Connect 2.0

On Monday evening at 7pm, Annelies, Struan, Justin, Dennis, Carol, Michelle and I got “geeked” as we watched the pre-conference keynote of 2007 K12Online Conference here in our fabulous Learning Hub:

We started by watching the 2006 keynote presentation by David Warlick to get us ready (and to pass the time while we waited for the 2007 keynote, also by David Warlick, to download), all the while taking notes and discussing how we can bring these kinds of 21st century literacy skills into our classrooms here at school.

For those of you that were unable to attend on Monday night, don’t despair! All of the conference events are posted on the conference blog and will be available permanently – you can even go back and watch all of the presentations from last year!

Check out these links to get you started:

• www.k12onlineconference.org – The main conference blog
• The Schedule of Events – See what’s coming up
• Where do I start? – A guide for first time attendees
• Preconference Keynote – from David Warlick

And, just in case you are still wondering why you should attend this (free, online, just in time, amazing) conference, take a listen to this fabulous podcast by Chris Betcher and you’ll be geeking out before you know it!

Technorati tags: k12online07, k12online07pc

Today I found a fabulous screencast about all the different ways we can blog for educational purposes. And I’m not just saying that because my blog is the first one featured, really

Janetta Garton created this presentation for her teachers in Willard, Missouri, but I thought it was a perfect introduction for our school community here as well!

Check it out – and then come down to the Learning Hub to learn how to set one up for your class!

Mrs. L and Ms. B’s fourth grade classes have just started an exciting new project! They are going to be creating multimedia book reviews on VoiceThread (check out a sample here) and then sharing them with partner schools around the world so that their single book review can become a dynamic conversation around books.

Our goal is to promote a love of reading for all students. We can share our VoiceThreads with other classes here at ISB, as well as partner classes in other international and public schools around the world. We will post all of our completed multimedia reviews on our wiki: Books Go Global!  (thanks to Lucy Gray for inspiring our wiki layout with her fabulous Cities of the World wiki – another amazing global collaboration to join!)

VoiceThread is an easy to use, free, online digital storytelling tool that allows students to share their ideas using images and their voice. One exciting feature of a Voice Thread is that it allows us to collaborate with other students around the world. Once a Voice Thread is created, other students can add their own images and narration to the initial Thread. This means that students around the world can begin to discuss and share their thoughts about their favorite books.

Now, I have to admit, I think VoiceThread is pretty cool. When I show our grade 4s a sample VoiceThread I thought they would just be blown away by the tool. And, to some extent they were impressed. But, when they really got excited, and I mean literally shaking with excitement in their seats, was when I mentioned that these book reviews would be shared with other students all around the world.

I find these global connections exhilarating myself and I’m so impressed at how quickly and easily fourth graders were able to grasp the power of these tools. One student asked if she could create her book review in English and her native language, so that friends and family from her own country (who might not speak English) can still enjoy her work. Which then started a discussion about the possibility of a book review being started in Korean, but making it’s way around the world, being translated as it travels. We talked about having partner schools on every continent and ending up with one book being reviewed in as many languages as possible – just like “real” books are published in different languages. What a powerful thought for a group of nine-year-olds!

It’s clear that this project is going to be amazing!

As our grade 5 students are exploring the exciting world of blogging, we are also learning about how to stay safe online. Today, Mrs. T’s class watched an excellent public service announcement called “Think Before You Post” (more available here):

As we discussed the ideas presented in the video, we developed a class set of online safety tips that we want to share with our entire school community:

Think before you post!

• Before you post anything, anywhere, think about:
  • Why are you posting this?
  • Who will see this?
  • What will they think?
• Use a nickname or ONLY your first name
• Do not share personal information like your:
  • Picture, or pictures of your friends
  • Last name
  • Phone number
  • Address
  • E-mail address
• Ask your mom, dad, guardian or teacher before you post

All of our grade five bloggers have had the chance to watch this video and develop online safety tips. Understanding how and why we need to think before we post is a critical skill for all students. Please feel free to use this video at home to start a discussion about online safety with your children!

Cross post from http://www.medagogy.edublogs.org

Big movements start with small steps……………..

