Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

I’ve been a fan of Cliff Atkinson for the better part of a year. Cliff’s Beyond Bullets book and blog have been helpful in transforming my view of PowerPoint as a storytelling tool and in turn changed how I present it to students and teachers.

Recently Cliff was hired by a Texas lawyer to develop a presentation for his opening statement. The resulting 253 slides helped to gain a $253 million dollar settlement.  Read the LA times article here.

I’m thinking of beginning all of my workshops and talks on the read/write web with this cavaet, “Don’t get too excited about any of this because the chances of any of you really making this a reality in your classroom is almost nil.” Not very optimistic but I think fairly accurate.

Brian Crosby of Learning is Messy writes,

You can’t just show most people – you have to show them and explain it to them and then answer their questions and then show it to them again and then explain it to them again and then show them how this relates to things they already do – takes the place of this and makes it even better and does this and this and this! I’m telling you they will think the vodcast was kinda cool… would be an interesting thing for their kids to do once if they had the equipment and the time and someone to show them how to do it. But they won’t get it until they experience you doing it and getting them to do it…several times … and talk about it and have them notice their students’ reaction and learning and how they talk about it and how excited their parents get about it.

As I consider our new school division and structure, I’m trying to think differently about how we do things. One belief that I’ve always had is that teachers need to develop a personal use of technology before it becomes a regular part of their teaching. I’d be interested in surveying teachers who are using the tools of the web in their classrooms about how they use it in their personal lives. I’m guessing most are using it seamlessly both at work and home.

I’m passionate about this stuff as most of you are. Reading this entry makes me think about how we might encourage teachers more:

Our passions often represent something about who we are. For many of us, the thing we’re passionate about is not just a hobby, product, service, cause, etc… it’s a way of life.. Ted Leung explainined to me that as a result of his relatively recent passion for photography, he “sees the world differently now.” Passionate golfers have apparently elevated golf to some kind of spiritual status–it is, for them, about much more than just hitting a ball with a stick. Ditto with fly fishing (it’s apparently not about the fish or the flys). The guys from 37signals offer much more than software apps… they represent a philosophy (the whole “getting real/it-just-doesn’t-matter” thing). MindJet’s Mind Manager not a mind-mapping tool, it’s a way of thinking.

So I’m going to focus on how the existing passionate users can better tell there stories over and over and over again….after 22 years of marriage my wife almost gets it when I got teary eyed as Jack Nicklaus crossed the Swilken Burn Bridge for the last time and I kind of appreciate a well designed quilt block.

Came across this sign in Union Station in Toronto. A reference to days gone by when Canada had a viable passenger train system.

I wasn’t planning on going to any games while in Toronto but was fortunate to see a basketball and baseball game. It was the Raptors last home game and a disappointing season meant many were uninterested. We got a call at about 4:00 asking if we wanted 4 tickets. They were $199 tickets.

The next day I went to see the Bluejays and Yankees. This time I had to pay but fortunately they only cost $2. It was a choice between more shopping and watching baseball. I think I made the right choice.

It’s Easter break for us this week and I’m currently sitting in the Winnipeg airport ready to board for my flight to Toronto. I’ll be doing a workshop later this week on the use of video and multimedia for a church there.

I always appreciate having free wireless in airports. It seems more and more airports offer this service. In fact, knowing that Winnipeg offered free wireless influenced my flight options. Flying out of Regina rarely offers a direct flight and that often means a pricier ticket. So I didn’t mind having a 2 hour lay over here in Winnipeg.

Now if I could have only avoided the 4:15am wakeup to get on the 6:00am flight… Dalton I owe you one for driving me.

Yesterday, April 12th. Our school division hosted a conference for consultants and superintendents and frankly anyone interested in supporting teachers and classrooms based on the open space model.

Thanks to a podcast by Steve Dembo, I was inspired to try this out. Since our division and entire province for that matter has undergone a major restructuring and reorganization, there has been major unrest. So the opportunity to try something different seemed possible.

I was pleasantly surprised at the turnout. I was hoping to meet with a half dozen interested parties. As it turned out there were 35 people representing 8 different school divisions as well as representation from our provincial department of learning. There was a high level of energy and buzz regarding the invitation to meet and discuss issues that were important to each individual.

I created the entire conference and agenda in a wiki. From here, each organization had the opportunity to contribute over the past month in preparation for the day. By the way, wikispaces offers their service free for teachers which enables you to create totally private areas if you wish and ad free. This proved invalueable in developing the day.

During each discussion we utilized Jotspotlive which as far as I know is the only online notetaking service that allows for simultaneously notetaking.

The concept of an openspace conference seems like a natural way to organize thinking. I’m sure I didn’t lead it exactly according to the book but was pleased with they day. We embraced these principles:

• Whoever comes is the right person - You don’t need every person in the organization, just whoever cares the most. And if you’re the only one who comes, you might finally have some rich, focused quiet time for thinking and writing on that issue.
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have - Let go of your expectations and work with whatever unfolds.
• Whenever it starts is the right time - Creativity doesn’t happen on a schedule.
• Whenever it’s over, it’s over. - If you find a solution in 20 minutes, move on to the next group. If it takes 2 hours, keep the conversation rolling.

In keeping with my tagline, the day was relevant, authentic and engaging. Everyone had ownership in the content and their learning. Several remarked at the use of technology to connect and provide a richer experience. Using a tool like Jotlive, you were able to sit in on one session and yet snoop around at the activity happening elsewhere. As is the principle of open space, this allowed you to excercise your right to use your feet and move over that conversation and bring with you the good discussion you had at other sessions.

Thanks to Steve and also a old post on How to Run Useless Conference for some of the inspiration behind the day.

Conference photos:

I was hoping the move to this new location to be a smooth one. Everything appeared to be going well but a couple of things have come up.

My feed won’t validate. I’m not bright enough to figure out how to fix this? Any feedgeeks willing to help?

My subscribers went from 156 to 349 in one day. Now it would be nice to think that my brilliant posts could potentially increase readership by over 100% but I’m suspect. Not sure what’s happening but something seems fishy. Now it would be nice to think that my brilliant posts could potentially increase readership by over 100% but I’m suspect. Not sure what’s happening but something seems fishy.

So if anyone cares to comment or offer advice on this one, please do so.