cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I’m back almost a week from an incredible and intense and fantastic three week trip to Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong — all pretty much enabled by network connections among nice people.

So much happened I had to make a spreadsheet to help me organize the sessions I did at least 30 workshops, presentations, consultations, and class visits. Beyond the snafus of US Failways on the trip over, catching and somehow warding off the Cog Dog Cough Wog in week 1, keeping tabs on my ds106 class– the blogging fell off the table.

I’m not sure I am ready to be the Roving Presentation Dude. I’m worn flat.

A number of sessions were re-purposed, but never carbon copies, and most of them evolved along the way- many variations of Web Storytelling sessions from 20 minutes to 3 hour workshops, morphing into one on Elements of Storytelling (what works), the tools stuff (50 Ways, Five Card Flickr Stories, pechaflickr, ds106); another one where the code name was “The Web is a Groovy Place” with flavors to include the True Stories of Openness or the value of Sharing in a Networked Environment; a new one on visual metaphors and strategies for finding photos, and a string of brand new workshops / class activities.

For a fresh change of environment, I did more stuff with k-12 on this trip than usual, everything from doing a storytelling activity with 2nd graders to a 6th grade math activity to discussing internet culture with 10th graders, not to mention the interaction with the 130+ international students and teachers who were part of the Flat Classroom Conference.


cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

So to start the recap, in three parts, or three countries, in three weeks – Week 1: Yokohama, Japan. The first two days were activities organized by the amazing Kim Cofino at Yokohama International School. I will start a regular disclaimer that I am almost certain to leave out the many key people I met. Can I cover you with one big, thanks to all ‘y’all?

Here we go. Week 1. I might tax Hippie Hosting’s disk drive with just this post (just kidding, Tim!)

My first thing at YIS was an invited “Passions Talk” for 5th grade students, a chance to share something I am passionate about and for them to ask questions. I decided to talk photography, and one of the teachers asked if I could show some photos. So I went to my flickr stream and just started scrolling through the ones that would have been taken in Arizona the day I left. The kids kept asking questions about the ones around where I live, and I lost track of how many screens worth I went back. The one that got the most curiosity was of course one of a Javelina.

Next was a session for two sections of grade 10 English students– a new piece I called Upping Your Image Quotient on finding images for blogging or projects, talking up creative commons, and how these searches (with tools like compfight) often require an indirect approach– it’s a somewhat iterative process where you need to think of action words, or ones that suggest rather than define. The students then went to work trying their hand using a recent project where they researched an “unusual” word (e.g. defenestration). They did really well at this, even the young man who had what should be a simple word “defecate” he went beyond the literal.

Then was maybe the most way out challenge I have had in a while, I was asked to devise a story telling activity for 2nd graders. It dawned on me when I got to the classroom that the last time I did anything with grade 2– I was one of them! What would I do? I riffed off of a classic ds106 assignment that other educators have already shown works well with elementary school students- the four icon challenge.

Modified of course – I called it Telling a Story in 4 Pictures and 4 Sounds

The title slide is an example, I hope you see.

I was wisely cautioned by Kim to make the pace move, and give the kids things to do every few minutes. They got the idea and images I used for metaphor, and then participated as I retold the 50+ Ways Dominoe Story with photos. They helped me break it down into 4 icons.

Then, as an experiment, I asked them to make a sound for each step.

And thats when the decibal level and amount fo energy blew the roof off.

Ask 2nd grade kids to make noise? No problem. I cannot see getting a group of adults to do more than glance around uncomfortably.

They then went into groups and worked on making a 4 icon drawing of the classic fairy tales they were studying, and then devising sounds. This went a bit off as they ended up wanting to do little mini performances, and not every group got to perform. Having them focus on the icons would have been better as their work could have been displayed.

But it really seemed to work well.

After school was a session for all teachers. Think about trying to do something to energize teachers after a full day of teaching. Actually at YIS this is not much of a problem, these are some stellar classroom teachers.

