MEC Conference–Here we go! 1st session-Cathy Poplin Speaks about the 6 trends in Ed TEch

6 Trends in Educational Technology

Cathy Poplin, Deputy Superintendent of Department of Education in Educational Technology, is talking about the trends in Educational Technology.

Below are the notes(Live blogged) for this session.  I  will say that it was interesting and informative.  Good to have the data,  and the information as we move forward in these times of no money.  I feel very validated and confident that we in Cave Creek are maximizing our technology use in many areas, and we are continuing to push forward.  I look forward to our piece of the Ed Tech pie………)

1.  Large scale 1-1 impleentations are still alive and well.

• the implementation plan is important–
• the mobil cart is not what they are talking about
• many districts are continuing down this road
• the ELTF (eLearning Task Force) — one to one learning is what they are looking at — to look for funding –they feel this is key2

.2..Learning Management Systems

• Back board
• Propriatory systems are opening up now, and letting people put in there own content.
• Open source ones are maturing…….
• It takes alot to manage this
• Blended learning is powerful.  IDEAL in Arizona has SAKAI is a LMS within IDEAL and it is wonderful and free within the IDEAL network

3.  Online assessiments

• immediate feedback
• record keeping
• formative assessment
• IDEAL has formative assessments-in the form of Multiple choice to print off.
• In an item bank
• By July, there will be single signon for students, and students will be able to have online assessments for students

4.  Mobile student computing

• all kids have cel phones — texting is alive and well…….
• they are using mobil computing
• in grade 9 nearly 70 %have phones,
• 80% has Mp3
• Kindergartners too, over 40 % of kids have these mobile devices too.

5.  Interactive White Boards-

• This is a huge push
• in IDEAL there are many resources
• Content will begin to explode in a few years….

6.  Internet Bandwidth Crisis

• Big broadband issue–not enough
• ELTF has looked closely at broadband in ARizona
• E-Rate task force is also being looked at.
• Behind the scenes there is much happening..

From the Speak Up data, there was much to be interested in:

 

What do kds use out of the classroom?

Gaming, downloading music, social networking,, communications.  

In many places these are blocked in districted and agencies.  We need new policies so that these are available.

Schoolwork?

writing, online research, creating slideshows, videos, webpages, IM with classmates, online research.  

#1 trend for students:  our students are becoming Free Agent Learners

ONLINE LEARNING:self-directed learning, un-tethered to traditional school, expert at personal data aggregation

MOBIL DEVICES:Power of connections, creating new communities, not tethered to physical network

BAMING, MULITIMEDIA CONTENT:Experiential learning – make it real, content developers, process as important as knowledge gained.

 

Teacher Trends:

Online Learning is increasing…30 % prefer it 

• scheduling
• pacing
• time
• consider IDEAL coursens

33% have explored incorporating online learning in class

in IDEAL July 1 students can come on line, and teachers can do blended learing

Virtual learning too.

 

The National trend is up

 

ADE will be offering a Pilot for AP courses especially 

Online learning is growing 30 % annually,  2000-40000 enrollment, in 2006-700,000 enrollment.  

The course was unavailable is the numer 1 reason the person took the course. 

Our terrible trend in Arizona is that our funding has been cut by half…..we needed benchmark and accountability

 

The annual report, Arioana gets a D- for access to technology.  Our use is good, and we are maximizing our technology that we do have…

Federal stimulus–12,400 million for EETT.

We will get double the usual amount–create 21st century classrooms.  Laptops, whiteboards.

IDEAL

ATTAIN:  Achievement through Technology and Innovation:  Emphasises models that work.  Pd, and research model.

New Ed tEch Standards and Tech Plan

Statewide Instructional Technology (SIT) Project

State of AZ given a D- in access to technology

 

Bright Spots

- Federal stimulus money – around 12 million (want emphasis to be on 21st Century Classrooms)

- IDEAL

- ATAIN – Achievement Through Technology and Innovation – Professional Development, Research based

- New Ed Tech Standards & Tech Plan

- Statewide Instructional Technology (SIT) Project – Statewide person in each county to help with tech integration (1-2 people per COUNTY)

 

What Can You Do?

