Dr. Annette Lamb gave an overview of technology integration in education during her presentation at NECC 2008 this afternoon. (I should say “one of her presentations” — she did several, back-to-back.)

1980s — It was all about the software.
We tended to see computers as tutors (what could kids learn from applications like Oregon Trail?), as tools (word processing, database, spreadsheets), or as “tutees” with students doing Logo programming.

1990s — It was all about problem-solving.
We were building infrastructure and getting our schools wired. We established hotlists, scavenger hunts, and WebQuests. We used tools like Hyperstudio, Inspiration, and Timeliner.

Early 00s — It was all about projects.
We expected students to work with primary sources, to look at things from multiple perspectives, to use web cams and simulations. Teachers spent a lot of time not planning lessons but “designing learning experiences.” (Jargon always seems more realistic at the time.)

Now — it’s all about Web 2.0,
We’re working with blogs, wikis, social networking, and other collaborative technologies. Lamb pointed out that the most recent standards include digital equity and digital ethics.

Each period had strengths. Her point was simple: don’t abandon the old just because the new comes along. Keep the best of the old as you transition to the new.

I’m blogging this week from NECC 2008 in San Antonio.

David Warlick opened his presentation at NECC in a manner that will probably become standard in the 21st century: he told his audience how to tag their blog posts and Tweets so that the RSS feed would pick them up.

He spoke of how students in his (and my) generation were well prepared to work in straight rows performing repetitive tasks under close supervision. To be more precise, they finished school ready to go work in a mill for 30 years, raise families, retire with a pension, and enjoy their grandchildren. He paused and said quietly, “Things changed.”

Now our job is to prepare our children for a future we can’t describe. And our children must not just survive in that world, he pointed out, they need to prosper.

Here are his three bullet points. (I want to mention them so I can do justice to his presentation and then talk about the other things that also captured my attention.)

1. The future is unpredictable.
2. Students are networked.
3. The new information landscape is flat, less authority (teacher)-driven.

Warlick redefined the Digital Divide for me. I had always considered it to be the difference between the “haves” and the “have nots,” between those who could afford a computer (and access and occasional repairs), and those who could maybe get a used computer but had to give it up once the power supply or monitor went out. How shortsighted of me! The “haves” are networked; they know, as Warlick put it, “how to find the people who can help you learn how to do what you want to do.” Those who are networked are powerful. Those who aren’t, are alone.

Warlick believes it is in our national interest for everyone to have free Web access. He pointed to Macedonia and other countries that have already made that commitment.

I had to think about that one. In my rural community, the “haves” can choose: cable, DSL, or if you live out in the county, dial-up. The “have nots” will tell me they have a computer at home, but they will add that it has picked up a virus. Or the printer is out of ink. Or the disk drive is jammed. Always some polite fiction. The point is, they don’t get to choose. Their ability to do schoolwork is affected, but we can level that playing field to some extent. Their ability to network, though, is postponed.

I have to wonder if that means that their ability to prosper is also postponed. In the coming economy, it sure looks that way right now.

This is an example of why I come to NECC. People share ideas that disturb and challenge and stick around.

The blog is ended, but the pondering continues …

Tags:
flat classrooms
warlick
n08
n08s283

Dr. Trina Davis, President of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) welcomed more than 18,000 educators from more than 50 countries to the opening of the 2008 National Educational Computer Conference (NECC) in San Antonio last night. The keynote session was Texas-sized, filling the ballroom and broadcast throughout the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.

Special thanks to the Southwest High School Mariachi Band. If they were at all nervous about performing in front of that large an audience, it didn’t show. Music, singing, and a little dancing got things off to a lively start.

In keeping with the conference theme of convene-connect-transform, Davis encouraged teachers to be “powerful advocates for change.” She encouraged us to share our passion, to showcase student work, and to dream big.

Keynote speaker James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, outlined conditions needed to make the kind of smart groups described in his book. He acknowledged the potential of technology in providing a way to aggregate the individual opinions of a group (95% of which will be wrong) into a collective judgment (which can be amazingly accurate).

