Webcast Academy

After moderating a few large group conference calls via skype earlier this past fall, I decided to get a little more formal experience in webcasting by enrolling in the Webcast Academy's class of 2.4. The Webcast Academy is essentially an online course where you learn all about the world of producing, airing, and moderating a webcast. I have to say that this has been a wonderful experience for me! The class began in early January and we have meetings each Sunday from 1:00-2:00 PM. People from all over the world are in the class of 2.4. Classmates include people from England, Germany, all over the US, China, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I've been many, many connections throughout the experience. I'm probably about half way done with the experience and I think I've done a fairly decent job of keeping up with all of my assignments. Last week I collaborated on a live webcast with three educators from New Hampshire where we had a conversation with a WWII Veteran and USS Oklahoma/Pearl Harbor survivor, Paul Goodyear. It was really neat because we had schools from all over listening in to the conversation. My brother even listened in live from his desk in Washington DC and my sister listened in live as well from the Detroit area.

The conversation with Paul was absolutely amazing. He is truly a special, special guy. The entire conversation was recorded and is posted online at my portfolio page at the webcast academy.

If you're interested in learning more about Webcasting and creating authentic experiences and opportunities for your students, then I would recommend that you take a look at participating. You'll meet some amazing people and learn a great deal in the academy!

Related Links:
Edtechtalk Live
Paul Goodyear Interview Planning Page

Matt's Summary of Educon 2.0 conference

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.
And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School 2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss and debate ideas -- from the very practical to the big dreams.

Two weekends ago I attended this grassroots conference that took place at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA from the comfort of my home (thanks ustream and thanks for the students at SLA for doing the broadcasts). I participated in several sessions over the course of the weekend. One session that I particularly enjoyed was Dennis Richards' session on school change and "Claiming What We Imagine." Dennis is a superintendent from a school district in Massachusetts. He is a true administrator-leader in the area of 21st century classrooms and learning. He is an active, engaged participant in online professional learning networks and he shares his practices with other teachers and administrators around the country (and the globe!) And he does a wonderful job of effectively modeling the use of 21st century communication tools for teaching and learning.

I followed several other sessions Saturday morning as well. On Sunday morning I watched and listened a panel presentation on the "Future of Learning." This panel featured David Jakes (who is consulting with USM on an instructional technology plan), Will Richardson, Gary Stager, Sylvia Martinez, Joyce Valenza, and Chris Lehman (Chris is the principal of Science Leadership Academy).

One of the things I enjoyed most throughout my participation in the conference was engaging in the back channel chat that took place. I enjoyed the conversation and exchanges with educators from all across the globe-this conversation really helped stretch my thinking.

This conference was totally grassroots, with over 200 face to face participants. The cost for each one of the attendees was $50. There were several 'big name' session facilitators, and they presented without charging a fee! Many participants attended at their own expense. It was wonderful to see so many passionate educators participating in the conversation at Science Leadership Academy two weeks ago. Congratulations and thanks to Chris Lehman, principal of SLA, and his students and faculty members for putting on a wonderful conference for both the physical and virtual attendees.

Finally, I had the honor of participating in a live conversation the Wednesday following educon with Alex Ragone and Arvind Grover, the hosts of the weekly webcast show, "21st Century Learning." Bill Knauer was the other guest participant on the show (Alex, Arvind and Bill are educators at different independent schools in New York City). Alex actually attended the conference at SLA while Bill and I tuned in from our homes. I enjoyed processing the conversation and sharing our unique perspectives on our experiences in attending educon. The audio recording of the conversation I had with Bill, Alex and Arvind should be posted at the 21st Century Learning page of the edtechtalk.com website shortly.

AATSP National Conference in San Antonio, TX

Neelie, Todd, and Jeff traveled to San Antonio for the AATSP annual convention. As usual at these conventions, we had more workshops to choose from than we had time for. We tended toward the workshops that dealt with technology. We learned about the use of wikis, ipods, and blogs in the classroom. Some of this we were already doing, but it's great to see and hear from other teachers. Other workshops we attended were the old standbys, those sessions led by veteran teachers where everybody shared ideas and techniques that they found useful. As a result of this conference, we'll be introducing speaking activities using voice thread, ipods and you may hear our students singing and chanting.
San Antonio is a great city. It's rich history and great cuisine made it an ideal place for a conference. Jeff was able to take some photos of places that appear in his text and we have a picture of the three of us in front of the Alamo.