- Advocate

- Tell your story

- Invite, Inform, Involve –> School Board Members, State Legislators, Congressmen, Corporate Leaders

 

Challenge in 08-09

- Survive Economic Downturn

- Affect policies & Secure Funding

- Tell your stories!

Where did this Semester go?????

Well, I know to be a blogger you have to blog! but whoa, this semester came and went like a bolt of lightening.  We accomplished so much in our district with so little in terms of resources.  ( I know, the story of many districts like ours).  We have set in motion many initiatives and actions that have carried us through and continue to support our district initiaties for sure.  

I have to say I am proud of many of the accomplishments of some of our teachers who are working so hard to do more, be more, and reach harder and deeper into the lives of the students they teach to make an impact.  Those are the teachers I want to be like and strive to be like.  Teachers like Dawn Olson, who is an unwavering support of the district and her school, while supporting her teachers at the building at which she teachers 2nd grade.   Immersed in the everyday act, art and science of teaching, she reaches in and truly knows each of her students and teaches to their strengths.  Through the use of technology integration, seemlessly she engages them into the everyday fabric of school and the important outcomes she must see them achieve.  

But Dawn is not alone in this endeavor.  She has colleagues within the district who risk and reach every day to engage their learners as she does.  Heidi Befort, Marie Frantz, Jill Kratzke, Geoff Johnson, Dominique Flamm, Jeanne Damman the entire language department at the highschool.  All of these folks are reaching and engaging where there is little technology to go on, but a dream of something more.  

In each school there are pockets of learners who benefit from those teachers who just won’t stand for the same ol’ thing.  They dig and search and collaborate and communicate on behalf of their students in order to engage and teach, and facilitate and help them grow to new heights.  These are the teachers I look up to.  I appreciate all that I have had the opportunity to enjoy in terms of the collaboration and kindness, invitation and hope for our students so far this year.  I know that this is only the first half of an amazing year of hard work and growth for so many.  

Thanks to all of the teachers of Cave Creek who have worked along side me and invited me into their classrooms and been so kind to me as we travel along this journey together on behalf of our students.  Hopefully we will have a chance to see some funding across the district from an election that will benefit our students’ learning and growth.  

We need to continue to look forward and grow and push and teach our students how to be global citizens.  They are not going to learn this on their own.  We need to prepare them for their future.  It is up to us and that means teaching with the tools that they use and are accustomed to.  Sure it is a shift.  Sure it is uncomfortable.  For us.  Not them. The students are using all sorts of technology and web applications and software that are catapulting them into the 21st century.  We need to be very careful about how we take our next steps….

We need to be part of the answer.  Part of the solution.  Part of the vision.  

Well, anyway, this semester got away from me here in this blog, but I will try to come back.  I have been itching to write, but not having an avenue–I have been thinking too big.  I’ll start here.  I’ll get back to business.  Over break will be a good time.  Good time to refresh and breathe.  

So here’s to breathing!  Happy Holidays.  I will be back real soon!  I have lots to tell you about what I’ve been up to these past months.  Very interesting stuff, and good too!  As a learner and a teacher.  I’ll write soon………

 

This is a wordle, from the site wordle.net.

New School Year, New Beginning

I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post.  Let’s just start there.  Over a month.  Lots has happened since I have last written, and as I write, the projects are still waiting for my attention. 

But the beauty of a blog like this is that I can stop for a minute and reflect, and help myself and my team prepare to focus on the tasks at hand as we move into what looks to be an incredibly busy and interesting year. 

Here in my district we have lots of technology integration across the spectrum.  Many many teachers are working hard to engage their learners in a variety of ways.  With a new set of principals, (we have new principals at every level) we have an opportunity to move the district even further into the 21st century.  These educational leaders come to us with new experiences and ideas as well as insight as to what other districts are doing.  So we have new people in key roles across the district, ready to support and model technology integration in smart and interesting ways.  I feel the stage is set, unlike it has been set before, for an increased shift and step across the line from the teaching to the learning. 