I started with something active I did in many sessions, a round of improv with pechaflickr

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

One of the volunteers, David, picked the tag word to be “mushroom”. Whether this thing has any potential value beyond being fun is open to question, but having done it 5 or 6 times on this trip, the things I notice are a dramatic change of energy in the room. And I am no brain scientist, but I would guess if we could do some scans, we would see a big boost of neural activity in participants. In having to be spontaneous and talk through a photo one has not seen before, there seems to be a lot of energy being revved up in being aware of the audience, thinking about the photo, trying to connect it to what was said by others before, trying to think where to steer the talk going forward. It’s a hunch right now.

The rest of the time was… well, I went a bit overboard with the “cool web site” firehose. The idea I wanted was to give an appreciation for the near infinite feel of the web, a feeling similar to how one feels overwhelmed and small while standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. That feeling is one way beyond seeing it in photos (and honestly a shtick I have used since a talk in 2007 at UMW’s Faculty Academy).

But a new frame, and the title, comes from a passage and story I got from reading Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From how a victorian era book, the best technology at the time for organizing a hyperlinked world of information, influenced a young boy as a sense of magic that was a portal to the information world.

It is worth noting that while you can buy this book on Amazon, the entire text is available for free from Project Gutenberg. The thing is, this boy grew up to be a computer scientist working in a Swiss research lab, so influenced by this book, that his first effort at a hypertext information system was called “Enquire”.

His second iteration was called “The World Wide Web”. It’s been rewarding to reflect back now on Tim Berner-Lee’s original vision for the web:

The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyse it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together.

(emphasis added) We think first of the web as the technical thing, the links, HTML, the hypertext protocol, but the reader of Enquire Within Upon Everything had a larger vision, which i suggest are true or near true (not for everyone but many of us) as a mirror of the ways we work, play, and socialize– and that the thing we ought to be using as a goal is using this so “we can better work together”.

Anyhow, I really like this frame to set up what comes next, where I aim to give a sampling of the wondera of the web– a seed for this idea was when I recently came across the world’s largest panoramic image (of London).

I then went a bit overboard and sprayed the audience with a wide range of what I hoped were “wow” sites- not to be a resource, but to emphasize the near limitless potential of what the [open] web offers. After feedback from this first time through, I cut it back to 5 examples which typified a “group” of sites- virtual places, seeing data, helping others, etc. The more recent version of the slides is this shorter one.

That was just the first day in Japan. In the evening I was delighted to get my suitcase delivered to my hotel room, the one US Failways decided I did not really want to take with me (oh yes, I ams till mad at them).

On Tuesday I returned to the 5th graders, and we did a session on Five Card Flickr Stories – a thing I have done for adults, university level students, and at least 8th graders – but how would 5th grade students do with creating stories out of random photos?

Better than any audience I have every had before. Hands down.

I start with having a group do a story together, and talk out loud about their reasons for choosing a photo to use, and then voting for the one the group wants to use. We could nto start better for the story that would emerge as Weird Dream.

From the first shuffle, a young lady’s hand went up so fast I think it broke the speed of light, because she wanted to use this bleak photo (actually it is a video!) – she said something like, “I want that grey photo because it is mysterious and sets a mood for something bad that might happen.”

And for the next 15 minutes almost every student wanted to suggest why one photo was better to choose for the story we made. This was enthusiasm on jet fuel. But that was not the best part.

I then set them loose to do their own stories, some students decided to work alone, others in groups of three, huddled together with their MacBook Airs (YIS is a 1:1 school). The thing was, I did not really need to give them instructions, most of them located the web site on their own (via search), and started right in. All I had to do was watch and be amazed.

They went on to create 38 different stories. One student showed me a bug in my site (he showed how if he held a click on a photo or clicked it rapidly, it would be added multiple times to a story). I saved the gallery of stories this group of 5th graders created:

