I spent the day (and what a freezing one it was!) in Sturbridge at the first day of the MassCUE conference. My electricity went out overnight so I am relieved that I made it in time for the first session! I chose to not bring my laptop today and instead mobile blog and twitter my movements throughout the day, while jotting down notes here and there. Conferences can be so overwhelming sometimes! But today I left feeling just plain happy to be in the field that I am, and to be among people who share that passion - and their knowledge. I attended sessions on topics I had already had some experience with, that encouraged my interests in them, connected me with colleagues who share the same passions, and provided me with “nuggets” of info or sources to pursue. I ended the day touring the exhibition hall for goodies and won a free polo shirt!

I first attended a session where I got to play with the XO laptop. I am familiar with the OLPC initiative and amazon.com’s give 1 get 1 promo last year (which just went out again this week at amazon.com/xo), but I hadn’t had a hands-on walkthrough of the little guy. Its a Linux platform with SUGAR GUI and an SD card port and 3 USB ports - meaning you can hook up another operating system if you wish via the SD card, and increase its disk space by connecting an external drive. Hackers are delighted to jump into its open source code and customize it to their needs. Activities and apps are shared and downloadable on the XO wiki (wiki.laptop.org). It is wireless enabled but also connects to mesh networks, so even if only 1 XO is connected to the internet, every XO on the same mesh network can connect through it. The mesh network also allows XO’s within range to share files and collaborate on documents without having to connect to the internet. The screen is daylight readable and although the battery can last up to 8 hrs, there are usb port solar panels for $9 a pop that can keep it running. SO you can see how engineering kept (and still keeps) its target audience in mind - members of 3rd world countries.

Next I checked out a session about videoconferencing in the classroom. This is something I have been struggling to make happen and was very curious what the “easiest” method was among the tools I knew of. A discussion about hardware did not occur, but it was apparent that the macbook was the best choice with its built-in webcam and ichat application. I am pretty sold on that combination too given my experiences videoconferencing from Germany with the students in Boston. I will have to get my hands on some webcams for our pcs at BRCPS in the short-term. As for applications, the speaker, Wesley Fryer, showed us Skype, iChat, and oovoo (a new one I hadnt heard of), and I add into the mix Google’s new Google Video chat feature, as well as FlashMeeting. The best news is that these apps are all FREE to use, so cost is a non-factor! So more time was spent selling reasons why to videoconference in the classroom, and Wesley gave some inspiring examples as well as resources for free content providers. Any child who is too ill to come to school can virtually attend the class and fully participate via a live video feed. In his example, the child was literally sitting at a desk (as a laptop on the table) and would raise her hand and ask questions the entire class could hear. Similarly, a teacher can teach his lesson by projecting his Skype session from home onto the screen and leading the lesson while a substitute manages the class - but wait, is that still a sick day?! lol. Finally he left us with the following content providers :

• CILC.org
• Berrien RESA
• NoodleTrip.com
• Epals.com/search
• K12 online conference 2008

Ill have to look back into these later. The links and more details will be posted on the Masscue site but I just want to transcribe my notes!

I was super excited to attend the Global Discussion session! I have been working on the Global Exchange project for now 3 years, and hoping to keep it alive in my new school setting. I was relieved to hear the presenters say that they had been at this for 5 years and finally felt able to share what they’d learned and provide sensible and successful guidelines for establishing international exchanges. I was also excited to see that I had already used the tools they had suggested for connection including wikis and the ning. What I took away was a connection to a developing hub, also a ning, for K-12 global classrooms in Massachusetts that certainly my ning will need to hook up with. I also saw lesson plan templates and suggested project ideas and timelines that WILL work! I am looking forward to sharing these ideas and guidelines with BRCPS teachers. I think it will help focus our projects and ensure success. I will be posting more on this topic for sure, as I spoke with the presenters afterwards about visiting BRCPS. Cool! Some tips included :

• Lessons must be flexible and at least 3-6 weeks long
• Choose broad themes and design universal questions that are sensitive to the country you are working with
• Make the experience authentic and more of a dialogue, not simply a fact-finding assignment, or compare and contrast activity such as “what are the qualities of a leader?” or “what does home mean to you?”
• join irex.org
• choose a product and/or culmination of the experience

FINally, after discussing a civic media project with our BRCPS technology teacher, Mr. Dodson, over lunch, I listened to an overview of RSS by Will Richardson. This was good timing for me bc I just spent the last few days re-organizing my Bloglines subscriptions and publishing my feeds. I added to the sidebar here a “I’m feeding on…” link to my Bloglines feeds so people can see who and what I am reading online. I learned that I can also subscribe to feed searches by adding the RSS feed of the results from a blogsearch.google.com. HE walked us through Google Reader but the concepts are the same. I liked his approach to blog searching. I recently have been searching edublogs.org for good examples of ways to use blogs in education to show my teachers, and have been disappointed with the results! I found that Im not the only one frustrated (see this educator’s blog post), but this still doesnt help! Today’s lessons on how to search and subscribe to find what I want will be helpful. I liked Will’s discretion while searching too. His method makes sense. Of course your keyword choice drives the results, but you have to do more work. Investigate the expertise of the blogger, how often the blog is updated, and the amount and quality of the commentary done there.

