Reflection Tag

I headed up to the North Woods of Wisconsin this past week, for a little family R and R.  It’s really quite beautiful up there (see photo) and I was looking forward to the opportunity to unplug a little bit.  Karen’s family cabin is pretty rustic, so I wasn’t expecting a lot of laptop or network time.  I loaded my iPod with appropriate music for hanging by the lake (Shearwater, Fleet Foxes, and Yeasayer were favorites) and I brought along a few books to read.  The whole concept of “unplugging” kept running through my head, as if I was going to enter an analog lifestyle and transport myself back to summer in 1985.

I like the concept of unplugging.  Sometimes the whole world of educational technology wears on me.  The ideas move so fast and following the network is occasionally exhausting.  There are so many sharp minds sending along links, blog posts and tweets about new things, that it can get away from me at times!  I was mostly looking for a few days to process and find a place for these great ideas in my daily life. So, I sent a few final tweets and shut off the phone for the next few days (aside from occasional Cub updates).

I had purchased Neil Stephenson’s book Cryptonomicon several months ago, and I figured that this was a good time to read something for fun.  It’s a terrific read, vivid and fascinating.  I did notice, as I worked my way through the first couple hundred pages, that my mind kept wanting to comment on concepts that Stephenson was making.  I grabbed a pencil and started underlining and making notes on the pages (something that I never really did in my youth).  As much as I was enjoying the text and the feel of a paperback in my hand, I needed the interactivity.  The very act of notating the book made it more real to me.  I really felt like I needed to comment, in order to appreciate the book more.

All of this hadn’t really occurred to me at the time, but during my drive home I began to think about things.  It’s interesting to consider how interacting with digital writing (commenting, collaborating and publishing) has changed my regard for the written word.  I love books and I treasure every book that I have in my collection - fiction and nonfiction alike. However, I certainly don’t look at the written word as a simple one-way communication anymore.  Digital publishing allows us (and our students) a chance to take some ownership of the work.  Recent iPhone applications that I’ve used, like textonphone.com give us the chance to notate and discuss published works on the fly.  The game has changed and it’s truly exciting.

I’m back in the wired world again, and it hasn’t taken long for me to wish I was back in Wisconsin, drifing on a boat with Shearwater and Neil Stephenson again.  Sometimes “unplugging” allows you to float towards simple truths and realizations.  Sometimes it allows you to see yourself and your world in a whole new way.

I’m writing this with the new WordPress application for the iPhone. It’s really a very nice tool, not only for my needs, but also down the road.  As we try to figure out the strategies for iPod touches in education, a free application like this can be a great way for kids to keep their blogs current.  I only with that the touches had a camera — what a perfect way to upload and post photos!

Has anyone else used this application yet?  Any thoughts?

Besides the Wordpress application, I’ve been incredibly impressed with the potential of iPod/iPhone applications.  There have been several (some free) which have turned the iPhone into an indespensible tool for me.  It’s also just plain fun!  If you haven’t had a chance yet, take a look at these:

1.  Evernote - A great way to keep notes, voice memos and pictures in one place.  You can tag everything and easily organize your notes.  Then, just sync everything between your phone/pod, desktop and laptop.  It’s terrific.  Also, if you take a picture memo of text, Evernote will attempt to recognize the text and create tags.  Very slick.

2.  Pandora - Okay, I’ve been a big fan of Pandora’s music service for years now.  But the iPhone application basically gives you the ability to bring an awesome online radio station with you.  Pandora has transformed the iPhone and the iPhone has truly revitalized Pandora.

3.  Twitterific - This little application is a great way of following your friends on our beloved but unreliable microblogging engine.  It’s really a nicely thought out program, with the ability to tap on tweets and dig deeper into a post.  Good stuff.

4.  MLB at Bat- If you’re a baseball fan, this is a terrific little app.  Not only can you follow scores on the fly, but you can also tap on the score and have access to video of all major plays.  On a wireless or 3G network, the video is terrific.  On Edge, it’ll do in a pinch.

The new iTunes Application Store has really gotten me excited about the potential for iPod Touches / iPhones in education.  Not only does the new 2.0 software give us some ability to shape the end user experience (keep the kids from deleting all the educational content) but there’s an endless stream of tools out there for collecting information, sharing with colleagues and evidencing learning.  I don’t know where to begin.

We have been lucky enough to ge a number of iPod touches to use with our students.  Now, the fun part is thinking about where to start and how to use them.

If anybody has any experience with these devices or has any ideas of their own, please share them.  I’d love to hear what you are discovering.

I saw David Warlick speak this afternoon.  I’ve seen him speak before, but he always gets me thinking.  His presentations are not very classroom-focused, but are really more of a “State of The Union Address” about technology, children and learning.

I’ve heard some people complain about this kind of presentation - that if the session doesn’t specificly teach them how to do something it is without value.  I suppose that folks are welcome to this perspective.  For all I know, the classes and environments in which they teach require a more practical mindset.  However, I really did appreciate what the man had to say.  In a way, it reminds me that it’s critical to understand the culture before you can understand the classroom.

