New Technologies that Are Changing Education

Tech Forum Orlando, April 13

 

TENTATIVE AGENDA

 

Ok, everybody, having read through your suggestions and ideas, here's what I propose. I'm thinking of dividing the time up as follows:

 

1. [15-20 minutes]  TOOLS FOR “PUBLISHING” AND CONVEYING INFO (including blogs, Flickr, Photobucket, Podcasting, GarageBand /Acid/Online Mixing/Jam Glue)

 

David Warlick starts with 8-10 minutes on:  Getting Real with the new technologies.  Blogging, podcasting, video podcasting, and mashups are all very cool, but it is essential that we understand that these new opportunities are not just about integrating technology!

 

Ginger takes 3-4 minutes to add the following example: one of my English teacher's blogs  http://www.siegmund-siegmund.blogspot.com/

 

Dan takes 3-4 minutes to add one example: PodCast Drama - Content in Context, Students with a teaching mission - (Dr. Negative and Mrs. Positive)

 

 

 

2. [15-20 minutes]  TOOLS FOR COLLABORATION -- on part of students and educators (including wiki's, google docs, collaborative podcasts, etc)

 

Dan opens with 8-10 minutes on: Google Docs and Spreadsheets - Collaborative Inquiry,  Distributed Podcasting - Where in the World?

 

David takes 3-4 minutes to add one example: Examples from New Brunswick, Canada or Vicki Davis' Flat World project.

 

Ginger takes 3-4 minutes to add one example ; podcasting for ESOL(link to come)

 

 

 

3. [15-20 minutes]  GAMES AND OTHER LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

(including SecondLife, Blended/online learning? Simulations? Digital texts?)

 

Ginger opens with 8-10 minutes on: Online Gaming as athe natural progression of Board Games (Civilization, The Gathering Storm) into immersive environments like Second  Life (teaching Economics) which would be better off because of time if someone else would take it  and Digital Texts(www.liveink.com)our internal digital text link(http://ccspub.objectwareinc.com/do/teacherClassNavView?id=28424)

 

Dan takes 3-4 minutes to add one example: Google Earth as a historical simulation environment:  Lewis and Clark

 

David takes 3-4 minutes to add one example: Chaos Story, and urging audience to pay attention.

 

 

4. [10-15 minutes]  LAST WORD – what will be HOT tomorrow – what are you most excited about that’s brand new, or not well known yet (or not yet having an impact on schools)  [3-5 minutes each]

 

David: Quantum computing, E-Ink, and rediscovering the art of teaching.

 

Ginger: Open Source 

 

Dan: Learning Management Systems  - Mass Customization

 

 

NOTES FROM JUDY: As you'll see, for each topic I've picked a lead-off speaker (please let me know if I picked wrong and you want to swap topics), who will take 8-10 minutes to offer several different tools/examples. Then the other two can each offer an additional brief example.

 

Not all the suggestions (for example, small form factor devices used for things other than podcasting) fit neatly into the first three categories but there's nothing stopping you from including whatever got left out when you have your LAST WORD. 

 

 

INTROS

David, Ginger and Dan, would you care to introduce yourselves to one another with a bit about your interest/background in emerging technologies?

 

David Warlick:

I have been in the field of education for 30+ years, starting as a middle school social studies teacher.  I am currently working as a consultant, writer, blogger, podcaster, programmer and public speaker -- doing business as The Landmark Project.  My current interests are 21st century literacy, understanding, and finding and inventing applications for Web 2.0 applications, and video games as learning engines.

 

Ginger Jewell:

I've been in the field 28 years and I've been hooked on technology for 27 of them.  I've worked in rural, suburban and urban districts, in private and public settings, and as a university professor, so I've seen the issues from different perspectives.  I currently work in an economically disadvantaged urban school district.  My district won NSBA's national top technology using district award in 2004 and we've gone way beyond where we were when we won that, so we've proven that poverty is not a roadblock to good technology.  Right now my burning interest is gaming in the classroom, but I'm also heavily invested into MP3 players for learning and digital resources. 

 

Dan Schmit:

 I am an Apple Distinguished Educator, and have been working in education for about 15 years. I began my work as music educator and I have taught Kindergarten through high school.  I worked for the Nebraska Department of Education doing instructional technology staff development and software exploration for a couple of years before joining the University of Nebraska as an Instructional Technology Specialist.   Currently, I work with undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty on making constructive use of technology in their work.  I also produce a podcast, "KidCast: Podcasting in the Classroom", which is a companion to my book of the same name (http://www.intelligenic.com).  I'm also the "human" to my chihuahua, Jamal (the world's coolest chihuahua - http://www.jamaldog.com

My interests are focused on making creative and constructive use of technology for teaching and learning. 