My Technology Cadre, the Professional Development Team that I have the priveledge of working with made up of two teachers from each school, is poised to move their practice more into the coaching role and step up to an even heavier leadership role in the area of mentoring for technology integration.  Some of our schools even have excellent incentive plans in place working with the PTOs to highlight teachers and teams that are working hard to engage students using 21st century tools.  That is the doing of our Cadre members and their out of the box thinking.

This year is shaping up to be one of innovation and motivation all across the district.  I personally have been in the classrooms of 11th graders teaching Audacity, and also in an 8th grade classroom teaching Digital Storytelling.  I have other mentoring and modeling scheduled all across the district.  We have the iPods in the Classroom project ongoing, and ready for a new round of 70 more teachers to participate.  We have semi-flat classroom projects in the works, and also a professional development brochure almost ready to be published to offer onging systematic professional development to teachers who want to earn hours and learn some excellent techniques along the way.

When I began this position in this district two years ago, I had a vision of how I saw things going.  Of course coming out of the classroom straight to a district level position, I had a major learning curve.  Along the way there are several things that I learned and continue to rely on as I move forward in this role as Technology and Instruction Specialist:

Absolutely keep Student Achievement and Student Learning as the baseline in any decision we make.
Relationship-Building is the most important first step in any new job, area, project, etc.
Listening to needs is key to understanding how to support teachers.
Finding early adoptors is a wonderful thing.  They are great to help with momentum, and evangelizing for the new learning and techniques.
Planning for implementation needs to be inclusive-meaning that we need to involve teachers, administrators and appropriate district personal in the decision-making.
Collaboration with others is key to facilitating out-of-the-box thinking.
Things take time–but never give up the creative thinking.
Teachers, Administrators, and District Office Personnel all want the same thing-What’s Best for Students–And every conversation needs to be based on that.

Finally, We cannot afford to teach the way we have been taught.  WE have to innovate our practice, to teach creativity, problem solving, and global critical thinking.  But we have to model this in professional development.

I am proud of the way my Cadre, and district has moved along in the pursuit of engagement and student achievement with 21st century skills.  As we move forward this year, modeling, implementing, evangelizing, and collaborating, we will move our students forward and better prepare them for their world.  I am so excited for this year, and all of our opportunities out there.  I am thankful for the risktakers that have embraced me and some innovations so far, and am hopeful that more will follow suit! 

Here we go!!!

Dr. Tim Tyson-Keynote at Tech Camp-AZ K 12 Center-July 6, 2008 From Personal Knowledge to Global Contribution

Dr. Tim Tyson is the keynote speaker tonight.  This is the first night at Tech Camp here at the Loews Vantana Canyon in Tucson, Arizona.  I’ll be live blogging this session, but will try to add my thoughts as well.  (His message is a message that is worth screaming out across the sky.  The bottom line is at the end of the post, but if you can gain context by reading the whole post as written, it will help you a little bit to see where he is coming from.  In my district as I begin the next year in planning and professional development, never before have I had a clearer focus or message.  As the Technology and Instruction Specialist, in a small district, with a focused, clear message, I believe we can move our excellent students even further.  Our Technology Cadre mission statement has been all about student achievement, and how to use the tools that we have to further the practices of our teachers.  I think we may have missed the boat–we need to move to the learning–the children, students, and move towards the relevancy of their learning lives, and how do we go about doing that.  Look at enhancing their learning environments in what ever ways will create opportunities for their voices to be heard.  I will write about this later, so here is the Keynote with Dr. Tyson.)

Title of this is :  From Personal Knowledge to Global Contribution:  He is broadcasting this live over UStream.  Changing our concept of school.  He is warning us that his perspective is very different.  He is wanting to really challenge our thinking and about school.  Acknowledging AZ K 12 Center for honoring the work teachers do.  

He is talking about the Phantom Tollbooth–quoting from the book.  His point is that when we get older our perspective tends to get stuck.  He thinks that perspective is everything.  He wants us to step outside of our professional practice from different angles.  Analyze it differently.  Reconsider what we do with children.

Ask:  Is it our most powerful work?  If not, what is keeping it from our most powerful work?  How can we make it our most powerful work? 