1. superboy a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 11:39:28 pm EST by iam1man
2. That Darn Snake a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:16:26 pm EST by Kiyoka and Kianna YIS 5G
3. Traveling monkeys a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:15:59 pm EST by Lente and Amelia @ YIS
4. The poor newborn baby tigers a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:11:49 pm EST by Hana.E
5. Hungry a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:11:20 pm EST by Yu Jin
6. The Lobster a The Idea Hive story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:09:31 pm EST by Kelly, Julynn and Elena
7. scary baby a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:06:44 pm EST by iam#1skill/ Andy
8. The Dangerous Worm a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:05:13 pm EST by Kai & David Grade 5
9. dog a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:03:56 pm EST by iam1man
10. Dog to Lizard a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:03:39 pm EST by Niyo
11. The package a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:02:49 pm EST by Charlie & Julian
12. Consumed a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:02:49 pm EST by Everest
13. The Best Birthday ever a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:02:45 pm EST by Ceci B
14. Life!!! a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:02:26 pm EST by Ryu
15. The wired cat a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:02:05 pm EST by 5B YIS Hana and Won-kyung
16. The invader a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:01:41 pm EST by Kenyro and Rei
17. Magic Candy a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:01:37 pm EST by Grace and Meg
18. Gioza Boy a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:01:13 pm EST by London Tipton/crazykitty262
19. The horror of the rubber duck a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:01:00 pm EST by ReiSha
20. The Sad Marriage a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:00:52 pm EST by Cool dude
21. I Will Never Forget Him a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:00:22 pm EST by Athul and Oscar
22. traveling the world a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:00:15 pm EST by Brazil
23. Robot life a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 08:00:05 pm EST by Willypen
24. The weird day. a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:59:51 pm EST by iam1#skilled/ Andy
25. illegal cruise a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:59:47 pm EST by George
26. The Killer a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:59:16 pm EST by P.A
27. Skull a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:59:06 pm EST by Izzy
28. The Awkward Day a The Idea Hive story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:58:25 pm EST by Kelly,Julynn,Elena
29. wierd a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:58:00 pm EST by awesome dude
30. stop bulling a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:57:57 pm EST by ares5g
31. the tunnel a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:57:31 pm EST by iam1man
32. Strange Lunch a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:57:25 pm EST by David & Kai YIS Grade 5
33. In the Sea a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:57:22 pm EST by Kristen
34. I Will Never Forget Him a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:56:57 pm EST by Athul and Oscar
35. The Frogs a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:56:42 pm EST by Ceci B
36. M&M\’s Story a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:56:22 pm EST by Niyo
37. jungle factory a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:55:55 pm EST by willypen
38. The Mysterious walk in the forest a Five Card Flickr story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:55:53 pm EST by Charlie
39. Weird Dream a The Idea Hive story created on Mar 04 2013, 07:47:19 pm EST by Grade 5 YIS

Woah.

Woah.

I went on to the session I was most worried about, a lesson for a 6th grade math class. This was set up in a “labsite” format- something I did several times at YIS. I met with the math teachers 30 minutes before the class to discuss my activity idea and get feedback on it. Then I had a class session from 50 minutes, followed by a debrief with the teachers.

When we first started planning this session before I left Arizona, I was asked to do something related to their current unit of statistic. Yikes, I scrambled to study up, got ideas via twitter from Darren Kuropatwa, but once Kim and started brainstorming via Skype, she assured me I would nto ave to teach statistics, that I could do something on using visuals to tells a story about data.

I literally came up with the idea the night before (based on a fantastic suggestion by Lynda Leatham), that I called Telling Stories with Pictures and Data. I started with the idea I use in talking about storytelling that commercial movies work because they have a formula to entertain, but not really communicate anything important, and contrast it to the Orange experiment video that I suggest uses cinematic style to present the results of a science experiment.

The topic we want to investigate is what does stories do the data about world economic data and average food consumption tell us? I show two kinds of infographics and discuss some of the limitations and questions one needs to ask of them. I then show them Gapminder, where one can manipulate 6 variables of world ata on a single graph. We can set the axes to be caloric intake per capita versus GDP per capita. I ask the students to choose 5 countries from different regions and try to explain or ask questions about the patterns the data makes as one scrubs through time. I tell them all to use Japan which has a rather interesting pattern of showing an increase in both GDP and caloric consumption until around 200, when the average consumption decreases.

We try yo conjecture why this might be. Now 6th graders of course do not have the knowledge of history and economics and social demographics to answer (I am not even sure I do), but the thing I am trying to get them to do is to question the patterns they see, and identify when they differ. So for Japan, one kid suggested there was a war.

No there were no wars in Japan in 2000!

Another said maybe it was bad year for crops. Possibly, but it would not seem to be a trend that would continue. My question to consider is- maybe as a country Japan started to eat in a more healthy pattern (reducing their consumption), a pattern you never see in the data for the US.