He also walked us through Delicious which is not just a bookmarking tool (so you dont lose your “favorites” when you go to another computer or browser), its a social bookmarking tool. In short, you can save and categorize your favorite links (not feeds - this is different), and also find the fav links of people who share your interests and passions. This is suuuper useful bc it cuts down on the hunting YOU have to do. Right now, I save my bookmarks on my iGoogle dashboard, but I think I will move these into delicious so I can share them and find more that relate to (and may be even better) than mine! To complicate things even more, I can subscribe in Bloglines to the feed of search results from Delicious.

Phew that’s it for me today!!

Im now getting an overview of rss from will richardson in the hopes that i can give a similar explanation to my staff. im also curious how feedreaders are being used in education.

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Soooo many bulbs going off in my head here! just got re-excited about the global exchage project and how to make it happen

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Videoconferencing with steve hargaden, founder of the classroom 2.0 ning. u can use ichat, google video chat, oovoo, skype or flashmeeting. which of these apps are blocked at school? why arent teachers trusted with this technology? will bandwidth become an issue?

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Wow! I got my wish - I got a new macbook! Brand new. And FREE.BPS OIIT is rolling out laptops for (4) learning. Every BPS teacher is leased aMacBook for 4 years. I have 3 papers to write by Tuesday…but now I just want to play with PhotoBooth! 

(Yes the title is a White Snake reference - in honor of the PATS)

I attended the first of 2 classes at Harvard this week to mark the kickoff of semester #2. Tuesday’s Human Development class looks like it will be extremely interesting - the 2 profs are engaging and extremely knowledgeable. The only down side is that it starts at 7:30 pm! Makes for a loooong day. And the very next evening is the ProSeminar in which I will be refining my thesis topic and diving in deeper to the literature review. I am excited but weary, as I find more and more of my energy and time and money is being poured into my professional life, with little left for the personal. The apartment hunt is put on hold, the spa vacation remains a travelocity bookmark, and my view of the gym seems to be more of my monthly statement these days. I promised myself (and that Guy upstairs) that I’d take better care of myself this year in my “new age” bracket, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day or dollars in the bank! Keep on keepin on. I’m just one of those people (schmucks?!) who believes that hard work, sincerity, and passion will pay off some day.

“Things been a little tight, but I know they’re gonna turn my way.”
- the boss

I’m obviously posting some news way after the fact, but I needed a wee time out from my computer screen every evening after work!

I managed to get my research paper in on time, and I just found out today that I got an A- in the class! Whoopee! I learned how to conduct qualitative research and analysis…and that I have soooo much more data to collect and literature to review before I can even propose my thesis. I was aiming to have it proposed by Feb 1 and done by Nov 1, but I’ve got further refinement of the topic to do and I want to keep my sanity during the study, so it looks like it will be instead a March 1 2009 graduation date. Sigh. The Neverending Story of the Masters continues! I did talk to my advisor at Harvard for over 2 hours last Thursday and left feeling inspired and focused on the journey ahead of me.

In other news, I turned 30. I joined the 20-10 age bracket last Sunday at the Patriots game. And well last Saturday too at Ole in Cambridge over gourmet Mexican food and margaritas! I was so touched by the support and appreciation by my loving friends and family!!

Lastly, I am finishing up Term 2 at TBA, which means it’s September all over again for me next week.  I am super excited about the Media Seminar videos…the kids are taking so much pride in their work and polishing the PSAs up in the edit room with voice-overs and beats (which often results in free-style raps about class and Spice Girls dance routines, both much to my delight). My mantra is “work hard, play hard”, so if students are able to get the work done, they can and should have fun too. My freshman work so well together in web design class - there are at least 3 in each section who walk around and help their classmates out. And the advanced web students were reportedly “sad” and “gonna miss you miss” when they realized they had just 2 classes left before the final launch of their client’s web site. I am so proud of how every student has found a way to contribute, to listen, to trust, to manage, to creatively solve a problem, to help, and to take pride in and have fun with their work.

