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!

WOW-20–Tuesday Night of NECC–Live Broadcast

I want to take a minute to write about the wonderful night at NECC when the Women of the Web did their live broadcast in the Second Life Cafe on Tuesday.  I know it was about two weeks ago, now, but I am still catching up with my blogging.  I have been wanting to write about this session in particular because it was so extremely transformational for me.  I know the slogan and theme for this year’s NECC was Convene, Connect and Transform.  Well this session did all three for me.  :)

 

I really wanted to go to the broadcast last year.  But it was my birthday and I had gone out for dinner that night with a wonderful friend.  This year I was not going to miss it, so I made sure I was there early.

One by one and a few at a time we gathered there.  Convening together as The Women began to get connected.  So inviting and nice.  There was Cheryl Oakes, trying to connect the internet.  Vicki Davis, helping get connected and connecting the back-chat.  Lucy Gray, in for Jen Wagner was there too, so nice and friendly.  And finally, Jen Wagner was there over the Skype.  So the women were ready and Cheryl began her WOW for the week.  Just like that they were online and connected.  I was sitting close by watching and participating in the back-chat.  So much fun.  Many folks couldn’t be there, so they were wondering who was sitting there and what was happening.  We were trying to tell them what was happening, while things were getting set up.

Anyway, then after The Women took turns telling their WOWs, Vicki came around the audience and invited us to get up and say our WOWs.  I got nervous.  But some of the people went right up there, so after a few minutes, I told Vicki I would go, too.  She put me “on deck” and then … it was my turn.  Cheryl couldn’t have been nicer.  She handed me the mic and I don’t even know what I said.  I will post the link to the webcast here.  It was so nice to be involved and invited.  

Here is the amazing “Connect” part.  I had only met Cheryl once before.  She had been someone I had been listening to over a year ago, before last year’s NECC.  We met in person in Atlanta, and visited there.  This year she remembered me and was so warm and nice to me–just like we’d been friends all year.  We reconnected during this NECC, and I hope to be better at staying in touch.  I also met  Jo McLeay, from Australia, just an incredible person, and we ended up in the Flat Classroom Class together the next morning.  Peggy George, from my state was there, and we seemed to see each other everywhere.  The other women that I met were so helpful and kind.  It was just such a great evening of sharing and connecting.  I had been wanting to meet Vicki and finally had my chance, and also, was happy to meet Lucy.  I think I met Jen last year in Atlanta, or at least we had visited over the internet once or twice.  Just the nicest people.

The transformative part of this entire situation is that we are all basically strangers, but we are not strangers at all.  The power of the internet and the ability to connect and convene, to reach out and risk reaching out your hand, so to speak. to others, and find them reaching back, that is a wonderful feeling.  Perfect strangers, but all there for the same reason.  The sharing and connecting was truly amazing.

Thank you Women of the Web, for the invitation, the innovation, the connection, the opportunity to convene, and the transformation of one of many of your listeners into a better educator because of your efforts, kindness and “reach out.”  You are truly an amazing group of women.  I am so proud of you all and happy to have met all of you.

Session–Transforming Technology Projects from Good to Great.

I came in 15 minutes late to this session….Gary Stager was talking:  Questions worth asking (That is a great and loaded sentence starter:  In anything we do in education we should always start with questions such as these….)

• is the problem solvable?
• is the project monumental or sustantial?
• who does the prompt satisfy?
• what can they do with that?  – It has to fulfill an important end.

 

A good prompt:  So important.  When we set the bar high, when there is an audience, the kids will do well.
(I agree with this—always when I have set my standards high with worthwhile goals, my students have thrived and risen above my expectations.) 

Gary states these points:

• a good prompt will challenge students and motivate them.
• you need to provide appropriate materials
• you need to provide sufficient time
• you need to provide supportive culture and expertise

It also must have an artist’s aesthetic.  It needs to be thoughtful, beautiful, personally meaningful, sophisticated, shareable with a respect for the audience, moving to you, and enduring.  

(I totally agree with this. Student’s project should be worth looking at.  If it is on there, it should be worth looking at.  )

Ways to Use Materials.

1  Teach a specific concept

• gears, friction, multiplication of fractions…..

2.  Thematic project

3.  Curricular theme

Gary Stager says we need to use computer as a Prop.  

Educational technology is not about hardware, its about software.  Software defines what you are able to do, and knowledge is a consequence of experience.  

Sylvia Martinez is talking about the “yeah buts”, and how to get through them with project based learning.  And she is explaining that you model and tell them to let go, and talk to them about the HOW to do it.  Don’t teach the tools. the kids will get it.  They will go for it if they have a chance. 

This is a great aha….if we teach the kids, the teachers will come!!:)  What I mean is that if I plan in any of my workshops to really teach about management, and the “HOW” to manage any of the project-based learning that I am advocating in their classrooms, then hopefully they will leave with the confidence they need to begin the project.  

Opening it up to questions and comments:

Q.  Projects take lots of work.  How many do you do?

A. Constructivism is not a way to do things it is a state of mind.  

A comment:  go through the curriculum standards at the begining of the year–choose some standards that you can do a project with that creates an interdisciplinary project.  

Gary says:  it’s ok to think about what you are going to do and plan.  Over time you’ll see that kids are capable of doing things bigger and better.  

A School Master of the Great City

Constructivist Consortium.org

www.stager.org/necc

Students who do the most work are the students who are the ones who sometimes don’t usually do it.  It is a win win for all.

Courage–be brave to move into this type of teaching.  Push others and do the right thing.  

Q: was:  How do you get Principals to understand what you are doing in your room during project based learning?  Principal should be a kid watcher and — a kid watcher sees what ’s happening in the room.  She sees the absolute process that he is engaged in.  

LESS US, MORE THEM–Gary Stager.

Kids need time to define projects, but Teachers need time to define projects too.  Reflect, refine and reload these projects and do them.  Continue to take the projects from good to great.  Project-based learning takes time, years to get good at this.  

The best project is the one that the kids do not know the anwer.  Meet with like-minded people, but then go back and share, talk and come back to one another and begin.  Transform!

SmackDown!!!!

This was a session during the EduBloggerCon, Hosted by Vicki Davis.  In Arizona at the Classroom 2.0 conference we called it “lightening sessions” but it is where anybody can get up and demo an application from the Web 2.0 that they really like.  Everybody gets only 3 minutes to get up, do the demo, and show the application on the web.  Not alot of time!!!!  :)  This was an hour of fun!!  So many great tools.  I am going to post my notes here.  I did what I could, but they went so fast it was hard to get it all.  What I did get was the links.  So at the very least you can go to the links yourself and check things out!  Here you go!

SmackDown Session:  This is a session where folks got up and shared a favorite web 2.0 tool.  They each got 3 minutes.  ONLY. 

 

Polleverywhere.com   This is for easy audience polling.  It’s free, and it can take the place of the electronic clickers.  You can embed the charts into your wiki or what ever. (put it into the “other HTML” area of the widget.

Cha cha.com Cellphones— 1800-chacha Answers questions –any questions…

Piclens.com

Coveritlive

qik.com Qik—stream from your phone

Handipoints.com

Ring with Laminated Tags This is an idea Low Tech for PD:  When you are teaching something new.  Have a ring with a laminated tag ready to put on it.  On the back, there are names of “go to” people on them so that when they need some support, they can look on the back and find a coaches name and number.

Webcastacademy.net

Makebeliefscomix.com Here  you can make comics and not need an account or email or anything. —no email required…..—print or email it to someone.

Ajaxim —learn Im ettiqute.  You need a server that supports PHP

Timebridge.com—meeting

Webkins-digital citizenships