A simple conversation with Scott last week started like most conversations at ISB, passing each other in the hall. Scott just attended the LEARNING 2.0 and is eager to explore many of the ideas and tool he picked up there.

“Hey Justin! I’m looking to get a little deeper with peace day this year, got any ideas?”

Scott is always looking for meaningful ways to get his students engaged in the writing process and reflect on a deeper level. He has been using his classroom blog as a tool in process but up until now it did not really have an audience other than parents. It was time to change that. Together we came up with some questions for the post that we felt would stretch students to think about peace and what it means to them. You can see the post here.

Time was a factor here as Peace Day was the next day. As we know the read/write web is a powerful tool that can quickly and easily bring people from all over the world together to share and collaborate. The only barrier is knowing that each other exists. I decided to reach out to all my contacts and get the ball rolling. I put out call to teachers and coordinators to have their students stop by and share their perspective along with the country they came from. I also helped Scott embed a cluster map on his site so we could track where the hits were coming from. If you don’t have one on your site get one today! The goal of this little post was to get a few different perspectives from other students to create and opportunity for further conversation about peace.

The results…………..112 posts!!!!!

Mark Picketts at Carol Morgan School , Dominican Republic answered the call and got several of his teachers to involve their classes

Mark Dilworth at International School Manila, answered the call and also got his teachers involved.

Kim Cofino at International School Bangkok , answered the call and reached out to her global community to bring in some great comments from the U.S

Carolyn Foote - Librarian, Texas , answered the call and wrote a fantastic post about Scott’s experiment and featured some of her favorite student comments!

Maryland answered the call. Thank you!

Philadelphia answered the call. Thank you!

The list goes on…………….

One conversation…….led to one email………….led to 112 posts………..which led to a global audience and a conversation about peace!

That is what these tools are for. That is why they MUST be BLENDED into everything we do. Because the time invested reap rewards that keep on giving.

All it took was a teacher willing to ask “How can I go deeper?”

If you are reading this and interested in involving your class please drop by Scott’s Learning Blog and have your students post. We would love to read their thoughts!

One small step at a time.

We all know that you only get out of a conference what you put in. So, I did my best to make the Learning 2.0 unconference sessions work for me by moderating 2 of the 3 sessions (during the third session I was totally wrapped up in Alan November’s amazing presentation on Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning).

Both sessions had enthusiastic groups of educators from all over the world, all of whom are eager and ready to get started on some globally collaborative projects. We ended up having a great balance with our first session focused more on lower elementary ideas and the second session focused on upper elementary. All the ideas we brainstormed only require web 2.0 tools that are free and available online.

So many great ideas came up that I thought it would be appropriate to start a new wiki to allow everyone interested to take ownership of these projects. As much as I would like to participate in every single one, I know that realistically it’s not possible. With this Global Collaborations wiki we can begin to connect individual schools together on projects that truly enhance the core curriculum units. Please feel free to contribute anything and everything to this new space!

For convenience, I have listed all of the projects that we brainstormed here, along with a number of collaborative projects that I’m already working on or have already initiated with colleagues over the past few weeks. Now comes the hard part: actually getting started on all these inspiring ideas!

Lower Elementary Ideas

Partnering on YackPack or TokBox for Early Elementary: Connect students in several international schools to create a “global communication center” as Alan November suggested in the roundtable discussion. Each teacher will create a YackPack for each student in your class, each student will have 4 partners in other schools around the world, for a total of 5 students in each Pack. This will enable the exchange to be more constant, more flexible and sometimes involve just a portion of your pack and other times all of your pack (depending on curricular needs).

YackPack is an audio e-mail service that allows students to share and exchange ideas in a user friendly graphical interface that requires little to no reading skills. TokBox is a slightly more complex video e-mail/live video chat service.

The Pack can be used for: storytelling, practicing reading with emotion, share their favorite book, talk about the author, reflecting on learning and the process of learning (metacognition), collecting “data” (for ex: for graphing activities). Students will use inspiration / kidspiration or an online mind mapping software to brainstorm ideas about what they will talk about so students are not reading from a script.