We let them experiment, and the lead math teacher created an assignment for them to find countries with different patterns and to create a multimedia report on what they learned and what story might be considered to explain.

These students really took on the experimentation of Gapminder.

The last thing on the day was an after school workshop on 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story that evolved more into an open and interesting discussion of these web tools and how students might use some of them.

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

That was only 2 days of this week in Japan. I am going to have to pick up this post in another segment to summarize the Flat Classroom Conference. Whew!

Scottsdale Community College hosted SCC TechTalks 2013, a series of live, 18-minute presentations on how technology has impacted teaching and learning on February 1, 2013. The event followed a similar format to the widely popular TEDTalks and was put on by SCC’s Instructional Strategic Technology Advisory Committee (ISTAC).I was honored to be invited to be one the speakers of this inaugural event and had a great time participating.

Event description: “The thought-provoking talks feature presenters from a variety of professional backgrounds covering an array of subjects — from theater and music to math and science. Presenters include faculty members, tech gurus and students.”

Below is a playlist of all the talks featuring Maricopa’s past and present technology leaders. So go grab some popcorn, get comfy and enjoy the show.

I see a lot of online courses where the instructors have created lots of PowerPoint presentations that I’m sure they used successfully in their face to face classes, but those presentations in an online class are missing the most important element – the instructor. Stand alone PowerPoint presentations are just not as effective as a presentation done with slides, so instructors need to transform those slides into a nice presentation with voice included. We have to add the instruction back into the class.

There a many different ways to record your PowerPoint presentations. The most obvious is to use the built in tools in PowerPoint. But I’ve found that method to be overly complicated. The easy is to just record your presentation using a tool like Jing, but if your presentation is longer than 5 minutes or you need to edit the video, you’re out of luck. So unless you buy and use Camtasia Studio, Jing’s big sister, then you’re out of luck. But for this post, let’s go for a free web tool to help us.

Knovio is the tool of choice for this post. Of course it’s in beta. It’s a web 2.0 tool and it’s free.

Knovio™ is an innovative tool for turning PowerPoint® slides into rich video presentations with just a web browser and webcam. With Knovio, you can take static PowerPoint slides to a new level with video and audio presentations that can be accessed anytime on-demand and shared with others through email and social media.

The way it works is you upload your existing PPT slides to Knovio. Then you record video of you talking over your slides. As you record, you can advance through your slides. Knovio will record not just the video of you talking, but it will also record your timing for advancing slides. Once you’re finished recording, the video is pretty much ready to go. The whole process is quick and simple and in minutes you will be creating and sharing personalized video presentations with students.

You have the option to share the video presentation with a link or you can embed the whole presentation into your LMS. I tried it in Canvas and it worked fine. That’s the method I would recommend. You can view an example on the Knovio website.

On Thursday I did a face to face workshop in the CTLE at GCC on audio tools. This was a short 50 minute presentation with about 10 people in attendance. All the content is posted on my wiki, but I posted the main page below. Links should take you back to my wiki where you can learn all kinds of great stuff about teaching with technology.

Workshop Wiki: http://drcoop.pbworks.com/EnhanceAudio

Itinerary

• Introduction - What is Podcasting? (5 min)
• Examples of Courses Enhanced with Audio (20 min)
  • Voicemail box for Students - Use Google Voice
  • Audio Discussion- Use VoiceThread  or embed VT on Canvas
  • Audio Announcements in a Canvas Course - Use Built in Audio Player or SoundCloud with Audio recorded using Audacity
  • Audio Discussion Boards and Class Introductions with Built in Audio Recorder or AudioPal.
  • Audio Announcements in Blackboard - Use Wimba Podcaster
  • Module Introductions – Mp3 files embedded in Blackboard or Canvas
• Demonstration of a few Tools (20 min)

 Google Voice

• Use a Google Voice number with your students and you won’t have to worry about students having your phone number. They can call and text you during the times you want to permit that, and when you don’t, you have all the calls go straight to voicemail where you can read or listen to them later.
• Google keeps a record of every call and text conversation you have with your students, and you can even record calls that you feel need to be recorded.

