Celebration of Teaching & Learning -Day 2 Notes

Celebration of Teaching and Learning

Day Two

March 17, 2012

The Celebration of Teaching and Learning (#CTL2012, http://thirteencelebration.org/) took place at the New York Hilton in Manhattan. This two day conference occurred during the weekend of St. Patrick's Day. In a time when teachers and education are being spoken of frequently and many times negatively, it was interesting seeing how many dedicated professionals would give of their time to attend such a conference. As always the sessions were diverse and informative. I will attempt to share my notes from the weekend. There is no way to capture the true nature of the event if you weren't in attendance. But hopefully some of what I learned can be passed on to others.

Here are some of my notes from the second day:

First Session Attended:

Unlocking the Key Tools for the 21st Century

8:30 am

Apple itunesU ny now free

Contest harvard encyclopedia of life

Training for google available through NY Teacher Centers

Intel Teach: Professional Development you can take or deliver

http://www.intel.com/education/teachers/

• teach elements
• self paced modules
• get CDs of the instruction instead of online
• Register as trainer and a kit will come out for facilitated model
• Project based approaches available
• Offered via nyscate in facilitated model
• collaboration in a digital classroom module
• good pregoogle tool
• thinking critically with data module
• common core APPR alignment
• http://intelgrad.nyit.edu/
• free teaching tools for 21stobservation century teaching
• give students an id and password
• setup groups by teacher
• showing evidence tool elementary version
• intel help guide
• asessing projects
• engage community and share idea to be entered in kindle fire raffle
• http://www.nyit.edu/

Plenary Session:

10:30 am

WNET has an education deptartment

• free PBSLearningMedia.org, http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/
• video multimedia
• Mission Us - middle school history game
• Mission 2 - undergroundrailroad
• http://www.mission-us.org/
• http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/
• Michael Mulcrew uft, http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/mulgrew_elected_uft_president/
• Henry Winkler, I Can't seem to find a website regarding his being an author other than Amazon, but his bio is on http://thirteencelebration.org/blog/bios/michael-sandel/2862/
• 29 books written
• We talk about children but do little because they don't vote.
• Shocked we don't light incense to educators.
• Forced to teach same amount to child that gets it fast or slow.
• He stated that what we do is Herculean. In a time of negative comments on the rise directed towards educators this was uplifting and refreshing.
• If politicians spent the time and energy they spend on Women's Health issues on Education things would be very different in education.
• Slicing and dicing with words can leave a child left with scars that remain forever
• A certificate of appreciation for advocacy in children's literacy was awarded to Mr. Winkler.
• Michael Sandel
• http://justiceharvard.org
• Offering civic education broadly received
• Questioning perspectives and challenging ideas with justice education.
• Substantive discord

Celebration of Teaching and Learning

Celebration of Teaching and Learning

Day One

March 16, 2012

The Celebration of Teaching and Learning (#CTL2012, http://thirteencelebration.org/) took place at the New York Hilton in Manhattan. This two day conference occurred during the weekend of St. Patrick's Day. In a time when teachers and education are being spoken of frequently and many times negatively, it was interesting seeing how many dedicated professionals would give of their time to attend such a conference. As always the sessions were diverse and informative. I will attempt to share my notes from the weekend. There is no way to capture the true nature of the event if you weren't in attendance. But hopefully some of what I learned can be passed on to others.

Here are some of my notes:

First Session Attended:

• Common Core standards put good teaching in our heads uniformally
• Frederick Brown and Victoria Duff presented, http://thirteencelebration.org/blog/bios/panel-becoming-a-learning-school/2899/
• There should be protocols for professional learning
• Team based professional learning was discussed
• School should foster engaged learning tied to assessments
• Sharing expertise throughout the school
• Create a culture that collaborative learning is expected to take place
• Create community to leaders
• Can change behavior before changing thought and beliefs and attitudes
• Not just the leader alone but a leader is key
• Shared values and beliefs
• Innovation configuration map
• Behaviors that lead to success.
• Ideal to unacceptable...continuum
• Continuous improvement
• Collective responsibility
• http://www.learningforward.org/learningBlog/post.cfm/great-teaching-requires-great-leadership

