This year’s Fall CUE Conference was held at Cordova High School, an 18-minute drive from my home (in Folsom, Calif.). Nice!
Opening Keynote
Catlin Tucker gave the opening keynote. Thank you to the CUE team for recording and posting her talk. So many great time-saving tips and strategies for teachers, designed to put students in the driver’s seat.
Sessions
Micro + Macro Writing: HyperDoc Lessons that Matter for Today’s Writer – Sarah Landis: This was my first time to meet Sarah Landis. Knowing that Sarah is one of the “hyperdocs girls,” I already knew her session would be a treat. I’ve also known, through my own teaching experiences, the power of limiting students to a set number of words or syllables. From 6-word memoirs, which Sarah had us delve into, to haiku, the format limitations seem to spark unlimited searches for just the right word – often pushing students to write beyond the school day – to write when they don’t have to write.
Brenda Gillies – Brenda introduce us to Thrively, which looks like a great tool for surveying students to identify their interests. Tip: If you do the assessment at the beginning of the year, you will have an invaluable tool for helping students see the positives in their fellow classmates and to also analyze strengths/weaknesses of their own work groups.
Adina Sullivan – Adina never ceases to inspire me with powerful resources for important topics (accessibility, digital tattoo, and more). Her #FallCUE19 gems:
http://Fontpair.co – Tip: Have students look at a whole block of text to judge the readability. Be sure to checkout Fontpair’s 10 Tips.
http://emojicopy.com – Tip: You can paste emojis in as text to help students easily find things. Works great in Google Classroom.
Jen Roberts – Group Creator – Jen created this fantastic spreadsheet, which allows you to create non-random/deliberate groups. Tip: Use for student collaboration groups. Display groups on board for students to see as they walk in.
Kevin Fairchild – Accessibility in G Suite – Tip: I knew about using live captions via YouTube captions, as you can see in Catlin’s keynote, but I didn’t know you can now move the captions bar to the top of the video.
Roger Wagner – Roger recommended exploring three programs to build students’ coding skills:
Arduino – “Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for anyone making interactive projects.”
Make Code – “MakeCode brings computer science to life for all students with fun projects, immediate results, and both block and text editors for learners at different levels.”
WorkBench – “Using the Spark Fun Inventor’s Kit, students will learn the basics of programming in Arduino, how circuits work, how to create outputs and read inputs.”Integrates with Google Classroom.
Podcasting 101 – I’ve been a long-time fan of Brian Briggs and Ryan O’Donnell. Love the many ways this dynamic duo infuses humor and practical tips into powerful tech integration. I could only stay for the first half of their workshop, so I’m looking forward to exploring their slides and playing with the Anchor app (now downloaded on my phone). In my district, elementary teachers are looking for meaningful ways to structure (and assess) speaking and listening activities. Podcasting meets – and exceeds – that requirement, with so many options for taking student voice beyond the walls of the classroom.
Closing Keynote
I’m hoping CUE will post Ed Campos Jr’s closing keynote. This 3-minute snippet gives a peek into his warm, embracing, hilarious style. Equity, empathy, and the “Pedagogy of Poverty,” were infused throughout – with a call to “release the learning and the writing to the kids.”
The biggest challenge in attending a CUE Conference is to decide which sessions to attend. The good news is that many of the Fall CUE presenters often present at the Annual Spring CUE Conference in Palm Springs. Starting the countdown till March.
I can’t think of a better place to be in mid-March than Palm Springs – attending the CUE 2018 National Conference, spending three jam-packed days of connecting, learning, sharing with hundreds of educators from across the nation.
Now the challenge to is condense the experience into a short blog post by focusing on my top takeaways, which I’ve listed below:
Designing for Accessibility with G Suite and Google Chrome – Adina Sullivan has curated and shared a wonderful collection of resources. If your district, like mine, has been served with a letter from the Office of Civil Rights regarding the need to make all district websites and online materials accessible to all readers, I recommend you spend some time going through Adina’s slides, starting with the No Coffee app. Given the wide range and degree of visual impairments, this app gives you an idea of what it must be like to have a number of common visual challenges. The YouTube video below is a great introduction to the app:
Through Your Child’s Eyes, another powerful app, offers parents and educators an opportunity to step into a number of learning challenges:
“It’s one thing to read about learning and attention issues. It’s another thing to see them through your child’s eyes. Experience firsthand how frustrating it is when your hand won’t write what your brain is telling it to. Or how hard it is to complete a simple task when you have trouble focusing. Use these unique simulations and videos to better understand your child’s world.”