 

 

HOT TOPICS/TECHNOLOGIES/PRODUCTS THAT YOU'D LIKE TO ADDRESS

Why don't you use this space to list all the things you might touch on if you were doing this session solo. I know there will be lots of overlap but once it's all written out here, I think it should be easy to divide up somehow.

 

David:   My 2¢ Worth?  Hot topics are:

 

• 21st Century Skills / 21s Century Literacy
• Blogging
• Wikis
• Podcasting
• RSS
• Video Games

 

 

Ginger:   My topics would have to be (in no particular order):

• MP3 players
• Small form factor devices
• Digital resources, specifically texts
• Assistive technology for ALL students
• Blended learning environments for regular classroom teachers
• Gaming (my personal current fave)
• Open Source

 

As far as presentation, in looking over what everyone has written, it looks like things fall into these categories, with some fitting in multiple spaces:

1. Web 2.0 tools (wikis, podcasting, blogging, RSS, social networking)
2. Gaming included immersive games like Second Life
3. Devices (MP3, small form factor like iPhone and others in the space, assistive devices)
4. Online learning aids and platforms (digital texts, blogs, wikis, Moodle (and other brands))
5. Open Source software (Moodle and others)

 

I think 21st century literacy/skills is almost an umbrella topic which impacts all of them.

 

Dan: We could look at specific technology pieces or we could try to group and frame them within the context of a school or a learning environment.    I'm open to either approach.  Here are a few ideas to get the ball rolling.

 

 

 

• Leveraging Networks of People for Collaboration (distributed collaboration - this would include spaces like wiki's, google docs, collaborative podcasts, etc)
  • Google docs and spreadsheets
  • wikis and community blogs
  • collaborative podcasting
  • learning flows

 

• Creative Spaces for Learning (Immersive spaces, audio spaces, visual spaces, collaborative spaces, etc.)
  • Spatial / Immersive  spaces
    • SecondLife
    • Google Earth (Web 2.0 data layering, photo tagging, KML, etc.)
  • Visual spaces
    • Flickr (tagging photos,
    •  Photobucket (online video editing/remixing)
  • Audio spaces
    • Podcasting
    • GarageBand / Acid / Online Mixing/Jam Glue
  • Social spaces
    • Twitter
    • Social networks
    • Learning flows

 

• Learning Management Systems (LMS's like are bringing a new set of organizational and instructional services to teachers)
  • Moodle

 

 

 

 

 

THOUGHTS ABOUT STRUCTURE

 

We can simply divide up the topics (one of you talking about blogs and podcasting, another about cell phones and xxx, etc.) or we can try something like Vicki suggests on the Chicago page -- with an introducer for each category or app and the chance for others to respond with examples from their own experience. Opinions?

 

 

Related to this is the question of breadth vs. depth. I should be embarrassed to admit this but I (Judy) am pushing for breadth because I think the audience is looking to you for a whole bunch of great ideas and inspiration from you -- including things they haven't even seen yet. I see the afternoon EduBloggerCon session as allowing participants to return to some of these technologies and share their own thoughts and experiences, which takes some of the pressure off of you to do as much as of the WHY as you would have otherwise. On the other hand, just doing the WHAT part could be superficial and sound like technology for technology's sake. So I guess the goal is a balance. Over to you:

 

I agree with you and Vicki here.  Why don't you, Judy, introduce each of us with a short paragraph.  We could even have a slide with our vita, and get right to the topics.  You throw out the topic, and we each chime in with our angle and examples.  I suspect that we might each need to limit ourselves to a budgeted number of minutes. (dfw)

 

I think the tag team approach might be really fun...we will want to compare notes well in advance so we can make sure we have everything covered and reduce the "dittos". :) (dan)

 

I agree with the introducer/reflector idea- we just need to form a collective attack plan to cover as much ground as we can, which addresses Judy's "breadth" need, and is somethng I agree with.  Without minimizing the importance of Web 2.0 in the scheme of things, I would hope that our audience, who are leaders versus practitioners, would have enough background with wikis, blogs and podcsting to not get bogged down in how to do it but rather concrete examples of  why you would do it and the impact on achievement.  I'd really like to stick with real examples of how something is being used and why it is increasing achievement.  That's my take on this. GJ

L