Plenary Session:

http://thirteencelebration.org/blog/bios/opening-plenary/2857/

• Find and focus on “moments of inspiration and creativity”
• 20 countries attended
• John King, Commissioner of Education spoke
• Transformative power of classrooms
• http://engageny.org
• Professional Development video series on the Common Core available
• Write with evidence
• Metlife teacher survey was discussed
• http://metlife.com/teachersurvey to read the study regarding the survey
• Sal Kahn from the Kahn Academy shared his story
• http://www.khanacademy.org/
• The Kahn Academy is a nonprofit making educational videos available at no cost to students
• Engage students when they are ready for it
• But contain the virtual/live human connection
• I wonder if we can pull Kahn Academy videos into our google cloud?
• 5th gr teaching assistants (give students responsibility)
• Analogy shared: 80% foundation ..passed...80% first floor...passed...etc. By the time you reach the 8th floor construction quality will be down and perhaps whole building will fall
• Jim Steyer from Common Sense Media discussed the Common Sense Media Survey
• Schools are deeply uninvested in...We need to change...children should not be at bottom of totem poll just because they don't vote or pay taxes
• Everything is educational good or bad
• Fundamental social and emotional learning
• commonsense media survey
• “App gap”...less than 10% underprivileged download apps at home
• Commonsense digital citizen curriculum available
• http://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/news/press-releases/common-sense-media-launches-national-campaign-help-kids-%E2%80%9Cstand-not-stan
• Jim Steyer read A prayer for students... I think this one may have been it:http://jimkane.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/a-prayer-for-students-hump-day-prayer-for-11911/. It was rather moving talking about the weaker student and the promising student and was inspiring to help us all keep moving forward in our endeavor to educate today's youth and impact tomorrow's future.

Second Session Attended:

Tali Horowitz and Carla Espana presented on behalf of Common Sense Media

• SESSION TITLE: Digital Citizenship for K-12: Connecting Students, Teachers, and Parents
• A sample activity was shared. A digital image of a cheese counter...analogy drawn: favorites, try a new one, get sick from taking in too much... Then the question was posed what is your Digital life like?
• Some one shared their simile...fitness center...tools but chose a few...feel good after using
• 7.5 billon under age children on Facebook
• The book Thinking Fast and Slow was mentioned, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-book-review.html?pagewanted=all
• Spring break is changing. Students don't want it showing up online...behavior changing according to NY Times
• Dana Boyd...youth media use
• digital footprints...create positive digital footprint
• Common Sense Media Toolkit is aligned to NET-S and Common Core Standards
• Rings of responsibility should be discussed with students
• Ponder with students – What do I want my digital footprint in 10yrs to reflect? What do I need do now to reach that goal?
• Rreal student vignettes included in toolkit
• tip sheets are bilingual

Third Session Attended:

• SESSION TITLE: Teacher Leadership is Key!
• Presenters:
  Julie Torres, NBPTS, Dr. Linda Wood, NBPTS, Dr. Eric Wood, NBPTS, Holly Gamble, NBCT, and Kevin Mixon, NBCT
• Video of Julie Torres from Arizona was shown
• Who will be leading?
• walk the walk...go through project yourself
• Teachers need to feel empowered to lead
• Mitchell20 project/film
• Teachers are at bottom of power pyramid
• relationships from teachers to central admin
• Impact policy....conversation to decisions
• Policy for our room
• *personal technology policy*
• shout it from the rooftops...What positive message do you wish your colleagues would hear?
• Stuck in traffic...How do we exit?...change around the standards
• Support to perform
• “It is educational malpractice to have ineffective teachers in the classroom”
• What 3 things will u try this week?...month?
• Stages in education: fantasy...frustration...master...impact teaching

Idea sparked from the conference:

• Embrace commonsense.org in New Rochelle... Former home of Thomas Paine author of Common Sense.    