I know that we all try to keep the focus on the process and not the tool.  We also do our best to find ways to connect the curriculum with students.  However, listening to Warlick speak really did serve as a reminder of how quickly and significantly things are changing in the world of our students — and how easily they are able to adapt to these changes.

As I sit here, processing the little stories and vignettes about student-made World of Warcraft narratives and activist blogs, I can’t help but look at students in a different way.  The tools which we constantly congratulate ourselves for using (blogs, wikis, etc) are nothing to these learners - we might as well congratulate ourselves for using textbooks and pencils.  We should, however, give ourselves a hand for noticing that these are the quick, easy and effective ways that we can help students connect to information and evidence their learning.  Plus, we can use these tools to keep conversations going - make them dynamic.  That point hearkens back to a point made at the blogging communities presentation I attended yesterday; a final grade equals a potential conversation ended.

The scary thing is that, once you really consider this new world, it makes you want to scrap all of your lesson planning, and rebuild from the ground up.  It’s not that the old ideas or lessons are wrong, but the mode of delivery can change and the potential for growth and impact is exponentially greater.

I think that’s one of the things that I most love about educational technology - it’s a constantly changing and challenging.  Like our students, we also need to learn to adapt to these changes and make them a part of our communication habits.  It’s the only way that we’ll truly see value in them and make them a legitimate compentent of our students’ experience.

Day one of NECC has been a fascinating adventure.

The sessions have been packed.  Some colleagues have not been able to get into their chosen sessions.  It’s a shame, but it’s also a testament to the amount of interest that there is in teaching with technology.  Luckily, I was able to grab a seat for Konrad Glogowski’s session on Blogging Communities.

This was really one of those sessions that truly gets you thinking — gets you excited to go and implement what you just learned.  From the start, Konrad had me thinking.  He basically begins with a blank page, and challenges us to think about how we can help students confront that environment.  Any of us who sit down to write a post know that feeling.  However, the solution to the problem isn’t in creating prompts or questions to fuel a student blog.  The solution is in creating a space for students with a sense of ownership.  As Konrad said — a focus on community.

Without restating the entire presentation (I wouldn’t do it justice), successful blogging communities are centered around three steps:

1. Creating a space in which students can exchange ideas.
2. Extending the classroom discourse by giving freedom to students and acknowledging their work.
3. and Redefining your presence in this community, from that of a teacher to a reader (and commenter).

I’ve worked with teachers on blogging with their students, and I’ve often thought about the obvious differences between “classroom blogs” and the blogs which students keep outside of school.  However, Konrad did a wonderful job of articulating these differences.  In many ways, the dynamic centers around the need for control which still dominates instruction.  While a teacher may love the idea of blogging, they also need to see how true blogging changes everything.  The teacher needs to stop evaluating and start reading — become a part of the community!  The more that the teacher reads and sincerely acknowledges the work their students are doing, the more momentum they will see in the community.

As I look around the room, I see so many people who are nodding in agreement.  I imagine that most of these people either have a blog or follow a number of blogs.  In other words, true blogging has a sincere place in their lives.  Many of the teachers who I have worked with have yet to find the personal value in the medium, which hinders their ability to understand the value, as well as the real dynamic.

The role of the teacher, as Konrad describes, really makes them into a follower (and a co-publisher) with the students.  The degree to which this change adds value to the student work cannot be understated.  Where a final grade ends the writing assignment and the conversation, a comment only encourages the dialog and teaches students that there is a great deal of value in writing — that it isn’t the means to an end.  The value in that lesson is beyond measure.

So what’s next?  I feel like this presentation really opened my eyes.  I think back on the conversations which I’ve had with teachers, trying to help them figure out the value in blogging with students.  The answer was right there in my own practice and in the practice of colleagues who I follow online and admire.  Sometimes it just takes the right moment to bring everything into focus.

NECC is a very interesting world, thus far.  The conference hasn’t even started yet and I’m already feeling fatigued.

I have a love/hate relationship with instructional technology.  I really value the possibilities which technology holds for instruction, and I’m really excited at the idea of helping teachers use these tools with their students.  In my opinion, it’s really key to reaching kids.  Plus, it has the potential to unlock creativity in students and connect them with the curriculum in new ways.

It just becomes overwhelming at times.

I had a wonderful conversation with two teachers from Oklahoma in the Bloggers Cafe (which is already becoming subject of ridicule by some of our ed-tech luminaries).  These teachers commented that it’s very easy to fall into the trap of focusing on what you aren’t doing, rather than the wonderful uses which you’ve found for technology in the classroom. Everyone has a success story to tell, and it just adds up after a while.

From my perspective, this statement really touches on what overwhelms me.  People are so eager to tell you what is best and what has transformed their teaching: Digo, Blogging, Wikis, Podcasts, United Streaming, etc.  Everything is so great and so potentially transforming, that the possibilities become endless and it can make a techie feel very very small.  It becomes a struggle to feel like you’re keeping up, much less finding your footing in this world.

As I write this, I’ve decided that my goal is to find my niche.  I may not be master of all technologies in the classroom, but I need to be okay with this.  I need to celebrate the success stories of my colleagues (all 20,000 of them that have come here) and reflect on my own place in the ed-tech world.