Tips to Help you Manage Your Teaching Environment Using Google Voice

• One number: a single phone number that rings all your phones
• Free SMS: send, receive & store text messages online
• Block calls: send unwanted callers straight to voicemail
• Record calls: record phone calls and store them online
• Conference calls: join several people into a single call
• Screen callers: hear who is calling before you pick up
• Watch videos of these features in action »

Audio Podcasting Tools

• VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam).
• AudioPal is an online service to allow individuals an easy and effective way to add audio to their online message. Easily record and embed the audio just about anywhere on the web.
• ipadio allows you to broadcast from any phone to the Internet live.  Phone blog, collect audio data, record and update the world, or simply let your mates know what you’re doing – ipadio is integrated with Social Media & Blogging platforms.
• AudioBoo is a mobile & web platform that effortlessly allows you to record and upload audio for your students or the rest of the world to hear.
• SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform that allows collaboration, promotion and distribution of audio recordings.
• Canvas Podcasts facilitate learning-on-the-go and can be used to disseminate language lessons, recorded lectures, and video and audio supplemental course material. Podcast episodes can be posted by both instructors and students, and threaded commenting allows participants to discuss the works within the same podcast site.

Intro to Audioboo from Mark Rock on Vimeo.

Tips to Help you Manage Your Teaching Environment Using Audio Podcasting Tools

• Mobile posting from your cell phone or iPod Touch
• Quick updates for students or reminders for you
• Quick check-ins for students – Gabcast

Let’s Practice 

On Friday GCC hosted the eLearning Community of Practice (eLCoP) in Maricopa. Our topic was Micro-Lectures with video and audio tools, and we had a nice lineup of GCC faculty sharing how they use micro-lectures in their classes:  Chris Nielson, Amanda Murphy, JoAnn Pell and myself. We had a great turn out with people from Gateway, GCC, PC and SMCC in attendance – 28 people in all.

The eLCoP is composed of faculty and staff dedicated to the research, discussion and dissemination of best practices for eLearning at Maricopa. eLearning includes courses taught hybrid and online, those using a college Learning Management System and learning that occurs via alternative delivery methods.  eLCoP is open to all faculty and staff who are interested in positively impacting student learning outcomes through the creation and adoption of eLearning best practices.

In our presentation we shared how we use lecture capture, screencasting, video and audio tools to create short meaningful lectures for our online and hybrid courses. This topic is also relevant to faculty teaching face-to-face who may be interested in the concept of the Flipped Classroom. Below is our timeline with all the videos and links for tools that we shared with you. If you have any questions, add them in the comments below or email any of the other presenters.

Timeline

2:00-2:10pm Introductions
2:10-2:20pm What are Micro-Lectures

• Microlecture on Microlectures: http://youtu.be/Om2qoes19PA

2:20-2:30pm Discussion
2:30-2:50pm Chris & Amanda talk about Tegrity (http://www.tegrity.com/) & Xtranormal ( http://www.xtranormal.com/)

• Amanda and Chris both teach hybrid classes and use the micro-lectures in their courses. Tegrity is not free, but contact your McGraw-Hill book rep to find out pricing. It can usually be packaged with a current text if you are using a MH text. Xtranormal is free to start and as you want to use more features you can upgrade for a nominal fee.
• Xtranormal video: “Databases vs Google”: http://youtu.be/URk_lOLOpDI
• Xranormal video: “Misconceptions about Teaching Hybrid Courses”: Coming
• Tegrity Lesson: “Parenthetical Notation” – Sound is a little annoying, but play around with the buttons on bottom to see how Tegrity works.

2:50-3:05pm JoAnn talks about using SnagIt, Jing and Camtasia. All can be found at: http://www.techsmith.com/

• Example using Jing to illustrate SnagIt: http://youtu.be/cFWQMu5y8Ig
• Example of website navigation for an assignment using SnagIt: http://youtu.be/g2mQA5P46qc
• Example of content delivery using SnagiIt to capture a short Powerpoint Presentation: http://youtu.be/auwUguk2JBc

3:05-3:20pm Alisa talks about using Soundcloud http://soundcloud.com and AudioBoo (http://audioboo.com) to record quick audio only microlectures on the fly using a mobile device.  I also talked about the benefits of YouTube and setting up a YouTube channel.

