Personal Learning Networks

Working on your personal learning network can take up a lot of your time during the day. You feel like you are getting caught up on your tweeting and blogging, then you realize that the technology and/or the social network sites have changed and opps, you've gotten somewhere, but you are behind...again! At work I waited and waited and waited to get administrative rights on my laptop and desktop. After four years I can download a tweet deck by myself! Sorry, I am complaining, but what a relief that I will be able to use twitter during conferences and workshops now. I can use the "back channel" feature and hashtag everything. Sometimes educational institutions hold up learning by controlling the networks and computers way too much. I'm ready to celebrate this one - the ability to download from the Internet onto my laptop! Sometimes simple breakthroughs make me happy.

Where did the summer go?

Wow! When I look at my last blogpost I wonder where the summer went. Last I knew I was at ISTE in Denver - hobnobbing with Second Life avatars and docents and experimenting with project based learning. Now I'm back at work, reworking our resources webpage (http://medianet.caboces.org) and trying to pick up wifi networks with an ipad.

The future of education is a wonderment to me. Our country is in such a financial dilemma - people are laid off, school districts aren't hiring new positions and our schools are definitely practicing atrition when it comes to anyone leaving or retiring. At this point federal and state funds are being distributed almost routinely, but that will end by next year. Or, so I am told by keynote speakers at our respective curriculum camps and opening day ceremonies.

Schools need to find ways to minimize costs. Some services should, perhaps, be privitized. Services need to be paid for collectively and regions, as well as districts, need to merge.

So far it's business as usual for me and my department. Fortunately, in this rural area, the districts still purchase our CoSers (cooperative services). We provide hardy, beefy, media and distance learning services, so it is to the district's advantage to participate in our services. There is a huge push for streaming media. Districts can make money, also, by hosting distance learning classes. I feel sorry for the districts that don't have the availability of these resources.

Reflections of ISTE 2010, Denver

It was great to attend the conference and to connect with other educators attending for the same reasons - to learn, to connect, to re-connect. It was especially fun to meet the real person behind the avatar in the second life / virtual world forums. (Although, it was a little embarrassing to meet the ISTE docent from ISTE Island who had to help me detach my flailing purse in Second Life two weeks ago.)
My feeling is that the "avatar" learning for K-12 is in its infancy. It will grow slowly, and then perhaps boom. I want to be ready with a virtual environment to offer students and teachers. Second Life-type environments (Reaction Grid, Active Worlds, Second Life Teen Grid) are available; some are more costly than others. Some teachers will use this simulation area while others refuse it. Let's be ready in our Distance Learning departments to meet the challenge.

Brick and Mortar vs Online

I saw a YouTube video that was really thought-provoking. It was about the large lecture-style auditorium as a college classroom. I remember dropping my first college class that was hosted in an auditorium so big that it must have held 75 students. That class did not fit my learning style. Today, online learning is best for me. Taking classes online enabled me to follow the syllabus, look ahead, and see the online rubrics. I always had a good understanding of the class expectations and could refer back to them at any time. The online schedule was helpful for keeping me on track. The scoring rubrics helped me get an "A" in every class. The rubrics served as a checklist for my work. When will more educators realize that students today will not respond to that style of teaching?

Virtual Environments

I'm looking forward to attending a special interest group webinar at the ISTE Island tonight.  My avatar is dressed in rockstar wardrobe and ready to go!  The series of webinars are held in Second Life for visitors that are attending the ISTE convention in Denver next month.  I'll finish this post later....

The virtual webinar in the ISTE "auditorium" was interesting.  My thoughts are this...There is not a lot of usage of virtual grids for high school classrooms yet.  Remember when not too many people had an email address?  Is there going to be a sudden boom, an explosion, of virtual, second life-type classes?  If nothing else, today's educator needs to be prepared, have created an avatar, and have "tried out second life", so to speak. 

My Second Life experience has been thrilling, to say the least.  I can't wait to attend another ISTE virtual forum tonight - one for media specialists like myself.  Knowing how I feel about going into Second Life makes me realize how powerful a tool this virtual environment can be for students.  I'm not even a digital native and I can't wait to go into the grid.  Just think how motivated a student will be to study in a second life environment.  Safe, secure virtual environments are needed.

Study Island Regents

It's Regents Prep time in New York State.  Yesterday I trained seven teachers on the use of Study Island as an online assessment preparation program to prepare high school students for the end of the year Regents exams.  The questions that teachers have never cease to amaze me.  They always come up with something new to try and stump me.  Fortunately, there is live support at Study Island and I can use that chat messaging system right while I'm teaching.  I know the Study Island website very well, however, it is created by such a progressive company that the website and program is constantly changing.....improving, enhancing, adding.
Questions that the teachers had surrounded accumulative scoring for students, use of data to inform instruction, use of the new, live view, and creating classes and assignments in general.

I have made note of the teacher questions and will email each, inviting them to meet me, separately, in an Adobe room for follow-up, individual assistance. My greatest frustration in teaching in the districts occurs when there is not enough time allocated.  The curriculum directors set the time...and 45 minutes is not enough time to prepare a teacher to use Study Island or any other web program. By the time the teachers get logged in (and there are always problems with that - or they haven't been issued a username and password) there is very little time to do the program justice.  Note to myself: remember not to trust the district leaders to send out the usernames and passwords to the teachers prior to the training.  Find a way to have my digital team do it so the teachers will be ready on the day of the training.

Mobile Device War

This link to Rob DeLorenzo's Education and Mobile Devices Blog shares light on an interesting theme....Apple vs Microsoft vs Google.  I tend to agree that small, hand-held devices will rule in the future.  The Ipad is just a preview to how desktop computers will be obsolete.  I want to buy an Ipad but will wait until a laptop "device" can do more and download other types of apps, not just Apple apps.  I want a device, the size of an Ipad, that will do more across the board, not just limited to Apple products.  Thanks to Don for the link!

Using Twitter for CoSer 501

During the Tech Coordinators and Integrators Forum for Cattaraugus Allegany BOCES I saw Mark typing from time to time.  Today I see that he was tweeting the information about the agenda and good info from the meeting  - sending out the links to pertinent educational websites, etc.  After talking with Mark, Don, and others, I am thinking about establishing a twitter site for CoSer 501 - the media CoSer.  Currently we post announcements of new resources for teachers on our webpage.  Why not tweet the news....some of our tech coordinators, curriculum directors, principals, etc., will get it?  Just a thought - if businesses can do it, I guess a school can also.

ISTE 2010 Denver

My colleagues and I are getting ready to attend the ISTE 2010 (International Society for Technology in Education) in Denver, CO.  The special events and workshops look great this year.  I am signed up for:

• To Catch a Thief for 21st-Century Learners: Teaching Digitally
• Collaborative Web Tools
• Engage, Enrich, and Enhance Professional Development with Online Learning
• On-the-Fly Virtual Lessons
• Anywhere Computing: Enabling Scalable 1-to-1 with Open Source

We will also be attending a breakfast for Media Specialists.  David Warlick will be present.  I have heard him speak once before (at NECC 2007, National Educational Computing Conference, now called ISTE).  He is a terrific speaker.  His thoughts on literacy.... that we are more than just about literacy, we need to live and learn literacy; make literacy a habit....are very compelling and certainly pertinent to our work here at Learning Resources.

The hotels for the conference filled up fast and we ended up with lodging that is 80 blocks from the conference center.  Fortunately there are shuttle buses between hotels...estimated time to reach the center: 20 minutes.  Somehow, I think it will take longer with other hotel stops and traffic.