He is talking about his family-his grandfather and grandmother.  Taking us on a tour through Google Earth, of his home town.  That many businesses are closed.  That his home town has the highest crime rate, highest rate of men incarcerated.  What was once a wonderful place is now the worst place. How did this happen?  

Outsourceing-jobs began getting outsourcing.  Quoating Daniel Pink’s book, about the left brain people (NCLB) is just as important, but it is no longer sufficient.  

The nature of work has changed. So much more outsourcing.  Radiologists.  33% of our workforce work as indipendant contractors.  How does this impact schools?  24% of the work force are the working poor.  They acrue debt, not savings.

If we are going to survive, we have to be creative.  Talking about the creative guy who provided computers for a school, and they all work together to help cancer research, by using the computes at night, linking the “brain Power” of the computers he supplied to the school to further scientific research.  So by day the computers were used by the students.  By night they were a huge force and powerful brain for the scientists.  Thinking outside the box.

So really Dr. Tyson is trying to make the point about the creative brains that are in our classrooms.  We have got to tap into the students and their creativity.  We have got to really enhance and honor our students and respect the fact that they are creative and help to create this type of child. Dr. Tyson says there is a whole lot more to life than to teach them the same type of things.  Let’s focus on rules, rituals, routines–but let’s get creative.

He is talking now about his grandmothre, Ruth Tyson.  And also John Dewey. Ruth was a leading educator in Pritchard Alabama,(His home town) and very traditional.  But John Dewey was living in the same time and he had progressive ideas about eduation.  This was years ago.

Here is the big question:

Who owns the learning? 

Usually the teachers are doing too much work.

So much, everything has been transformed.  Everything but school.  School has not changed at all.  He is not trying to be gloomy and doomy.  But he is thinking of opportunity, and new beginning.  New opportunity.  Taking things from 500 years ago–Gutenbergs printing press.  This was revolutionary–it has determinaned the destination of civilization.   Now our digital tools are not going to have so much impact.

School should:

• authentically engaged learners
• create and foster self-directed learning
• provide project-driven instruction
• create independant problem-solvers…
• …who are empowered by technology innovation
• all within a collaborative learning community
• be relevant
• insist on contribution

It’s about the thinking….Kids today are in love with gadgets, but they typically are using them at low levels. We all have to be learners.  We have to take a look at the curriculum and be sure that it is relevant.

Promises to keep:  ”Boys and girls if you do exemplary work, quality best of the best work, I might place your project into global distribution.(on the web) ”  Check MabryOnline.org & iTunes for exemplary projects and work.

What would you do differently if your students really wanted to learn?

To create, connect, learn, make a real contribution, wanted their school to help them do this in ways that were exciting.  

Kids want relevant school.  They love learning, they just hate our tool set.  People began coming to the Mabry site, and wanting to come to their school wanting to know how they did those projects. 

Talking about authentic assessment.  He hates grading.  Grading kills learning.  He is talking about this point, illustrating that the learning stops at the test.  But really learning is never done.  How are we going to authentically assess student work?  

The concept of childhood is new, according to Dr. Tyson.  The children years ago had to work hard at early ages on the farm and elsewhere.  Their contribution was essential.  When does meaningfulness start?  How old do we have to be for our lives to assume a level of significance that matters?  job, marriage, what do we have to do?  when do we make a difference?  This is a key question.   The answer is now.  today.  You can make a contribution that people respect and admire.  The choice is theirs.

If you create something that is exemplary,  What do  you have to say that is so important that everyone on earth needs to hear it?  Your work will be published.  This is the challenge to push to the children.  The students rise to the challenge.  What’s on their minds?  

He went on to talk about some students who created some movies.  a student said:  making a movie is like learning on steroids.  

He showed movies and movies and how they are impactful.

It’s about you the educator–collapsing the distance between children and meaningful education.  Make a difference now today.  We chop up the curriculum into easy to test pieces.  We rob them of the whole picture.    We have a once in a lifetime opportunity.  Use a new toolset to change our profession.  Let’s not waste it.