• Coop’s Tube – YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/soul4real
• Video about Audioboo: http://vimeo.com/10094628
• My Soundcloud channel: http://soundcloud.com/freshmancomp Also read about how I use Soundcloud here.

3:20-3:30pm Open discussion

Additional Resources:

•  7 Things You Should Know about Microlectures - Educause ELI
• Microlectures and Other Snippets - Cornell University

These are my slides from a recent presentation I didn’t in the CTLE on Blogging in the Classroom. I may have a link to a video soon, but for now, slides with embedded YouTube video on slide 4 courtesy of SlideShare.net.

Many community colleges have experienced a growth in students over the past few years, and with a limited number of classrooms available, many colleges are trying to find a way to accommodate the needs of all of these new students. We’ve managed to meet this need by offering more online and hybrid freshman composition courses. Online courses obviously are not for everyone, but what about blended learning? This presentation will demonstrate how I created and now teach blended composition courses that meet the needs of all types of students (dev-ed to honors) by incorporated good course design, gaming, challenged based learning, self directed learning and multimedia elements. I will discuss basic design steps for developing a blended course, as well as discuss the pedagogy and tools necessary to make it a success.

Tools discussed: Canvas, Connect Composition, Google+, GoSoapBox, Tegrity, YouTube, Piazza, SoundCloud, Camtasia Studio and SnagIt (Jing).

Topics Discussed:

• Course Design
• Gaming
• CBL
• Self Directed Learning
• Multimedia

Presentation Slides:  TYCAWestBlendedCoursesRock.pdf

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

It was an honor, privilege, and a hoot to be invited to come to Melbourne to do a 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story presentation for the PLP Network project here.

This all came about because in October, during my road trip, I paid a visit to the home of Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach in Virginia Beach (get it, beach? beach?). We have known each other for a long time online but had never met in carbon form. Over dinner, she told me that her colleague, Will Richardson (whom I did not get to meet on the loop) was unable to attend the culminating meeting for their project in Australia, and would I be interested in going in his place to do a keynote?

I think I said yes before her question ended.

Thanks Will, we had way too much fun talking about my qualifications being a pony tail. Thanks for also sending me the audio clip I used to introduce you as one my my online avatars:

Will Richardson intro

So that was my meal ticket to make the big crossing, but you have to bring your best stuff, and I hope I did. I mixed up my usual presentation with some new elements.

All of the presentation stuff, including slides and links are at http://50ways.wikispaces.com/plpconnectu. I had thought about doing a live broadcast to ds106 radio, but port 8010 seemed to be blocked, so I recorded my own audio.

Audio archive of presentation (71.7 Mb / 1:14:40)

I had my Keynote autotweeting in active mode, to share links, and draw people in from the outside when the activities started.

The reason this was special is because the very first 50 Ways workshop was done in Australia, back in October 2007 on my 2 week whistle stop tour of every capital city for the Flexible Learning Framework.

So I started with the Amazing FLower story that happened there, for no other reason than is pretty amazing.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I also used a more recent story that came out of a presentation I did for Alec Couros’s ECI831 class, one that Kevin Stranack shared about a bit of family discovery that started with one out of the blue email.

Before going into the 50 Ways bit, I set up a few activities based on the ARG activity Sheryl and her team had set up for the participants here- it was a story about the PLP penguin, Periwinkle who had somehow gotten him/herself tied up in a boxing match with a tough kangaroo named Joey.

The think is we know about this as an event, but I wanted the groups to do some work on how these characters developed their personalities, do some creative activities to develop their personas. I went back to an activity I learned of in the late 1990s, when I worked on a project at maricopa with a colleague Liz Warren, who teaches at South Mountain Community College.

We took an activity she had already developed to foster creative writing, built around the ideas of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, and made into a web tool for that and more. Stunningly, it still sits on the web server at Maricopa, though it is not fully functionally — see http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/journey.

This really happened because by another sheer accident of timing, the night after I returned home from my 5 month road trip, Liz was doing a live storytelling event in Pine, AZ, and I went to see Tellebration again and to say hello.