He discussed the value of encouraging diversity with in a group, calling it “the most important component.” He stressed that, while socioeconomic diversity can be valuable, cognitive diversity will best provide the variety of perspectives needed to form a “smart group.” Homogeneous groups are easier to work in, but, Surowiecki stated, “The more they talk, the dumber they become.”

The third quality Surowiecki mentioned was independence. For a smart group to develop, people need to be able to think for themselves. They need a small amount of support to move beyond imitating others, and they need to be open to the kind of healthy disagreement that leads to seeing things from a different point of view.

The next couple of days are going to be fun. I’ll keep you posted!

Stop Cyberbullying –
An International Conference to Address Cyberbullying, Solutions and Industry Best Practices

At the world’s first conference dedicated entirely to the issue of cyberbullying, all stakeholders will learn everything they need to know about this digital epidemic and explore solutions. Hosted by the world’s largest and oldest cybersafety group together with Pace University and Westchester County, all aspects of cyberbullying, risk management in schools and best practices in the industry will be explored.

The entire program is broken into two very different days, each of which offers rich opportunities to address cyberbullying. Both are open to members of the general public, parents, students, educators and school administrators, mental health professionals, technology and Internet industry members, law enforcement, community groups, media representatives and governmental agencies.

On the first day a massive town meeting format will be used to bring together students, parents, teachers, librarians, school and technology administrators, governmental representatives, law enforcement, members of the media, Internet and digital technology industry members, mental health experts, community groups and safety advocates. They will work “UN expert meeting” style, to learn about cyberbullying and determine what each of these groups expects from government, education, the media and the industry.

The second day brings the industry, government, media and other important stakeholders to the table to join the others. The facilitators for the first day will report the results to the second day plenary and four panels of experts and influencers will address the questions framed for them. They will also describe their current efforts to address the problem of cyberbullying. Beginning with students and victims and their families, the heart-wrenching stories will be shared, compelling action. Then panels of Internet industry leaders will address the questions posed for them by first day participants. They will share their perspective and the role they believe they should play in framing solutions.

Awards for Excellence in Awareness will be given to a select group of outstanding non-profits and programs that are playing an important role in stopping cyberbullying.

Students are welcome, accompanied by parents or teachers, and must be 10 or older to attend. The registration is free for pre-registered participants. Any participants seeking to join us, not having pre-registered, will be required to pay a $149 admission fee for both days, or $99 for either day. The admission fee includes the box lunch provided. The box lunch is made available to all other participants for a $12 per lunch donation to the Teenangels program. The programs may be webcast and will be recorded, along with audience participation and scans.

The conference will be held June 2, 2008, in White Plains, NY and June 3, 2008 in New York City.

For more information or to pre-register online visit WiredSafety.org or StopCyberbullying.org.

Special thanks to Art Wolinksy, OEO 3DWriting.com and Educational Technology Director - WiredSafety.org!

The team at the National Writing Project has recently redesigned their website, and if you haven’t visited before, now’s the time. Here are a few of the categories you can browse:

• Teaching Writing (an extensive list of resources)
• Teaching Reading
• Professional Development
• Research in Writing and Assessment
• Teacher Research/Inquiry
• Being a Writer

If you register at the site (fast and free), more resources are available, too. If you think there might be more to teaching writing than grammar exercises and the 5-paragraph essay, this site — and this program — are for you!

This notice comes from Michael LoMonico, Senior Consultant on National Education at the Folger Shakespeare Library:

I am excited to share some news from Folger Shakespeare Library. In addition to our four-week Teaching Shakespeare Institute, we are taking the show on the road and offering two different week-long Mini-Institutes this summer. We will be at Adairsville, Georgia and the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Both of these will include lectures by scholars, performance classes, and curriculum sessions based on Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In addition to funding from Folger Shakespeare Library, these institutes were made possible by grants and support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Georgia Council of teachers of English, and the University of Nebraska.