In addition to apps, extensions, and websites for experiencing and learning about accessibility issues, Adina also includes tips for making your own online creations more accessible to all your students. From using heading levels, to labeling all images via “alt text,” to left alignment instead of justified, Adina’s resources are a treasure trove. Her presentation was also a reminder that those OCR letters are driving much-needed positive changes in the process of making learning more accessible to all students.
Hyperdocs + YouTube – Learning the Art of Creating, Packaging, and Delivering Digital Lessons – If you have not followed Lisa Highfill or attended one of her sessions, you might not know that she is known as the “video whisperer.” Whatever topic you are wanting to introduce to students via a video, Lisa will leave you thinking about how to pair videos with books and lesson components that will spark exploration, inquiry, and creating projects that matter.
Just have to share a few samples from Lisa’s presentation so that you have an idea of the amazing span of videos she curates on her Highfill Crew YouTube channel (and you will want to pour a class of your favorite beverage before you head down this rabbit hole:-):
Eyebombing – Oh, what fun to think of all the possibilities for this video!
Lisa is also credited with creating the term hyperdoc. Be sure to checkout the growing bank of hyperdoc lessons. Her tip on ramping up your lessons by including videos: “Find it – Playlist it – Pair it – Package it!”
Thinking Critically About Fake News – Rob Appel’s media literacy session was awesome not only for the thought-provoking questions raised but also for the great conversations shared by participants, starting with the first “turn and talk,” sparked by a quote from the New York Times publisher, A. G. Sulzberger:
“There was a reason freedom of speech and freedom of the press were placed first among our essential rights. Our founders understood that the free exchange of ideas and the ability to hold power to account were prerequisites for a successful democracy.
Misinformation is rising and trust in the media is declining as technology platforms elevate clickbait, rumor and propaganda…jeopardizing even the foundational assumption of common truths, the stuff that binds a society together.”
Rob and I have started collaborating on our media literacy presentations. One switch I will be making to mine is rather than talking about Stanford’s recent study, I’ll play the NPR’s interview with Professor Sam Wineburg.
I’m looking forward to upcoming opportunities to co-present with Rob on this rapidly exploding topic of media literacy!
Much Better Staff and Team Meetings – Rushton Hurley has been a long-time, big-time mentor to me on the meaningful integration of technology into classroom practices. What a great session topic because who doesn’t wish for better, shorter staff and team meetings?! These three easy tips could make all the difference in attitudes and making every minute count:
Tip #1: Prep staff for meetings by encouraging everyone to share ahead of time, or anytime, cool things happening at your school. Keep in mind that not every teacher is comfortable broadcasting a great lesson they created and taught – but you can jump in for them and share about their work. Google Forms is a perfect tool for acknowledging and promoting ideas and accomplishments and jump-starting conversations at your next meeting.
Tip #2 – Start with a great video –
“Videos that speak to the heart get people past the little things they sometimes bring to staff meetings.”
Tip #3 – Build an exploratory culture by including time for teachers to delve into new resources and strategies. “Time is a message. How you choose people to use time, sends a message.”
I left Rushton’s session actually looking forward to planning an upcoming staff meeting. 🙂
11 Ways to Add Media Literacy Mojo to Your Classroom – This CUE session was my first time to meet professor and author Julie Smith. And I completely lucked out … I was the first to arrive at her session, so I went up to the podium and introduced myself … and walked away with a complimentary, autographed copy of her book Master the Media. If you wade through her extensive CUE slideshow, I think you too will want a copy of her book. The book is only 160 pages, but includes sets of QR codes to expand your media literacy skills and toolkit.
I agree with fellow participant and sketchnote creator Kristin Welch, Julie’s Media Literacy Mojo was an “eye-opening, engaging session.”
Media Mojo sketchnote created and shared by Kristin Welch
Thank you to these amazing presenters. And thank you to the CUE team for the tremendous effort and commitment you put into making #CUE18 a fantastic experience! I’m already looking forward to #CUE19. Hope to see you there!
If you will be attending CLS’s Conference this weekend, I warmly invite you to attend the session I’ll be co-presenting with Pam Bodnar (Marsh Jr. High, Chico USD): Teaching Social Justice Through the Lens of the Holocaust (Saturday, 10:30-11:30). In recognition that current times call for the voices of social justice, diversity, and action, we will be sharing ways to connect students to social justice practices by examining significant historical events and their relevance to recent local history. Through the lens of the Holocaust and powerful moments in history, participants will be provided with techniques to create safe spaces in the classroom to deal with sensitive topics. We will address the impact of bystanders and the power of “upstanders” to change the future.