Karen's Garden Prepares for Winter

On December 1, 2007 about 4 inches of wet, heavy snow/sleet/freezing rain hit the Milwaukee area. Karen's garden, which produced over 200 pounds of tomatoes for the USM community last fall, has now entered into winter phase. The tomato plants have been composted and the ground awaits the coming of spring. It is cold and silent out at the garden, but under the snow the soil continues to thrive.

NCSS 2007 in San Diego

View the collaborative voicethread project online that we created as a summary and reflection of our conference experience at this year's National Social Studies Conference in San Diego. This is a work in progress. Feel free to leave any comments that you'd like on our voicethread (you'll need a voicethread account to leave comments however).

Matt's more detailed reflection may be read by visiting his blog post on this topic.

View a little Animoto multimedia presentation with pictures from our conference:

NCTE Convention in New York City

Lori Vandervelde, Laurie Barth and I went to NYC the week before Thanksgiving to attend the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. While there, we visited two independent schools in Manhattan, heard Jonathan Kozol talk about his new book, Letters to a Young Teacher, and attended various NCTE sessions. On top of all that we ate some delicious food, saw a very funny off-Broadway production and walked, on average, well over six miles a day! It was an extremely fulfilling experience.

Besides all the useful information we gleaned from the sessions and the books we bought that will aid our teaching, I think the best thing that came from all of it was the five-day-long conversation we had that covered everything from curriculum, to goals, to strategies and technology. I think we'll be remembering this trip, and referring to things we discussed while on it, for years to come.

WAEA State Art Conference

Last week Thursday and Friday I had the opportunity to attend this year's state art teacher conference, Creating Connections (WAEA) in River Falls, WI. Priscilla Wicks and I made the trip together, my first time attending an art conference with another art colleague! It was a great opportunity to enrich my teaching with new curriculum ideas, new materials/resources and engaging conversations with other art educators. Let me share a little bit more about some of the sessions I attended and how it impacted me.
First of all, our keynote speaker, Dr. Roger Tomhave spoke to us on the topic of "A Whole New Art Education," taking prominent and pertinent information from Daniel Pink's book, "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future," and applying it to the world of art education. If you are not familiar with this book, it is definitely worth checking out. Here is a brief description of Pink's book:

• The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers - creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't. Drawing on research from around the world, Pink outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment - and reveals how to master them.
  This bestseller takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.

I would love to have it as a summer reading book for us here at USM. I am reading it right now as my ORB book and I'm stunned by some of the quotes I've read and the overall concept of the book. It really shows the transition and need in our country from the L-brain worker to more R- brain, creative workers. Needless to say, Dr. Tomhave shared an inspiring presentation with us all and a wonderfu tool for advocacy in schools where the arts are not valued. This is something I am most grateful for, to work in a school where the arts do matter!
Not only was the keynote inspiring, but I also attended various sessions in which I gathered good information to bring back to my classroom as well as some reinforcement that I am on the right track with my own teaching style. The first session I attended was on student centered assessment. This was perfect since our main C.A.R.P. goal is focusing on assessment in the art room. Loaded with handouts, articles and ideas, I left the session ready to evaluate my current forms of assessment and inspired to bring new methods to my students. One teacher in particular stated something I am always working on. She mentioned that her students never ask her the question "Am I done yet?" This is something I think all art teachers strive for, and her answer revolved around assessment that is designed by the students.
Another session on went to focused on web comics. I wanted to get some new ideas for the lesson I do with 6th graders on superheroes. Unfortunately the hands-on session was not hands-on, but it did get my creative juices flowing. I need to look into this concept a bit more, especially if I want to do this with Middle School age students, but here is a link to a world of comics on the web: http://www.thewebcomiclist.com/
The final session I'll write about was one that Priscilla and I went to together hoping to learn about the new curriculum being developed in Hong Kong. The speaker who supposed to present was not available, but we did hear from a gentleman involved in the curriculum review process. To our amazement, Hong Kong was significantly behind in the development of their art education process. They are currently initiating a trend to teach more than just art production, but now having art teachers focus on aesthetics, art criticism, and art history, something we call (DBAE) Discipline Based Art Education and have been teaching since the early 1980's. They do however, have us beat in the area of pushing for art education as one of the core curriculum areas. It is seen as just as valuable as math, science, language etc.. but will now also require standardized testing just as the other core areas do. This is being met with resistance from many art educators.
Well, that about sums up my experience in River Falls. With the exception of an awesome Carribean jerk dinner in Hudson, a great gallery walk with an opportunity to watch a glass sculptor at work, as well as a fun time socializing with art teachers at the Nova, a spectacular wine bar adorned with beautiful and unique Tiffany lamps.
Thanks for the professional growth experience!