This project could be extended by creating a collaborative Ning or Imbee for the classes for a place to share pictures, videos, etc and/or video conferencing with Skype or TokBox (video e-mail) where video would be required to enrich the experience.

Global Village: One of our grade two classes will be working with Alecia Dry’s teachers on the Global Village project to connect elementary students around the world. The goal is to merge our two classrooms into one global village by conducting joint activities or projects once a month. We are going to focus on intercultural understanding and making connections between or different lifestyles.

Upper Elementary Ideas

Book Club / Literature Circle: Use Ning or Imbee to share our thoughts on our reading – create literature circles with students from a variety of schools – each group would have a community on a collaborative Ning/Imbee.

Connecting ESL students: Discussing common books that our grade 5 ESL student read using podcasting or YackPack. Please share some of the books that you would like your students to start a discussion around – we are confident that there will be at least some overlap between schools if we’re working at the same grade level.

Weather: Drawing conclusions from data – collaborate to both collect and present data on weather

Blogging: Connecting grade 5 classrooms – individual student bloggers connecting about their learning, areas of interest, creating a community of learners. It might also be an interesting idea to connect our younger students with some more experienced middle or high school bloggers. I know Clarence Fisher had a great experience with this last year and several middle school teachers have expressed an interest in partnering up: Jabiz Raisdana, Annabel and Jennifer Cronk.

Life ‘Round Here: An excellent international digital storytelling project designed and initiated by Chris Craft, designed to introduce students to different cultures and lifestyles around the world. Deadline to join Sept 21st.

Cross Grade Level Ideas

Great Book Stories: Listen and See: A great (new, but existing) digital storytelling project based on book reviews produced by students using Voice Thread to integrate audio and visual elements. Find an overview and two samples on Wes Fryer’s recent post.

1001 FlatWorld Tales: A wonderful collaborative storytelling project developed by Clay Burell, using wikispaces to create a never-ended story based on a central theme. I worked on this project last year with my middle school students and we loved it! This year Jeff Dungan and I will co-coordinate the elementary section. We’re hoping to encourage students to see stories within stories so that students all over the world can build on each other’s idea. We would also like to see use of audio and visual elements to the stories, so there is lots of room for growth with this powerful project.

PodPals: Students use podcasting tools to connect on social issues, curricular integration can develop as the year continues. Jamie Hide has already expressed an interest in participating.

Online Art Exhibit: Using Flickr and/or Voice Thread to post an international art exhibit from a variety of international schools. Also, allowing students to discuss each other’s art by posting pictures and allowing others to comment on areas that interest them by audio, text, and drawing on the images.

Exploring Our Communities: Use Voice Thread to share drawing of the different communities that each student is a part of and describe those communities. Share among schools.

Learning About Local Culture: Representing art in the culture you live in teach students about local art – students teaching students

Social Networking : Open Ning or Imbee network just to connect and communicate – starting with more casual conversation, exploring our likes/dislikes, culture, school experience and build as the school year goes. Jamie Hide has already expressed interest in starting a social network with his students in Canada.

Voices of the World: An existing project created by Sharon Tonner to connect children from around the world using their voices. All too often we ask children to communicate at a distance using text rather than voice. Voices Of The World will hopefully prove that we can unite and learn from one another using our voices in the simplest way possible. I am looking forward to this challenge ahead of us which will surely motivate our children to learn about other cultures through the use of the voice.

Exploring Digital Citizenship: A collaborative VoiceThread project to explore what it means to be a digital citizen – a critical issue discussed by many of the presenters this weekend. Joe Dale, Jamie Hide, Lisa Durff, PJ Higgins and Alex Savage have already expressed an interest in working on a project like this.

Flat Classroom Project: Flatten the walls of your classroom and partner up with another class around the world. Collaborative learning at it’s best. Check out the teacher Ning for more details.

Youth Radio Collaborative Podcasting : YouthRadio is an existing project that Kevin Hodgson shared with me earlier this year. From their site: “We are hoping to transform this site into a space where young writers and voices can connect with news stories about their communities, their schools and their interests via audiocasting (and podcasting). Our sites will include Norris Elementary School in Southampton, Massachusetts; Butler Elementary School in Sacramento, California; and the Odyssey School in Denver, Colorado; and we hope to have other partners along the way.”