We will also be touring the Time of Remembrance Oral Histories Project (TOR). If you haven’t visited TOR or haven’t visited it recently, we have added a Student Gallery page to showcase the work of students who are documenting – or planning to document – primary accounts of challenging topics, such as immigration, displacement, genocide – along with stories of those who have found the courage to stand-up and speak out on behalf of others.
During our CLS session, Pam and I will be sharing project ideas and strategies for promoting student voice and activism. If you cannot join us, I’ve posted one of Pam’s projects on the TOR Student Gallery to provide you with a window into her classroom: On Coming to America – An Interview with Altijanna Sinonovic.
Just returned from CUE 2017, three jam-packed days of sharing, collaborating, learning, rethinking, and celebrating in the beautiful California desert setting of Palm Springs.
For those of you #NotAtCUE17, here are my top takeaways:
Keynote Speakers – Oh my!
Lucky me! I was able to attend all three:
Jo Boaler: The Mindset Revolution – A shout out to CUE for having Dr. Jo Boaler as the kick-off keynote. A visit to her youcubed website will give you an idea of Jo’s commitment to moving students – and teachers – past a “fixed mindset” of “I’m not good at math” to “offering mathematics as a growth subject, filled with opportunities for creativity, discussions, and multiple perspectives.”
I’ve heard the term “growth mindset” before, but hearing Jo Boaler present research-based findings on its importance had me leaving the keynote wanting to learn more. This snippet from her recent Scientific American article, Why Math Doesn’t Add Up in the U.S., will give you a window into her findings:
Brain research has elucidated another practice that keeps many children from succeeding in math. Most mathematics classrooms in the U.S. equate skill with speed, valuing fast recall and testing even the youngest children against the clock. But studies show that kids manipulate math facts in their working memory—an area of the brain that can go off-line when they experience stress. Timed tests impair working memory in students of all backgrounds and achievement levels, and they contribute to math anxiety, especially among girls. By some estimates, as many as a third of all students, starting as young as age five, suffer from math anxiety.”
I recommend spending the next 16 minutes watching CUE Live’s interview with Jo and then head to her youcubed site:
A few quotes from Jo Boaler:
“Let’s get rid of speed math…Speed does not equate to intelligence or better math understanding.”
“Parents should know that nobody is born a math person – and should never give that message to their kids.”
George Couros: The Innovator’s Mindset – If you’re not already following George Couros on Twitter, you should be. As a long-time follower and fan of George Couros, AKA Principal of Change, I already knew his keynote would be a great takeaway (although I didn’t know it would a good idea to have Kleenex available, as he regularly interjected short but powerful, often emotional, video clips to illustrate his points). His fast-moving, highly engaging keynote included 8 Characteristics of an Innovator’s Mindset, which the wonderful Sylvia Duckworth has put into an infographic:
Moving from a “fixed mindset” to an “innovator’s mindset” requires embracing change, learning from failures, and being OK with the fact that implementing change will probably require all 8 of the above characteristics. So, yes, you may have to explain to colleagues that “if you ask when you’ll find the time, you’re already giving up.”
George also posed a question on school vs. learning, and shared an infographic with common differences between the two:
About those video clips I mentioned that George injected throughout the presentation to bring home every point … he’s posted them to his website. These are gems to include in your growth/innovator’s mindset toolkit.
A few favorite quotes from this inspiring keynote:
“The best person to teach students about space is not you; it’s an astronaut.” – One more argument for opening classroom walls via videoconferencing!
“Social media is like water. You can either let us drown, or teach us to swim.” – Will share this one with district-level administrators.
“We need to make the positive so loud that the negative is hardly heard.” – Don’t shut down learning sites/sources because of misuse by a few students.”
“The biggest game changer in education is not the technology; it’s the teacher.” – Will remind curriculum adoption folks about this sometimes forgotten fact.
Cathy Hunt: The Art and Soul of Education – How fun to end the #CUE17 Conference with a national (Australian) and international award-winning (tons!) art instructor. Don’t think you can do art? Head to Cathy Hunt’s website and get ready for another “growth mindset.”