Saturday - Applying and Adapting

As mentioned before I do enjoy my weekends outside of work. But some weekends work spills into my

weekends and my weekends spill into my work. This was one such weekend. I attended the

Discovery Educator Network Westchester Day of Discovery. Whitney Milhoulides and the DEN Team

put together a wonderful day of professional development for local educators. As if I wasn't

already surrounded by EdTech greatness this week. The keynote on Saturday was Hall Davidson,

http://mediashare.discoveryeducation.com/mediashare/index.cfm?

event=pushFile&guidAssetMediaFileId=c28b65c9%2D1cc4%2D4143%2D6a2a%2Dda8f215215611. 

Mr. Davidson's sense of humor is infectious. I have had the pleasure of meeting him a few times

through my interactions in the DEN. He asked me before he began if I would laugh in all the

right spots and help him out. That request for support is never needed when Mr. Davidson speaks.

Not only is he elloquent but engaging and dynamic. Again, I watched as the sparks of "oh

really?" and "oh, yes, we need to do this" go off in my head. We have the tools. Let's use

them. Unintentional cognition. We can get students to think positively about their own learning.

To begin to feel ownership of their own knowledge. Talk about differentiated learning at its

best.

Session 2 - Ten Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do With Video – and Two You Did - Hall Davidson

http://mediashare.discoveryeducation.com/mediashare/index.cfm?

event=pushFile&guidAssetMediaFileId=a87cef8f%2D1cc4%2D41a8%2D32a5%2Db9acf555e37a 

I love that Hall makes his resources available on the Discovery Education speakers Bureau page.

But the wonderful thing (well one of the wonderful things) about seeing him live is he deviates

from his script and listens to his audience. Each presentation is customized to the needs of the

group. Be it a MAC or PC the playingfield is there to explore. Movie Maker, Jing, Camtasia,

Photobooth, etc. The right tool exists the search is part of the fun. The creation is the

product of the fun experience.

Session 3 - Content Creation with Web 2.0 Tools and Discovery Education -Cindy Lane

Creation seemed to be a theme the last few days. In another informal moment at TLI my neighbor

in the audience and I discussed teaching integrity and responsibility to use web tools properly.

Ms. Lane demonstrated how to use a few such tools. Animoto, Glogster, and Stixy can help our

students create, publish, add meaning to content, and express themselves when available. These

tools have been seen before but it is always good to see new examples of what others have managed

to create. The difference between a pencil and paper (simple tools) and the sketch by Leonardo

of a flying machine is an analogy which can be drawn between the simple tool of these websites

and student and teacher creativity. Wow!

Session 4 - Countdown to Student Engagement: 10 Ways in 10 Minutes - Max Brooks

This summer I was graced to meet Max Brooks just as he was joining the DEN Team. He encourages

collaboration, tells it like it is, and thinks ahead to how it should/could be.

I learned about a feature in Discovery Education Streaming. Did you know there are BCRs? First did you know what BCRs are? I didn't! But now, thanks to Max, I do. BCRs stand for "Brief Constructed Responses". Discovery offers many assets and elements behind your login screen. Apparently there are BCRs all ready for us to implement with students. At school we have been discussing how students need assistance with replying to questions and using evidence from the text. Again, Discovery hold a tool to help our students achieve.

Session 5 - Sharing Discovery Education with Your Students -Max Brooks

During the Discovery Educator Network Summer Institute this July, I learned about the possibility

of having individual student accounts on the network. Teachers will be able to differentiate

learning once this is implemented. I worked this Fall with a teacher to create student accounts

in Discovery Education Streaming. What a wealth of curriculum discovery awaits! Permission

slips need to be approved and signed before this project can move forward. But now after

watching/listening to Max demonstrate the simplicity of the Classroom Management portal inside

Discovery Education, I see how easy it really can be. The teacher I am working with will

definitely be able to handle managing her own class after a little initial support is provided.

Thanks, Max, for preparing me for this next phase in student engagement about to happen at our

school.

Phew did all this really just happen in only 2 days! Technology moves at the speed of light.

Finally NY State is coming on board. They are beginning to work with Discovery Education to

create a customized Tech Book for NY State students. I can't wait. The question remains, are we

ready to grab the comet and share it across the room, down the hall, across down, and around the

globe? As someone on Friday said, "I have drunk the Kool-aid, and it is GOOD!" I hope to continue

drinking the proverbial Kool-aid of various flavors...

Friday - Engage me. Engage them.