Anyhow, before the writing prompt questions for the 17 steps of the Hero’s Journey, Liz developed a series of questions designed to help outline the main character’s traits; and I used these same ones for my group.

I split the room in tow, and had half the room work on the questions about Joey’s character and half do the same questions about Peri (created in open Google docs) — they took to it with more activity and energy than I could have dreamed of!

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

I had to pull them out of the google docs while they were still writing and laughing.

To use thids material and introduce them to another tool, I asked for a volunteer to come up on stage and lead the choices of photo for a 5 card flickr story (I had gotten people to tag about 300 photos with the project tag plpconnectu).

Lois was a great sport (see her story) — I set the group out to do their own, and again, they really ran with this activity.

We still had a lot of ground to cover.

I wanted to extend the story development process, again leaning on Liz Warren’s Hero’s Journey approach. I made the groups switch, the people who had worked on Joey’s character, now had to review the traits about Peri, and enter the responses to the Call to Adventure stage for Peri — and likewise, the other group do the same for Joey’s Call to Adventure

Again- well I had to work hard to get their attention back. I then got two more volunteers to come up on stage and do a pechaflickr round of improv /a> with those plpconnecu tagged photos.

Both Trish and … (ugh was it Rob) both did pechaflickr the way I envisioned it; not be being 100% literal, but also by keeping their banter moving between slides.

I had to rev the session into 9th gear, running through the media search and the examples. We clearly did not have time for them to do the story creation with the 50+ tools, but I had but one more new trick in my bag.

I told them that I have been asked to develop a thing that would help pick the right tool for people, and I had that ready- it was devised to take biometric input and learning analytics to provide a predictive tool selection- all they needed to do was click “pick” on the 50 Ways Tool Picker

And that was the whole show.

I have to say this was one of the most high powered groups I’ve gotten to present 50 ways to– and I have had some great groups. It changes the whole atmosphere when you have people who are on the edges of their seat and willing to jump in and play.

And with that, my work here in Australia is done, and its 2 weeks of play time.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

Time to go play!

Karen Cator Direction, Office of Education Technology US Dept of Ed on Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Tech #mec2011

Cator was introduced by John Huppenthal, Arizona Superintendent of Public Schools. National Education Technology Plan introduced in fall through Drupal, and they said it was a “draft” because this is a working document that is alive. Not some proposal printed, stuck on a shelf and forgotten.

“Now is the Time!” Obama, Huppenthal, and Cator are speaking the language of tech in education. Teachers have been doing this for years, she said; it’s time to make hit work. Obama: “By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduate in the world”. Now the question actor asks is “how do we become a learning nation”. Obama said we need to “…out innovate, our educate, out build…” by learning from other nations and jumping ahead. 82% of schools are in improvement currently, and that can’t work.

CC image posted on Flickr by ALan Levine.

We need to reboot our education system … this is a “matter of national security”. One year ago there was no market for tablet computers. What we’ve seen this year is a proliferation of mobile computing that includes 24/7 access. 50-70 million tablets will be sold this year globally. Mobile productivity means we move beyond eight hours inside four classroom walls. Learning in the 21st century is about learning how to handle “Social Interactions for Learning”. There’s so much digital content out that that we can all learn from including PBS chunking their videos, universities adding free online free courses. Stop blocking student access to these things. We do need to learn how to “safe search” in schools, but don’t just arbitrarily block everything. We have paper classrooms and online classrooms but how do we blend the two? Print has become digital.

Digital books can take us deeper into concepts, teach us about the writers, take us to other books and ideas by others. Much more than just the print book of yesteryear. When disability act required ramps and sidewalks, it did not just help wheel-chaired people, but also strollers, bikes, etc… Digital print is like this as we move to a digital learning environment.

NETP has three parts. Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. This is the infrastructure, and now we need to move towards productivity. Next up is R&D. What is the importance of learning and what do we need? How do real world people think and learn? “We’re training for 2020 Olympics, but we don’t know the sport yet.” We need 21st century expertise. How do students learn to think globally? In what ways do students now approach learning? NETP is grounded in how people learn and the importance of affect, language, prior experience, etc… We need to personalize learning, and with tech this is absolutely possible. There should be a universal design for learning, and multiple avenues for learning are being created so students can access learning in various ways. Finally, in the learning space learning has to be connected as informal and formal; we can’t keep kids in schools for 12 hours. Learning moves beyond the classroom walls. Students have so many opportunities: robotics, music classes, sports, etc… So much of their learning is outside of schools.

