too.)

Educators, if you are timid, don’t be – there are a ton of us out here & we all want to connect. Just watch for awhile, then jump in. See you all next week.

Links:

Twitter
CommonCraft
Twitter in Plain English – main entry

This session is about Apple IT & Learning.

Technology as an environment not a tool.

Makes a good point & one that I commonly reiterate; teachers want to use technology, but they don’t necessarily how the technology is working.

Business Productivity Model – 21st Century

• Monetary or Revenue Driven – Knowledge Creation & Dissemination
• Cost Reduction (Productivity) – Creative Exploration
• Highly Restrictive – Highly Collaborative, Interactive & Ad-Hoc
• Software Solutions are Functional – Software Solutions are Expressive
• Network Centric – User/Student Centric
• Total Cost of Ownership – Total Opportunity of Ownership

A lot of references to the Maine School IT Decisions:

Link: MaineLearns.org

We’re going over a lot of iTunes stuff and also Apple workflow/iWork/XServe/media streaming, et cetera.

Mobility in Education

Media – 110,000 files on iTunesU

Web Apps – Vanderbuilt, ACU, MIT, U of Cincinnati

Native Apps – Noteshare,

Study Wiz

I’m attending a school technology OS X users meeting. There is a conversation about migrating to & from different email systems. It seems to me that some districts are considering solutions simply to either make life easier on them (the tech staff or director) or simply so that they can use a particular product. I don’t understand that! We are really communications people. We should be considering tools that make it easier for people to work together, to share ideas, to collaborate. The ability to support a given product is of course very important, but to take away features like integrated calendar because it is easier to support is hard to fathom.

Youtube can be a great resource. It can also be a scary place to direct students. But a lot of people don’t know that you can post Youtube videos and disallow the direct connection to Youtube. Below I’ve posted one of my favorite videos. When posting it, instead of grabbing the embed code right off the main site I clicked Customize. There you have the option not to include related videos, plus you can play around with the color scheme.

The video is called The Machine Is Us/ing Us or sometimes Web2.0 in Just Under 5 Minutes. It’s by Mike Wesch who is an A.P. of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. Visit his site here: MediatedCultures.

Enjoy the video, it’s worth repeated watching & reflecting.