The second speaker during the TLI Kickoff was Wes Fryer. Recently, he also was featured during

the Discovery Educator Network Fall Virtual Conference on October 23rd. The audio at our in-

person event wasn't great during his portion of the day's virtual program at our location. It is

great that the session was archived. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMsxkloaWKg) I was excited

to hear him on the DEN Fall Virtual Conference (a disembodied voice on a screen). I was even

more thrilled to find out that I would be able to attend TLI Kickoff and witness him in-person.

Listening to him truly energized me again towards changing the education process. Shifting from

media consumer to media producer. As he stated with today's technology advances is there any

reason that students and teachers are not creating their own ebooks? How amazing technology is!

Not only is he absolutely right, we should be creating with free/inexpensive tools. But we can

save, document, archive, portfolio compile, etc. In fact, he amazingly posted not only his

resources and slides. But also the audio from the day. All available at http://wiki.wesfryer.com/Home/handouts/roadmap.

The more I listened the more engaged I became. The more engaged I became the more I discovered

that I had to bring back to my staff and students. As a member of the assembled audience I am

thinking to myself:

• We have to connect with Mr. Fryer.
• We have so much to learn from him.

Apparently, he had been kindly informed about our school district's FCC grant program that is

launching. I have been involved in some of the research and design of this project. So it was

great when he mentions that he would like to connect with the school district involved with the

grant. It was a pleasure to represent my district and state "I am here from there." I should be

seeking Mr. Fryer out. How wonderful that he was as equally willing to connect with our

district! I definitely plan to help build the bridge between this man, steering a well built

technology integration ship and my director of technology, helping to prepare students for

whatever ship comes their way in the future. Many moments in life during my work day are

memorable ones. Those aha moments when the spark of knowledge acceptance comes across in a

visible way. But I must say, this moment will be remembered as a favorite. To paraphraze it is

a big deal to upload thoughts from our brains to a trusted spot on the web. I was thoroughly

engaged and nodding in agreement of how powerful the cloud is becoming. How distance no longer

separates our learning. Case in point. This respected technology integrator is willing to

collaborate from afar with our district. Digital contact information was shared so that we can

"meet in the cloud." Before meeting in the cloud, we met over a lovely lunch at the Edith Macy

Conference Center. Another gentleman from the audience joined the informal conversation around

the table over our salad and entree. These are the moments I love in Edtech. Twitter, panoramic

software, Evernote, Classroom Blogmeister, Comments for kids and more were touched upon. This

reminds me of some of the greatest take-away moments I have from the Discovery Summer Institute.

I have so many ideas swimming in my head for digital portfolios, digital creation, the need to

share, and more. I love my weekends but Monday through Friday becomes more appealing with an

internal excitement such as this. Mr. Fryer challenged us to share like this. And then share

some more. We are no longer islands in our classroom. Ready to set sail?

Friday - Absorbing and Reassessing

I was granted the opportunity to attend the LHRIC Technology Leadership Institute (TLI) Kickoff.

The featured speakers were Lisa Johnson, Kentucky and Wesley Fryer, Oklahoma.

Lisa Johnson described previous projects that she was involved with at her school district. She

discussed their strengths and their struggles. And explained a desire to chart yet another

course in technology integration with a focus on student centered instruction.

A fascinating web tool was employed. Wiffiti.com (http://wiffiti.com) is described as "Wiffiti

was designed for the "Lean Back" experience of viewing user-generated content from a distance (at

a bar, a public location or a conference) as well as the "Lean Forward" experience online or via

text messaging.

New Wiffiti messages are instantly displayed center screen and are easily viewable from a

distance. Older messages then fade back and move as an animated cloud, providing enough ambient

activity to continually stimulate audience attention and encourage engagement.

Interactivity is multi-modal - it can happen at the location via mobile phones, or online via

easily embeddable website widgets. Incoming content streams and web and mobile messages update

across all instances of the addressed Wiffiti screen automatically."

The audience was challenged to think and reflective on several conversation starters and then

text responses anonymously to the large display screen in the front of the meeting space. A cool

little tool that randomly displays results into focus and sends others to the background. This

facilitates discussion by the group in an unsual way compared to other text your answer sites.