Next Vista for Learning: An online library of free videos for learners everywhere – find resources to help you learn just about anything, meet people who make a difference in their communities, and even discover new parts of the world. And Next Vista for Learning wants to post your educational videos online, too. Everyone has an insight to share and yours may be just what some student or teacher somewhere needs! An excellent opportunity to help students teach student initiated by Rushton Hurley.

Global Virtual Classroom: The Global Virtual Classroom (GVC) project is a collection of free, on-line educational activities and resources. It aims to complement the efforts of governments and education departments around the world to integrate technology into their classrooms and curricula and to link their schools to the information superhighway. Jeff Dungan introduced me to this great 21st Century resource.

Known Issues:

• Each student may need an e-mail address to access web 2.0 tools – how do you organize this for lower elementary? Thanks to Susan Sedro for one solution: Scholastic.com. We could also try gmail accounts.

Ideas for Teachers

Join an existing network of educators learning together:

• Clasroom 2.0 Ning
• The Global Education Collaborative Ning
• NextGen Teachers Ning
• Support Blogging Wiki
• Ning in Education
• Tapped In
• K12 Online Conference

Of course there’s always room for more participants! Please let me know if you’re interested in participating in any of these projects or share your thoughts on the collaborative wiki!

Anything spark an idea for you? Please share your ideas here or on the collaborative wiki!

Tags: learn2cn, elementary, 21stcentury, globalcollaborations, internationalschool, flatclassroom

 The elementary school is buzzing with energy and ideas since more than 10 of its teachers flew to Shanghai for the Learning 2.0 conference.  Teachers and students across the ES are tapping into the potential that some of the new tools (blogs, wikkis, podcasts) to enhance their own teaching and learning.  A term that was used quite often over the course of the weeks was that of blended learning, and it is definitely one that we will be exploring further this year.

Blended Learning is the combination of multiple approaches to learning. Blended learning can be accomplished through the use of ‘blended’ virtual and physical resources. A typical example of this would be a combination of technology-based materials and face-to-face sessions used together to deliver instruction. In the strictest sense, blended learning is anytime any instructor combines two methods of delivery of instruction. However, the deeper meaning lies in engaging the students of the current generation. Thus a better example would be using active learning techniques in the physical classroom and a social web presence online. Blended learning is a term that represents a shift in instructional strategy.  Shift is happening and the ES is right there with it!

http://connect2.edublogs.org

What a weekend! Twenty-five of our wonderful teachers attended the Learning 2.0 Conference in Shanghai this past weekend.  Every session and every presenter had something interesting, engaging and inspiring to offer and we are all returning rejuvenated and ready to bring our classrooms into the 21st century! Here few big nuggets from the sessions that I attended that really made an impact on me:

Blended Learning:

I’m not sure how I missed this specific term in my reading, but clearly it’s the phrase of the times and I am definitely going to start using at ISB. Blending online learning with face to face interaction is somehow very nonthreatening, it feels more like a term teachers can understand and relate to, like another facet of differentiation, which most teachers have already accepted and adopted as an essential method of instruction. Wes described how to blend learning in his Inventing the Future session on Sunday: allow for differentiated models of learning and creating work, create multiple paths for learning and assessment, and utilize multiple modalities of instruction – basically allow students the opportunity to learn and create in they way that they enjoy.

In his Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning session on Saturday, Alan November talked a lot about the core values of a school and how so many schools claim a core value is face to face interaction – but then they send students home to read for homework. How does that embody the core value of face to face interaction? Alan said “it’s not about the loss of f2f – it’s the shift of control.” Online tools deepen the f2f relationship because you can connect with kids when they’re not f2f. Powerful stuff, but clearly intimidating for anyone entrenched in an old school perception of a face to face core value.

The Importance of Teacher Modeling:

This is something that I’ve been saying for the past year only because I didn’t realize before how much blogging (reading and writing in collaboration with others) would change my life – not just enhance my professional development like reading a journal article, but change my life – the way I think, the way I interact with people, the way I work, the way I look at the world. It’s impossible to understand the impact of these technologies unless you are using them yourself.

