ConnectedTalk

After returning from a conference that generates as much energy as NECC always does I sit at my desk and think, now what? How can I take what I learned and use the conversations I was part of, the excitement I felt and turn it into something meaningful for students and teachers in my district? Like many, I was the only person from my district to attend, so it is my responsiblity to try to now take what I experienced and make it something tangible for others to find value in. I believe in the conversations taking place, and there have been some very thoughtful ones in the past week from people who blog and embrace the need for a change in education to engage students in their learning more than ever before Chris Lehmann, David Warlick, Ben Wilkoff, Jeff Utecht and how do we begin to show others the value of these resources for collaboration or their own professional development? In my district, the webpage is still the focus of the classroom, posted homework, class assignments, calendar of events, daily schedule….still in the “I give information” framework, not the collaborative environment of the read/write web. Our teachers have had laptops for 8 years, they have the ability to be connected whenever they chose and have access whenever they chose. How do you move people to be collaborative, in a shared world wide environment? There is talk of implementing Microsoft sharepoint, not what I consider collaborative in the larger sense of the world. I know it is something network administrators like because it is internal and there is control. For me personally the power of blogs, wikis, twitter has been tremendous for my personal learning, for my continued growth and sense of belonging to a community of learners.

I always try to look through the eyes of students and what might excite them whenever I suggest using a different resource or tool for a teacher. My own children are 26 and 21, so they were long out of high school before many of these applications were introduced and I feel they missed a great deal too in what they were exposed to at school and were given the choice to use in their learning. I am passionate about engaging students because my own were not for the most part and should have been.  I am introducing wikis and blogs this summer and have a two foreign language teachers, two middle school teachers and an third grade teacher willing to give them a try. I believe in modeling for teachers in helping them get whatever resource they need set up for them so the implementation goes as smoothly as possible. I am hopeful that once these few start with these new web 2.0 tools in their classrooms others will want to as well.

What do you do to encourage others to infuse technology into their classroom activities? Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated!

I have been spending quite a bit of time in Second Life the past several weeks and I find it fascinating. Several weeks ago at our last curriculum department meeting a colleague and I did a presentation on Second Life. The purpose of the presentation was to make staff and administrators aware of new technologies that are available, and being used, in different educational settings. This presentation had been proceeded with one on Web2.0 tools and applications for the classroom. I had been aware of SL for some time although had never taken the time to actually see what it was about until we were preparing for our presentation. I have had the pleasure of meeting Jeff Utecht whose blog Thinking Stick I read regularly, along with many others who show up at the ISTE Thursday night socials. I have met so many interesting people I never would have come in contact with in my real life. I am going to NECC in Atlanta and look forward to meeting these same people in person! I have signed up to work in the SL playground on Monday.
I look forward to NECC every year and this is no exception. I am disappointed I will not arrive in time for the EduBloggerCon on Saturday, but my reservations had been made before this day was finalized. I hope to be able to participate through the blog posts which I am sure will be full of great conversations. NECC has done an outstanding job this year of creating tags for all of the sessions, I hope to blog about those I attend and share what I learn, it will be a great week!