I snapped this photo through the window at my desk today. I have been glued to the desk lately as my pilot study paper and presentation is due this Thursday! So today’s cancellation of school was indeed a gift. One of the “perks” of the job I guess! I will have next Monday off as well for MLK day, which is also a gift because I will need to recover from witnessing yet another AFC Championship battle in Gillette Stadium. Never fear, Patriot Nation, I have been present at all 4 of the last 6 AFC Championships that the Pats have won (one of which the Pats were not present at either, actually).

Speaking of Gillette, I won a Gillette-sponsored contest on Facebook! My “Get your game face on” video won me a JVC camera, a Brady Quinn autographed football, and a Gillette shave kit. I’m psyched! Its taking a while to redeem the prizes from “fulfillment at facebook” though, so I guess I’ll just have to wait for my shaving cream. ?! (you can view the video here)

On Wednesday evening, I attended a public forum in the Brattle Theatre featuring an impressive discussion panel : Jonathan Fanton (president of the MacArthur Foundation), Howard Gardner (Professor at Harvard Ed School), Henry Jenkins (Professor at MIT), and Katie Salen (Professor at Parsons School of Design & game designer). Unfortunately, there was an overflow so I had to watch it via a webcast in the Ed School (I grabbed a sloppy burger at Charley’s Kitchen first! Doh!), but that actually afforded me time to get to the reception at Upstairs on the Square early. I was able to say hello to Professor Jenkins, but I don’t think he quite remembered me from the C4CFM! I actually spent most of the reception catching up with old acquaintances from Facing History and Ourselves’ Digital Legacies Project. I still and know I will always feel a strong bond with the teachers and students from that summer project! I meant to introduce myself to Howard Gardner, as he knows my headmaster, Mary Skipper, who had approached me last year about integrating morality into the media classes (which was in fact my thesis topic choice last year : moral dilemmas in media). I couldn’t locate Katie Salen either! I am fascinated by the new school she is founding in New York : its curriculum will be based on games and the gaming experience (this was a point she made that I latched onto : gaming is not just about the game itself - its not like kids will be playing games all day in math class! - but about the whole experience the gamer goes through).

The forum itself was hard to hear from the webcast! But I picked up some “nuggets”.

The panel, facilitated by Ellen Fanton, Director of MIT Press, discussed ways in which young people’s participation in online social communities and gaming affects their learning experience. Across the panel, there was a consensus that learning was indeed taking place online in the following 5 areas :

1. identity : who am I online vs offline?
2. privacy : there is a HUGE learning moment when a child must decide what to make private and what to make public
3. ownership & authorship : if I modify existing media, is it “mine”?
4. trust & credibility : what is credible in an information overload? who can I trust and how do I know I can?
5. the definition of community & what it means to be a member of a community

One challenge is how to assess the learning that is indeed taking place in “new” media, versus “traditional” media (these labels were also put into question by Gardner : what is “new” and what is “traditional”?). What are the performances of understanding ethical behavior in a digital world (a TFU framework approach)?

This was the endeavor that Fanton was announcing : to identify the behaviors of a participatory culture and to find ways of assessing them. From my perspective, a digital media teacher who has had students blogging, posting into forums, and joining social communities like Tapped In since 3 years ago, how do I TEACH the students how to behave? I think this involves a much more explicit teaching of morality and ethics in the classroom than ever before, as there are definitive behaviors that are acceptable and not in most online communities : see the acceptable use policies…But what I am facing in the international Ning is emails from banned members demanding to know WHY they were banned, or why they can not post that picture…There is still a disconnect between what is explained to participants explicitly and how they actually CHOOSE to behave. How do I teach them to make “better” choices online?

The participatory culture is widely “blocked” (quite literally) in schools, and extreme examples of “bad” behavior online is sensationalized in the news. What was “too risky” before with myspace (anyone can join, even predators) is now being solved by social tools like Ning and CrowdVine in which users can create and control their OWN social communities. What would be cool would be a class in which students create and control their own online community, where they do everything from forming their own AUP, electing moderators, banning their own members, and more! Kindof like a digital version of Kid Nation!

Jenkins pointed out, whereas before we had a “digital divide” (a discrepancy over access to computers), we now have a “participation gap”, where not every child has the same experience online. Not every child is in MySpace - a fact I assess when 1/4 of the hands go up in the 9th grade Web Classroom. Why am I surprised? And by asking this survey question, do the kids who choose to not participate feel they should be?

The MacArthur Foundation announced the new International Journal of Learning and Media which examines the effect of digital media on how young people learn, play socialize and participate in civic life. Mr. Fanton announced a call for project proposals and papers.

I think Ill be submitting something, especially as my thesis research on youth-produced civic media evolves…