Dates:

Georgia- June 9-13

Nebraska- June 23-27

If you have not attended a Folger Institute, now is your chance. Full details and application materials can be found at www.folger.edu . The entire application process can be completed electronically. The deadline for applications is May 1.

You go to a conference, and you come home with three things:

• Great ideas you can’t wait to try in your classroom
• Tchotchkes and handouts
• A sturdy canvas book bag with conference logo

Textbook publishers know we will go to great lengths for just the right book bag. At the NCTE conference in New York City last fall, one publisher advertised that book bags with Shakespeare’s picture on the side would be available at their booth starting at noon. The result? We went to that table FIRST, blocked the neighboring booths as we stood in a long line, made sure no one cut in front of us, and kept an eye on the supply to make sure they didn’t run out before we got our own. We were polite, but you did not want to mess with us. (I am not using the editorial “we” here — that line was long!)

But then I got home, and somehow the Bard was too pretty to schlep books around. He spent the winter hanging on my closet doorknob along with at least 2 other equally sturdy conference book bags. From time to time I would look at them with guilt, wondering if Goodwill would take them, wondering if I could ever part with Shakespeare.

Last week at the grocery I noticed a display of green canvas bags. “Use these instead of plastic bags!” the sign proclaimed. “Just $5.99!”

I sniffed. “My book bags are bigger than that.” And boom! it hit me: re-use the conference bags and fight global warming. Bring coffee home in the canvas bags; use the closet doorknob for dirty T-shirts, like everyone else.

Once I started thinking about it, other uses became obvious:

• Put one in the trunk with a blanket and other winter emergency gear.
• Take one to the beach with towel, sunblock, and trashy novel.
• Throw one in the suitcase for laundry as you travel.

But don’t let me have all the fun — how do you use yours?

Visit the Mark Twain Boyhood Home in Hannibal, Missouri; follow a guided tour through Mark Twain Cave; ride a Mississippi Riverboat; and journey to Twain’s birthplace in Florida, Missouri: does this sound like the kind of professional development you’d give up a week of your summer for?

The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum announces its second annual summer workshop series, June 16-20, July 14-18, and July 28-August 1.

Participants will spend a week exploring The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with scholars and local experts. You can earn graduate credits or continuing education units as you prepare a unit you can take back to your classroom in the fall.

And, of course, you can spend some time with the Mississippi River, as Twain did, and as Huck describes sunrise in this passage:

The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line — that was the woods on t’other side; you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away — trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks — rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there’s a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t’other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you’ve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!

More information and a registration form are available.

It’s time to start thinking about your summer. I don’t mean “thinking” in the sense of gazing out the window and longing for a warm, sunny beach and no papers to grade; but “thinking” in the sense of planning how you’ll make the most of those weeks between mid-June and early August.

• Would you like to travel to Spain to study the Spanish literary tradition for a month?
• Perhaps a few weeks in England to study Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales would be more to your liking?
• Closer to home, perhaps you’d like to spend time in Pittsburgh studying “Voices across Time: Teaching American History through Song.”
• You could travel to Fargo, North Dakota, to explore the literature of “The Great Plains from Texas to Saskatchewan: Place, Memory, Identity.”
• Or you could visit Eugene, Oregon, to study “From the Yucatan to ‘The Halls of Montezuma’—Mesoamerican Cultures and Their Histories.”

All of these projects represent U. S. tax dollars very well spent: they are among the offerings from the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars and Institutes. According to the Website, “[f]ull-time teachers in American K-12 schools, whether public, private, or church-affiliated, as well as home-schooling parents, are eligible to apply to seminars and institutes. Americans teaching abroad are also eligible if a majority of the students they teach are American citizens. Librarians and school administrators may also be eligible.”

I’ve been lucky enough to be selected for a couple of these experiences, and I consider them among the best professional development experiences of my career, even better than some of my university classes. If you are interested any of the wide variety of topics, apply!

Admission to these seminars and institutes is highly competitive, so don’t wait. Get information, line up your references, and start drafting your essay now. The deadline is March 3.