Photo from @susiew
Loved the lessons she demoed, especially Picasso’s Portrait pieces, which starts with students taking selfies (which we all know students love to do) and then layering pieces of a Picasso painting over their selfies (which definitely qualifies as transformative use if you are wondering/worrying about fair use issues).
My favorite quotes from Cathy Hunt:
“If you want to increase divergent thinking in your classroom, make some art.”
“To make, to create is to be fully human.”
Some Great Session Takeaways
Mark Ray: Future Ready Is Greater Than Digital – Scroll through Mark Ray’s presentation and you’ll be ready to start the Future Ready conversations at your site/district on Monday. In addition to serving as Director of Innovation and Library Services for the Vancouver (Washington) School District, Mark is also working for the Alliance for Excellent Education in Washington, D.C., with a focus on the Future Ready Librarians initiative, part of “a national effort to connect school libraries and librarians to innovative instructional practices.” The graphic below includes the eight categories/gears of the Future Ready Framework through a librarian’s lens.
Knowing from a first-hand perspective the vital role librarians play at their school sites, I love that the Future Ready initiative is tapping into their expertise.
Mark introduced four important shifts required to truly be future ready:
Ownership – from teacher to student. Students need to have personalized learning paths.
Consumer to Creator – In the old days, somebody else wrote the textbook. Today students and teachers should be designing and creating products.
Local to global – Students need authentic opportunities to connect with other students, even if it’s just the school down the road.
Shift from fixed to mobile – Let’s recognize that students carry learning opportunities in their pockets.
Mark’s tip for making the shift happen: Start by putting together a Future Ready Admin team.
Mark Archon: Student Data Privacy – What You Don’t Know Might Hurt You – If you are a teacher who is frustrated by (the many) websites your district blocks, read through Mark Archon’s presentation and you will have a window into your tech administrator’s world. If you are an administrator wishing you had a presentation at your fingertips to explain student data privacy concerns and laws to teachers, Mark Archon just gave you a timely gift.
Since the passage of California’s AB 1584, a bit of my day (as a technology integration specialist) typically goes to tracking down vendors to have them sign my district’s legal document before I can approve software purchase requests. So I was very excited to learn that CETPA, in collaboration with the Ventura County Office of Education, is going to make the software approval process much easier by compiling a listing of AB 1584 compliant software on their Student Data Privacy Alliance page. Yay!
CETPA, the law offices of Fagen Friedman & Fulfrost, and Common Sense Media have collaborated on a short video, Ask Before You App, to give you a few tips on how to responsibly evaluate and use educational apps.
Anyone who handles data should know how to protect that data. Human error is a factor in 95% of data security incidents.”
I also liked his much needed reminder that, in terms of online programs:
Nothing is free. The currency is you.”
Mark Ray: Compliance to Self-Reliance – Rebooting Digital Citizenship – Mark jumped right into the topic by asking: “Are you and I hypocrites when it comes to digital citizenship and digital behavior?” He followed up his question with a link to a self-assessment quiz. I do a lot of digital citizenship workshops, which from now on will start with “an adult digital user quiz.” As Mark’s session made clear: How can we teach digital citizenship if we don’t model it ourselves?
Sabrina Goldstein, Sam Castellano, Darlene Moreno: Crack the Code: Connect Scratch to Your Language Arts Classroom – This talented team of elementary teachers did a great job of introducing MIT’s Scratch program, sharing compelling examples of student work, and bringing the audience on board by having them create their own Scratch animations. I also learned a new term: “kinetic storytelling,” which is storytelling that incorporates timing, color, location, transitions, and font. This short video will show you what kinetic storytelling looks like:
For our elementary students, Scratch offers multiple ways, for instance, for students “to demonstrate knowledge of figurative language and promote creativity and critical thinking skills through the use of backgrounds and coding commands.” Check out this elementary sample on figurative language to get you thinking about how Scratch can take language arts lessons to new levels.
We were fortunate to have a wonderful group of teachers joining us early Saturday morning for this session, many who remained afterwards to ask questions sparked by the presentation. If you were #NotAtCUE17 or not in our session, here’s a link to our digital handout: bit.ly/UnlockMediaLiteracy. And if you’re looking for a hyperdoc lesson on copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons to use on Monday, here it is:
With over 6,000 educators in attendance, it is hard to imagine the amount of planning that must go into a CUE Conference. I’d like to thank the ever-amazing Mike Lawrence and his incredible team for three-days worth of inspiring/energizing “future ready” learning experiences, perspectives, tips, resources, and conversations.