Assessment is still key. How do we make sure student performance is measured? We need to measure what matters. Assessment 2.0 goes beyond the bubble test and gives us an understanding about growth. The opportunity to embed assessment inside games, scaffolded spaces, etc… gives measurement on the fly. Which sorts of assessments work for which kids, in which circumstances, etc… By examining this, we have real time feedback. Real time feedback is better than the refrigerator door model. Online student publishing is so important today, and no longer does it really matter when teachers hang student work on their classroom walls … it’s more important to have that work published online where it is more permanent than the end of the quarter when the classroom is cleaned.

Teachers need to be highly “effective” and highly connected. Teachers need to be connected to the experts, colleges of ed, and their peers. Engage teachers in new ways of thinking about learning and how we can use ubiquitous technology. Teachers should have a laser focus on the idea of time as an issue; we live in a print based environment, but as we moved to digital, students can move on to the next piece of learning instead of waiting for the teacher. Once we put the tools in the hands of the students, teachers will have more time to be more engaged with more of our students. Differentiated roles of teachers is important. Online scaffolded education is so important as we have so many experts but so little physical time, let’s move this all online. So much teaching is outside of the school walls. And what can we do to help teachers be more successful in helping students learn. We need to inspire both our colleagues and our students. Teaching never ends when the final bells role.

Cator said teachers need to have a persistent online profile, just like a Facebook profile. The profile should include what we’re interested in, what we ourselves want to learn, what we’ve published, etc… We can’t shy away from online profiles. When this is public student can seek us out to learn from us. When we hide this information away, we reach less students.

Cator said our goal is “All students and educators will have access to a comprehensive infrastructure for learning when and where they need it.” What the Department of Education wants for our education system is: 24/7 Community wide to technology (some school districts like Vail in Tucson give them hardware), Broadband in schools, Access Points for the Internet, and support for technology (having access to people who know how to troubleshoot the hardware and software), and we need equity in technology. Data.ed.gov is launching broadband availability for US Schools. NITA and the FCC is working on this right now with the department of education. This is the National Broadband Map, and Dept of Ed wants transparency on where broadband is so we can all work on building up access so ALL students have connectivity EVERYWHERE they need it WHENEVER they need it.

How do we make sure we’re building efficiency and effectiveness in student productivity? We have had decades of print education, and we need to have new ways of redesigning processes to better deal with helping learning be more productive. Cator’s talking about Kahn Academy about learning math online; videos online is cool but now practice sets have been added, so students can practice, find out if they’re right or wrong, and then students can measure their own learning. How can teachers use this for learning?

Research and development. What needs to be invented next for all of this to work? Nobody is being funded to take these ideas to market even when we have prototypes available. There’s a gap between R&D and getting tech into the hands of our students. This is being worked on now.

CC image posted on Flickr by Devon Christopher Adams
Slide with Department of Ed’s National Technology Educational Plan outlined. At Microcomputers in Education conference at Arizona State U.

How will the Department of Education help support schools, a teacher asked Cantor? Her response: NETP is a good start if you make that required for teachers, admins, district officials and school boards. There are a ton of examples that you can put into practice right now in schools.

To conclude, NETP is improving access, creating transparency (telling thew stories of what is working in tech ed now and the classrooms, focus on people (support our communities and support system), and we need to invest in rapid improvement in technology for our students and classrooms. This is where the department of education is now, and these are the discussions that need to be going on in our schools and districts RIGHT NOW.

Bryan Alexander began his keynote with The Complete History of the Soviet Union, Arranged to the Melody of Tetris to show how gaming works to teach. Remixed archival footage, video footage, etc… that anyone can grab and build. The multimedia synthesis is becoming the norm.

Trend extrapolation is one key of futurism that includes assumptive quantitative arcs, allows us to examine trends. Broadband increases and 5 exabytes in 2002 to 11,240 transferring online in 2011.

He’s discussing Chromium the new Google Laptop, which doesn’t have a hard drive.