Flat Classroom Class with Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay at NECC 08

I have to say this was one of the highlights of my trip.  I had signed up for this class 2 months prior to ever stepping foot in San Antonio!  In my district I really want to get a flat classroom project  of some sort going.  Even if we start small and just do something with a district close by, that will be something great.  

When I was a classroom teacher, several years ago, we had pen pals from another school in our district.  We did iChat with them.  I had my iSight Camera on and the other classroom had their iSight Camera on. At first we did a group Chat, where we read a story to the class, and then we introduced the kids to one another.  (they had written a first letter back and forth prior to the chat).  Then we let them chat with each other over the course of the year.  This might have been the beginnings of a flat classroom project, I suppose, except that other than writing letters and getting to know one another, learning social etiquette (in third grade), there was no job to do.  No mission to accomplish together.  I had not even thought of that.  

So I wanted to take this class and really see what these wonderful gals were doing with this flat classroom project.  See what I could learn to take away to my district teachers.  Well, I have to say, that not only did I gain an understanding of the project itself, but with the expert teaching by Julie and Vicki, I received one of the best “professional development” experiences ever.

We started “low tech” by coming up to the front in our chairs to visit, talk and receive input about the project as a whole.  By beginning this way, for me, they broke all of the barriers that sometimes come with technology PD where teachers come in and instantly get on the computers and proceed to places unknown.  To start this way was so basic and natural, but such an aha for me.  Something as simple as that.  I begin my Digital Storytelling classes just this way, (we don’t break out the computers until at least the second session) but I hadn’t thought of doing other educational technology PD this way.  I will take that tidbit back and where it fits I will use it!

So we talked and learned about the project and then received cards with a simulation on them.  Each of us was assigned the role of a person and a team, as well as an assignment.  These were real people and real assignments and real teams that existed, that they had created for the project this past year, and that they were sharing with us now.  My role was as a girl student.  I was in the green group.  And our assignment was to work together to plan a research project that had to do with one aspect of a topic.  Based around the 6 principals from Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, they split the project up into three groups.  Ours was:

* Uploading – Why we should be promoting Web 2.0 tools for sharing information

Here were the objectives:

    * Communities uploading and collaborating on online projects. Examples include open source software, blogs, and Wikipedia

    * Provide an outline of essential Web 2.0 tools (Blogs, podcasts, wikis) and discuss developments and trends in the participating countries

    * Discuss essential social and ethical issues to do with using Web 2.0 tools in both education and business.

    * Provide current scenarios and examples of using Web 2.0 as an effective collaboration and communication tool

    * Daniel Pink’s Category: Story and Empathy ( Story and Empathy – A compelling narrative combining persuasion, communication, and self-understanding. This video will tell a story and cause the viewer to empathize with the characters.)

…so that meant that through the portal of Story and Empathy, we had to work together on those 4 objectives, collaborating and communicating, researching and explaining this “uploading” topic through the eyes of story and empathy.  But here is the kicker…In my group there were 4 participants.  Ok, easy enough.  But we were released to go back to the computers.  And we had to stay there and work ONLY through the WIKI. (We could not talk to one another) Also, not only did my group have 3 participants in the room, we had a gal working with us from Alabama.  She was IN Alabama working with us.  

So let me help you visualize this scene for you:  Thirteen teachers sitting at the computers, the session was being ustreamed (video’d and live broadcasted for the world to see and also the participants in other parts of the world were learning at the same time with us.  They were up at the front with us, just virtually), there was a back-channel chat that Vicki had going, so that the others around the country could be at the ready to begin the project. 

So Vicki and Julie created this brilliant simulation for us to take the next hour and a half and together work through the joys, struggles, and the process of the Flat Classroom Project.  Something we NEVER would have understood through a powerpoint presentation.  My Professional Development AHA is obvious.  As I have stated on earlier posts during Gary Stager’s class on Project Based Learning, and Thomas Guskey earlier this summer, if I have learned nothing else this summer, it is that quality professional development has teachers experience, engage, communicate, collaborate, and produce.  Same as quality instruction in the classroom.  whoa!!!