Thank you Roseville High School (via the awesome Marie Criste) for hosting this weekend’s Google Summit. Start to finish, what an awesome way to spend a weekend! Below are a few of my favorite takeaways:
Technology, High Expectations and the Art of Relationships – Having Jeff Heil kick-off the Summit with his opening keynote was an inspiring start. I had the good fortune to first meet Jeff at the 2012 Google Teacher Academy in Mountain View. We were in the same group/team (led by the amazing Jenny Magiera), so I already knew that Jeff is both brilliant and hilarious. But I did not know about his commitment to using technology as a tool for achieving educational equity, a passion ignited from his time spent working with homeless youth. I am still thinking about Jeff’s question/challenge: “How can the creation of something as simple as a relationship transform student achievement?”
Create Accessibility: Accessible Design for Classroom Creators – If Melissa Oliver’s engaging, hands-on session had been the only one I attended, it would have been well worth the drive to Roseville. As educators in a digital age, we all need an understanding of how to make content we post online – including student-created works – accessible to our readers. Visitors to our online sites, whether they be blind, deaf, colorblind, or elderly, deserve equal access to the content.
Melissa started her session with an easy accessibility first step: adding “alt text” to all images. “Alt text” is an abbreviation for “alternative text.” When you add an “alt text” to an image, screen readers for the blind and visually impaired will read out your text description, thereby making your image accessible. If you are a G Suite district (AKA Google Apps for Education district), I think you’ll appreciate that Google understands the importance of accessibility and has created a very helpful guide. In Google Docs and Slides, for instance, you can find the “alt text” option by selecting the image, clicking on Format, and scrolling all the way down to the last option. In Google Forms and the new Google Sites, select the image, click on the three vertical dots, select “Add alt tag,” and add your description.
Closed captioning (CC) was the second big item on Melissa’s agenda. We’ve been discussing this requirement recently in my district – and feeling a little overwhelmed. Given how many teachers embed or include links to videos on their websites and in digital lessons, I hope their reaction is not to delete all videos.
I am also hoping that students who are creating their own videos will not find the task of adding closed captioning too daunting. Since many teachers require a script before students start the filming process, they may already have text they can copy and paste into a closed captioning program. If not, they can use YouTube’s auto-generated captions and then edit them (and the auto-generated captions will need editing, but at least it’s not like starting from scratch).
In addition to three tips for closed captioning in YouTube, Melissa also shared Caption Creator for Google Drive. You will need to review and give permission to open the program first, and then select a video. What I love about this program is that as soon as you start to type in a caption, the program stops the video and waits for your next pause before continuing where you left off. Easy to use + free = a great combination! Closed captioning student video creations seem like a worthy collaborative project for parent/grandparent/community volunteers or even older students to tackle.
Given that my district was recently served notice by the Office of Civil Rights informing us that we need to make our homepage and all department and school websites (we have 66 schools) and teacher websites (tons!) accessible, my goal in attending this session was to gather useful resources and join a conversation on accessibility issues, solutions, and best practices. Mission accomplished!
How to keep other tabs open when in the presenter view of Google Slides: While in the edit view of your slideshow, click on the URL. Towards the end of the URL, where you see /edit, select and replace with present. You’re good to go!
How about adding a hyperlinked table of contents (TOC) in the footer of your Google Doc? Sure, you can add a TOC at the start of a Doc, but it doesn’t travel with you as you move down through pages. It’s all about Bookmarks. Start by selecting the words or phrases in your document you would like to be hyperlinks in your footer; then click on Insert > Bookmark. When you’ve finished setting up your Bookmaks, go back to Insert and add them to your footer. Type whatever corresponding text you’d like in your footer, select it, go to Insert > Bookmark. I’ve just added a hyperlinked footer to my On Coming to America HyperDoc. Love it!
Exploring Google Expeditions with Cardboard – If you have any extra smartphones you no longer need, I would love to have them … to insert inside Google Cardboard … and expand on the world of virtual field trip possibilities. Jim Sill’s packed session was a wonderful introduction to Google Expeditions! As we stepped into a very breathtaking 3D climb up Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan, I thought about a teacher in my district who recently took his 5th graders on a virtual visit to Yosemite through a videoconference with our National Parks. The videoconference was an extension to a story the students had read about John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt. I think a teacher-led Google Expedition of Yosemite would be one more powerful way technology can open the walls of the classroom (especially in our Title 1 schools).