As Will said in his The “Big” Shifts in Learning session on Saturday, “Educators must model learning in a networked world. Teachers must be learners too, they need to implement these practices in their own learning.” It doesn’t matter what topic they choose, but they must start utilizing these tools as tools for learning themselves. “My teachers are everywhere. Learning is 24/7/365 and it’s global. Everyone who comes to my blog has the potential to be my teacher.” Imagine that environment compared to a class environment (no restrictions, no time, space, or teacher frame to it). I totally agree with Will when he says, “This kind of learning is much more powerful than any classroom learning I’ve ever done.”

Will and Sheryl co-presented the Overcoming Obstacles in a Web 2.0 World / It’s Their Future: Making the Case for “Problem” Technologies in Schools session on Saturday and explained it’s essential to understand the environment that our kids are experiencing – teachers need to model appropriate use. We use scissors in the classroom, we teach them how to drive – if we can manage those tasks, we can certainly figure this out.

Doing New Things in New Ways:

This idea came up in the Apple seminar I attended last year in KL, and I was so excited to hear Alan November reference it during his Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning session on Saturday. He gave the great example of a teacher blog, with ideas, pictures, and topics posted by the teacher just being an online version of a teacher produced bulletin board. What we need to be doing is new things, new ways: giving every student a blog and then feeding their posts into the teacher’s blog. So many things that Alan said just resonated with me, and I love having quotes to share with teachers and administrators that so eloquently express exactly what I mean:

• The technology is relatively insignificant to your ability to apply and solve problems
• I would rather teach my students the courage to create their own community around the world for presenting their work to an authentic audience than for me to correct their work
• I believe my students should walk out of my classroom with relationships all over the world
• Being overwhelmed is part of the deal – you have to learn how to manage information
• There’s too much to unlearn. If you can’t unlearn DON’T GET IN THE WAY.
• People who understand how to manage information and deconstruct it, will have more power than those who don’t.

Developing a Culture of Creativity:

Whether or not they will admit it to us, or to themselves, we know that a huge portion of our teachers see technology as a passing fad. We have all watched the experienced teachers that have been through plenty of other educational trends pass them by, sit back and thinking “I’ll just wait this one out too.” During Wes Fryer’s Inventing the Future session on Sunday, he made crystal clear why we all have to understand that this is not a passing fad. The Read/Write web is not just a trend in education, something affecting on our line of work, these tools are affecting every level of society. Our culture is changing and we have a choice: to participate or to fall behind.

“We have a tremendous opportunity for students to share their voice on the global stage, to receive global feedback, not to just be receivers of knowledge, but to be active creators of global knowledge and thoughts.” Meaningfulness and learning comes from connectedness – we need to allow our students to share and connect. We need to create a supportive educational climate for creativity, failure and sharing – it’s OK to fail and to safely share our thoughts and ideas and build upon the ideas of others. Our kids can’t wait – they need for us to be making changes today, the world has changed. These technologies are their world – why would we want to completely separate education from the world they live in?

Teacher as Advocate

Every presenter emphasized the need for teachers to see our role as advocates. It is our responsibility is to prepare students for the future, so we need to be able to show people why these tools are worth it. As Sheryl said in her Virtual Learning Communities of Change session on Sunday, “in the future it won’t be what you know, it will be what you can create – ideas and storytelling. The new economy will be who you know and what you know – building relationships.”

We need to be visionary as educators because we are the first generation of teachers who don’t know what our students’ future looks like. Clearly, it will be essential to know how to create relationships, team-building, being able to work in teams with people you’ve never met before, and to understand that out of diversity and conflict come innovations.

During the roundtable discussion, Wes Fryer asked every teacher to:

1. Blend the opportunities for learning that you give your students.
2. Invite students to create knowledge projects with media, which creates a different dynamic when their audience changes fundamentally – students are no longer producing just for their teacher.
3. Change your identity as teacher – view yourself as a connector – meaningfulness comes from connectedness.