The difference between creation and point and click instructional practices were explored. The

following screen made me wonder though, although teachers and students need these skills should

this be the focus of instruction. Or should we be more content focused? I see the value in "I

can insert, resize, and position graphics". But perhaps the question should really be "How

should I display this to bring digital meaning to the thought behind the image?"

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Ms. Johnson. Her kind heart comes through in her

suggestions for how to help students embrace their learning and create meaning. Listening to her

speak has me looking at our curriculum with a fresh eye. Perhaps there are ways to empower our

students and teachers into finding ownership and becoming "digital content writers".   

Thursday - The Need to Share

Thursday, I had several discussions with staff members in our district about the need to share
knowledge.  Knowledge is said to be power.  We need to make each other more powerful.  We need to
share! Began thinking about new things to bring to my blog.

DENSI Update Day 4

Day 4 of #DENSI started this morning on such high notes (literally). A group of us #DENSI members gathered together to take a walk along the beach this morning. Tally (@TalzBee) and I decided to try geocaching along the way together. At first technology was a hindrance. Apps didn't want to work. Maps weren't precise. But finally it all clicked. A woman walked by us singing a good morning (not sure if it was more to her self or as a greeting to us). Either way it made me smile. Working collaboratively to navigate in the right direction, Tally finally found the microcache under a fence point joint by a beach house along the boardwalk. Still impressed with how quickly she did that. It was a wonderful feeling that surrounded me as I went about my morning after that coup. I had been out twice before unsuccessfully. This was amazing to participate in so early in the morning.

We came back and prepared for the conference to officially begin. Off to hear the opening session.

Steve Hargadon from classroom 2.0 addressed the assembled members of the DEN during the opening session today. He fired up the cloud and helped several discover their worth, find their voice, and renew their passion. I took prolific notes this morning. And yes, I resorted to the old fashioned method of note taking as the technology around me rebelled today. Was Mercury in retrograde or something and I didn't get the memo.

From today's opening session:

We were challenged with “Why is what's happening now different?”

A website was shared http://www.futureofeducation.com/. To me this is a cluttered site with a wealth of information only a click away. Mr. Hargadon quoted John Taylor Gatto in saying the factory model of education and schooling is broken. Perhaps the change that is coming can be precieved as more of a tidal wave approaching. I loved that he joked that Steve Dembo is Hanging 10 and tweeting from the crest of the wave.

Education will be shifting to an exploration and design from the bottom up instead of from the top down. Teacher, parent, and student are going to be given a greater voice in the educational narrative (of today? Of tomorrow?) The value is students are going to need it to participate in the 21^st century skill world. Can they be a part of the conversation?

Structured reform: reform narrative testing and tasking

Freedom reform: freedom of flexibility engagement and individualize. We as educators are the new superheroes. But over-tiredness is this superhero's kryptonite. I took several photos during the session. I hope to turn them into a meaningful product here to share out. But that will have to wait for tomorrow as there was more to the day to be shared out. Yes, Mr. Hargadon inspired me to renew my desire to share information via my blog. I have renewed purpose and have reclaimed my voice. I hope you will utilize your voice and leave comments on my blog posts.

Session 1 – Jennifer Wagner

In recent days I have had several conversations with a distinguished woman named Jennifer Wagner, @JenWagner. I had the privilege of attending her session today entitled Show Off Your Stuff, http://jlwagner.pbworks.com/w/page/41474329/SIDEN A perfect segway from Mr. Hargadon inspiring us to find our voice. Jennifer offered simple solutions for how to share our voices (or that of our students) in a nonthreatening approach.

Suggestion 1:

You can take pictures of student drawings and upload into Flickr. Simple yet effective. This can then be shared home or abroad.

Suggestion 2:

Wordle based on data collected from a Google Form. As our district begins to slowly implement Google Apps for Education, I found this concept very encouraging. During larger collaborative projects the data collected can become unmanageable and rather ugly to focus upon. But turning it into a graphical representation makes it much more informational at a glance.

[insert pause here... I have found my voice. But I need to find my bed for tonight] My notes are in my Google Docs and I promise to share out the rest soon.