So this project was very exciting.  Ultimately we would have created a video together, but of course due to time this was not feasible. It was a learning experience just introducing each other on the wiki and then trying to do the research and updating the wiki.  At one point I had found my way to a rogue page, one someone had created just off the site.  I was doing my inputing there, doing research about the empathy of the situation with the little girl who took her life because of the cruel mom posing to be the mean boy.  (This is the story and empathy part of our project-getting to the understanding of what can happen and what it can mean)

Here is my entry:

Current News 1

There was an incident in the news where there was a girl who thought she was befriended by a boy on “MySpace”. The relationship turned sour and it ended. “Josh” turned out to be the creation of a neighborhood family. It turned out to be a mother down the street of a girl who was in a fight with this girl. But the jilted girl committed suicide. Her parents want the people who made the fraudulent online profile to be prosecuted. Girl’s mother says law enforcement officials say the case doesn’t fit into any law.

SOURCE:http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/17/internet.suicide.ap/index.html

(See, the students have to site everything they do.)  Anyway, I was updating the wrong page, and then my colleague form Alabama, Laurie Fowler,  saw what I was doing and she started fixing it for me!!!  Such a great team.  My team was Awesome.(Go Green!)  We just got to work and began collaborating by starting the research and then just starting small and updating the wiki page.  Each of us sort of took a spot and started. Other teams sort of were at a stand still, not too sure how to begin. (which is totally real word-you’ll have groups dive right in and others not so much)  I can see that a real project would have to be divie’d up and spelled out a little more precisely but what happens in this type of project is that the students do the dividing up of work.  There are team leaders appointed.  The students decide who does what, and the best part is that on the wiki page, using Wikispaces, every update, every entry is automatically posted on the history page.  So the group, and the teacher can actually see who did what.  So the students who might normally not engage in a group project are held accountable.  There are other wiki products out there, but I loved what Vicki said about Wikispaces.  ”I’m a geek, and I want my wiki to work” and she can always rely on her Wikispaces wikis.  Plus the other features of this free product make it the clear choice for this project. 

Anyway, the simulation came to a close way too soon, but I walked away with some excellent food for thought, plans, and learning.

Through this project and this 3 hour class, which was really a 2 day workshop honed down into 3 hours, I learned a few things about Flat Classroom Projects:

• Lots of planning upfront by both teachers-collaborating.  This is actually a great way to model for students how to collaborate.
• Have set outcomes-making learning meaningful.  It has to be meaningful.  This has to be a project that both groups of students come to the other side with meaningful outcomes.
• Teachers need to stay involved-and brace for the obvious glitches.  Technology is can be messy-and teachers need to be wiillng to take that risk, and just jump in.  I read an educational blog by one of my yodas, Brian Crosby,  called “Learning is Messy“-and isn’t it true that if it is worth doing, it takes effort?!  This is not a “sit at your desk while the kids work” project.
• Making learning relevant-this project will make learning relevant to the students.  I know that the pen pal project that I had my third graders do took on a whole new meaning when we began to skype and communicate together. I can only imagine what this type of project would do to two classrooms full of engaged pre-teens or high schoolers.  I think that it would just up the ante that we all are searching for in our classrooms to engage our students and take the word “boring” out of their vocabulary.
• I learned lots more about wikis in general-how to edit, tag, look at the history, and understand the whole wiki site as a “site”.  Also I learned how to make a table of contents.
• That I want to share this with people in our district–and I think I can get some takers, in fact I know I can.

So my learning was twofold.  I now understand more fully how to go about a flat classroom project.  Also in this class was Jane, from a neighboring district here in Arizona.  She and I were in different groups, but we do the same jobs in our districts.  We exchanged phone numbers and emails, and we will be getting together in the fall to begin work on establishing a project between our districts.  We’ll start there, and see where it will lead us.  

But through the model of good teaching practices, and reflection, Julie and Vicki gave me another gift.  That is the gift of good teaching.  I learned.  I grew as a professional that day.  In pedagogy and skill. Wow! What an impact.  Thanks to both of you.  

Here is the link to our (Green Group) Flat Classroom Practice Wiki!