In all honesty, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I will post my session notes here as well (so I can selfishly have them all in one place) and I really hope the conference Ning will continue to grow and become a true learning community for everyone – not just those of us that were lucky enough to attend. The combination of the momentum of this conference and the global scope of the K12 Online conference next month will be unstoppable!

Two of our grade five classes have just begun an exciting new literacy project!

Ms. H’s and Mrs. R’s classes are learning about 21st Century literacy by reading, writing and communicating via their own individual blogs hosted by Learner Blogs. You can find links to all student blogs here on this blog, or sorted by class on the individual teacher blogs (on the sidebar). Please feel free to read what they are writing and to participate in the conversation. How exciting to see that learning is no longer limited by our classroom doors!

What blogging does for students

“Helps them find a voice

A benefit to educational blogging (and wiki-writing) is the opportunity for the student to find a personal “voice” and to develop individual interests. Much like journal-writing, blogging gives wings to ideas that otherwise may can stay trapped in the mind. Many individuals find that blog-writing changes their lives in a significant way by allowing them to express their ideas in a medium that appears to have life and longevity–and that might find a kindred audience.

Creates enthusiasm for writing and communications

It is not expected that all students will take to blogging (just as not all students enjoy writing), but it is believed that blogging has a unique ability to create enthusiasm for writing and the communication of ideas.

Engages students in conversation and learning

Educational Blogging is more than just being about writing, just like writing is more than just writing business correspondence or a lab report for Chemistry class.Unlike traditional forms of publication that are one-way, when the work is done at the end of the publication process, students can be engaged in ongoing conversations about their ideas and thoughts. This can be threatening for some administrators afraid of endangering children, yet, it brings a reality to the classroom that was not previously possible.

Provides an opportunity to teach about responsible journalism

Because students who are posting blogs reach an audience with their posts, whereas a personal diary can be kept private, students have the opportunity in blogging to learn about the power of the published word. Whereas they might be tempted to criticise or make fun of someone in private conversation or in a diary, they can be taught about responsible journalism, and that the consequences of these kinds of remarks in the new world of the read/write web can be serious and long-lasting.

Empowers students

Student blogging is incredibly empowering in the following ways:

1) Instead of writing as a mechanized approach to empowerment where we learn to write well enough for school and work, we learn to write for life-long learning purposes.

2) Writing and blogging and life are intertwined as difficult issues are exposed and dealt with in a transparent community of voices. Although this type of writing entails risk and trust, growth and teamwork naturally result.

3) Writing and blogging encourage students’ initiative to write, to be engaged at more than just the head level. It involves writing from head and heart. Children often have not learned to do more than live from the heart, while adults have concentrated their efforts on more cerebral approaches. This means adults and children can bridge the gap that exists by writing together, creating a community of writers in their classrooms where there is no pseudo-community, only community where humans write.”

“What Blogging Does for Students.” Support Blogging Wiki. [http://supportblogging.wikispaces.com] Retrieved on 1 December 2006.

Last week Mr. Lamont’s Grade 4 class culminated their active reading workshop with an new 21st century twist.

Active Reading is a reading strategy used to help break down an understand different types of texts. It is made up of four components (Marking-Up the Text, Visualize, Predict and Question) and is taught in grade 4 to help students work with fiction and non-fiction.

This year during the workshop Mr Lamont’s students were asked to model the active reading process using the Smartboard. Each students was given a scanned page from their text and they were asked to go through each of the four active reading steps and show and capture their thinking on the board.

This work was then saved as images and imported into a program called Garageband. This pod-casting program allowed students to record their own voices while answering the question “How does active reading help you read? Students reflected on the active reading process while watching the images of their own work to go a little deeper into what makes this strategy work for them. There was some great thinking and deep questioning going on!

Finally these video pod-casts were posted on a site called Teacher Tube where they were shared with other Grade 4 students and teachers from around the world. The hope was that by sharing their knowledge perhaps others could learn and become better active readers as well. The response has been fantastic as already each of their student videos has been watched over 20 times!

Watch the learning happen! Like many of the projects involving technology in the Elementary School, the focus is always on the curriculum learning outcomes and the technology is used as an engaging and relevant tool that allows teaching and learning to happen in new and exciting ways.

Great job Mr. Lamont’s Class!