So many great conversations took place at NECC bot…

So many great conversations took place at NECC both in sessions and in the Bloggers Cafe, there seemed to be a palpable excitement which I contribute to the dramatic rise in blogging over the past year. To have conversations with people through their blogs you feel as though you know them, at NECC this year, many of us who blog or who are avid blog readers had the opportunity to meet face to face those people. It was like meeting old friends who you had not seen in a long time, and all of these connections have come through conversations, social networking at its best.
I am hopeful there will be an educonblogger 2 either next year at the conference or before, I will have to keep my eye on the blogosphere to make sure I can get wherever it may take place. I believe we all help each other move forward in our thinking and in developing strategies for change in each of our situations, I am constantly learning from those whose blogs I read.
Dr. Tim Tyson, principal of Mabry Middle School was the closing keynote speaker. He has been called “the Pied Piper of Educational Technology” by the School Library Journal. He talked of school 1.0 being centered on rules, routines and rituals, always focusing on the right answer. School 2.0 centers on engagment, authentic learning, communities of learners, and the focus is on meaningfulness, connectedness, significance, and contribution. Tim talked asked the question “at what point does a child feel their life is meaningful”? His answer is today, provide opportunities for children to feel as though they can contribute and change the world today. At Mabry Middle School children do that, they are empowered and encouraged through video projects to think about the world, issues everyone struggles with, and to find their voice make themselves heard, to make a difference. He shared samples of the videos his middle school students have produced on such topics and child labor in the chocolate industry, stem cell research, genetically modified foods, just to name a few. The students know they have a global audience, the best of the videos are posted on iTunes, and their school videos have had 4 million downloads, this is authentic learning, students wanting to contribute, the world listening to what they have to say.
Other ideas for students contibuting were discussed in sessions such as Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay’s Flatclassroom Project. Students in Georgia and Bangladesh collaborrated on the flattners inThomas Friedman’s book, through the use of wikis, blogs and videoconferencing. Allowing students to connect to others and discuss opinions, thoughts, all the while meeting standards, communicating making connections, building social networks and communities, all 21st century skills, their work was meaningful. I want develop a sense of meaningfulness in projects offered in my district, I hope to model what others are doing with students.

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After the conference

NECC 2007 has come to a close, but the conversations will continue I am sure. I know I will be trying to process all the information from the past several days for quite a while and I hope to be able to articulate my thoughts here. As I go back through my notes I will be posting about the conversations in the sessions I attended. I am sorry I missed edubloggercon on Saturday, although I am new to writing in the blogosphere I have been an avid blog reader for the past year. Many of the authors of the blogs I subscribe to were in Atlanta on Saturday and I wish I had had the opportunity to be in their company and share in their conversations. I am passionate about learning and education and I love my job as an instructional technology person in a K-12 school district. I hope as I grow into this space I will be able to contribute to the conversations I read by Will Richardson, David Warlick, David Jakes and Karl Fisch, just to name a few. Right now I am feeling a bit over my head when I read their posts about these past few days, but I want to continue to learn, share my thoughts and discoveries, challenges and successes as I connect through conversations with others around the world. I agree with something Will has mentioned in his presentations, this is an opportunity for me to build a network and community of people to learn from and with, it is an exciting time of life for me.

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Arapahoe High School

I was truly inspired by Karl Fisch, Brian Hatak, Brad Meyer, Anne Smith, and Barbara Stahlhut from Arapahoe High School who did their presentation yesterday on Constructivist Teaching with Technology:Learning with Laptops. They started with a three yearstaff development plan, and a 4 person technology team in their high school. Karl applied for a grant, I don’t know from who, and assembled a 16 person cohort, including the 4 tech person tech team, to pilot the idea of laptops and constructivism. We listened today to how they started, asking for participation, settinga limit to the number who could participate managably in the first year, set out the guidelines through an email, people responded answering questions then they were chosen. I would like to read more on the Arapahoe web site about the project, the basic concept is teachers using blogs, wikis and podcasts to engage their students. They talked about the authentic learning aspect for the kids, how they (teachers) were not all “techie” teachers to begin with and some relied on their students to learn the technology and teach them as they went. They are finishing year two and now have approximately 45 teachers who have gone through either the first or second cohort. They meet every three weeks for three hours during the school day, had other teachers in their building help out covering portions of the time and substitutes which I assume were paid through the grant money for staff development. Anyway their approach was to change the pedagogy within the school starting with this first cohort. Nothing that they have done would be considered high tech, nothing requires a great deal of knowledge of computers, and the focus was not on the technology. laptops in each of two classrooms, buy in with the community through the production of student work that was posted. Next year they are adding two more classrooms with laptops carts.
I don’t know how to get a foothold in the high school where I am, but I would love to be involved in a project such as this. To hear teachers talk of the impact this project has had on their students in terms of modeling, the teachers modeling their own learning in these cohorts and the value that has had for their students to see. They all were so enthusiastic yesterday, it was great to be part of this conversation with them. This was worth the trip!

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