Revenge of the Sheets: Learn to Google Sheets the Jedi Way – This was my first time to attend one of Jesse Lubinsky’s workshops. He shared a number of great tips for ramping up your Google Sheets skills. A new one for me was the Mapping Sheets add-on, a visual way to let data tell a story:
I also really appreciate Jesse’s comprehension digital handout, which includes links to his various presentations. Each presentation includes links to take you into, through, and beyond a specific Google tool. Thank you!
Back to HyperDocs…As I watched Lisa create a HyperDoc* from scratch on how she might teach students the correct use of there, their, and they’re, I found my session takeaway: Google Story Builder. I’ve known about Story Builder for a long time, but it hadn’t occurred to me what a powerful tool this could be for letting students build their writing skills.
* “HyperDoc is a term used to describe a Google Doc that contains an innovative lesson for students- a 21st Century worksheet, but much better.” From What Is a HyperDoc?
Student Agency EDU – Coming full circle, I ended my Roseville Summit weekend with Jeff Heil, this time joined by presenter/author Trevor McKenzie. They quickly had me immersed in an interesting topic: mastery vs. grades. What if we required students to reach for an A, rather then allowing them to slide by with a B, C, or D? The best way to make this shift happen is to allow students to explore topics and develop projects that they care about. But students will need some scaffolding to take them to this level/goal/expectation. I will definitely be sharing Trevor’s graphics, including the one below, to make visible what the process of moving from teacher-led to student-initiated inquiry looks like:
What a well-spent Saturday and Sunday! With much appreciation for all the planning, vision, and energy the stellar EdTechTeam puts into a Google Summit, I am already looking forward to the 2018 event.
What a great start to the New Year! I woke up to beautiful snow (something we get only a few times a year here in Placerville, CA) and my morning edition of The nwp Daily, full of thought provoking posts, Tweets, and links for stepping into 2011.
The first link I clicked on took me to Troy Hicks’ Summarizing of Our Reports from Cyberspace. Attending the NWP / NCTE Annual Conference was just not in my budget this year, so I tried to attend virtually, which proved to be a challenge. For example, following the Twitter stream of #nwp10 and #ncte10, proved to be a bad idea. With the 140 character limit, session-goers tended to Tweet what a great session I was missing – something I already realized. And one session I really, really wanted to attend was Troy, Bud Hunt, and Sara Kjader’sThree Reports from Cyberspace workshop.
But thanks to Bud’s video editing and Troy’s post, this morning I was able to click on the YouTube link and virtually attend Sara’s excellent part of the threesome’s workshop – Assessment in the context of digital teaching and learning. There is something about viewing a presentation “live” that is simply more impactful than reading about the session. I’m starting the year with a firm resolution to think more deeply about assessment: assessment of learning; assessment for learning, and, more important, assessment as learning.
Also in The nwp Daily was Paul Allison’s link to a post by one of his 8th graders – Speak with the Heart, an invitation for other students to collaborate on a multimodal piece that will be hosted on the Voices from the Gulf project. I’m imagining this project will fit Sara’s description of a “messy work in progress…making it authentic…making it ‘commentable.'” And “keeping it real,” to quote Paul’s take on teaching and learning in general. And such a good use of cyberspace!
Right up there with my New Year’s resolution to get a better handle on assessment in a digital age is my resolution
to delve more into technology as a tool for English Language Learners. I am fortunate, in my current position as technology integration specialist, to support K-12 teachers with their technology questions, concerns, and visions. Sure, I still visit classrooms that are having “test scrimmage” or “power down days,” but I also, on a very regular basis, witness powerful teaching and learning. Heading into 2011, my reports from cyberspace will include sharing some of the best practices and tools for ELLs…starting with the Stories from the Heart project – with a shout out to Audacity.
Looking forward to a year of sharing, collaboration, learning, and attending some great conferences – in real time and/or virtually;-)
I’m here in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Un-Conference that Steve Hargadon energetically and collaboratively put together. The announcement to join the conference came through the Classroom 2.0 ning listserv, with a link to the conference wiki.
Here’s Steve’s overview of Web 2.0:
Anyone can contribute – and make a difference
It’s an historic change – it’s a world in which our contribution of material is as significant as our ability to consumer information
Amazon.com good example of how things have changed: i.e., readers’ ability to add a review. Active example of Web 2.0
Difference from receiving material to contributing to the web
“When you write, everybody can hear you” – Quote from participant Andy Pass
Web 2.0 conversations help refine and improve thinking