Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

Clay Burell is a man of action. I’d call him a radical. More than just about any teacher I’ve connected with recently, he thinks out loud, shares everything and then does stuff.

Clay’s been exploring “unschooliness” for a while and has taken me along for the ride. When he posted his quick chat with Chris Craft, it immediately resonated with me. “Quick in, Quick out” (this is one of many catch phrases Clay is responsible for). While I totally admire the work of projects like the flatclassroom, liferoundhere, 1000tales and such, I know the work involved and I also know that my personal network does not revolve around a project; it just revolves around learning…and socializing. Clay isn’t someone willing to think about this, he attempts to make this a reality in his classroom. I’m all ears and eyes.

So although Clay resides in Korea, he keeps some odd hours as do I so we are able to quite easily connect and on this occasion he did tell me he was recording but I soon forgot that and hopefully didn’t say anything too silly but I’m sure I did. Anyway, head over to Clay’s blog. *Warning, if you’ve never been to Clay’s blog before, I dare you to attempt a “quick in and quick out” there. His posts are filled with insights on some really interesting stuff.

Clay definitely has a good sense of design, even as podcasting goes. Audio design, is something I need to explore more as in “did you see the audio chapters he used?’. It helps that Clay has a voice meant for radio, but better than that his ideas are meant for teachers and all that is “unschooly”.

[tags]clayburell,chriscraft[/tags]

Stupid title but that’s what is for me…pure fun.

By chance I happened to be Winnipeg at another conference and was able to invade the MB BloggerCon. The event was casually put together and turned out to be a blast. About 60 people showed up and Andy Mckneil the president of their provincial technology group, organized and paid for the event. (The gave us full use of the bar, free wireless, snacks) Andy also did a great job filming and recording the entire event.  There were 5 unpresentations. I had to stick my big nose into the mix and show off my network. Alec, Jeff and Brian were able to skype in and talk very quickly but clearly, how the network works for them.

I would have liked to connect more with the others but as a guest, I felt the need to lay low. Very cool to meet for the first time Clarence, John and Chris. Nice to see Darren again. It felt like meeting old friends…oh yeah they are.

At any rate, it was great experience and pure fun. Paul Hamilton has remarked a few times about the fun I have with my job. Brian says learning is messy. I say it’s fun.

Powered by ScribeFire.

There’s been lots of discussion about whether one blogs for themselves or for others. I’m too lazy to find the hyperlinks but I know Miguel has argued he blogs for himself while others, is it you Dan? that argues you blog for an audience. For me it’s somewhere in the middle but certainly clicking Publish means anyone can read it.

I too often make the assumption that most of my audience is like me. Involved in education, interested in technology and change and all that stuff and live in North America. Probably for the most part that’s true. But when realize your Uncle Bill, a retired veterinarian, Jim, a radio disc jockey and Willem an technologist from the Netherlands, read your work, occasionally comment you begin to think more deeply about what you write. To ignore it would be presumptuous.

When I go to give a workshop, I  usually begin  with finding out as much as I can about the audience. What do they hope to gain from our time, what is their current level of understanding and so forth. Most good teachers work with where folks are at. I realize that with as my audience grows it becomes difficult to consider all perspectives but at the same time I think perhaps our readability ought to invite a broader, more diverse audience.

Willem wrote a comment today and a post on my previous entry on commenting. He asks a good question:

Now, also I realize it’s much easier for us to comment on a weblog in English than the other way around. So what about globalization? Should the whole world start posting in English so it’easier for everyone to comment? I’ve tried the translators from MS and Google on my weblog but after translation I could’nt understand my own posts anymore.

While I don’t think we can accommodate every reader who may speak another language, either literally or professionally, I’m thankful for readers like Willem, Uncle Bill and Jim who make me think more deeply about what I write that conversations can expand beyond the typical and more homogeneous members of my network.

Technorati Tags: danmeyer, miguelguhlin, willemkarssenburg

Powered by ScribeFire.

This morning I worked with Grade 5 and 6 students who all have a tablet PC.  I’ve been talking to them about building networks and wanted to demonstrate mine in meaningful, fun, engaging way.

So I decided to take them on a tour, using some interactive maps and showed them the power of networks, open API (don’t worry I didn’t actually use that term) and personalized learning.

At 9:17 local time I sent out a tweet looking for help. In 2 hours we managed to talk with 10 different people from mostly North America, save for Jeff Utecht who was in Malaysia at a conference.  We got to have a brief chat with each one, found out a little bit about them and even asked one or two intelligent questions.   Using Community Walk (as you can see my community is not walkable) we created placemarks and I added some video snapshots as well.

Here’s the map we created on the fly.

Wedding map to share with guests
CommunityWalk Map - Skype Me

Kids were amazingly focused, running around the room helping each other, teacher laptop in hand right beside her students asking questions, looking like a learner herself, talking to people who help me learn. The students were customizing their maps and adding items of personal relevance and also making connections to the activities and whereabouts of the various guests.

A pretty cool morning.

Technorati Tags: avonlea, prairiesouth, jeffutecht, tinasteele, sharonpeters, barrydahl, paulhamilton, jeffboulton, jamesohagan, brianmull, susanmorgan

Powered by ScribeFire.

In creating the keynote for the Flat Classroom 2007 Project, I utilized chroma keying. Many seemed quite intrigued as to how I did it and although for most videographers, this is not a difficult or complicated task, for those entering into video editing it may seem a bit arduous. It’s not. This video demonstrates how I use chroma keying.

As I mention in my keynote and in this behind the scenes look, chroma keying has the WOW factor but with anything else it can be overused. I don’t claim to be an expert editor so for those with greater skill than I, excuse the rather crude editing and set up.

I think the potential for projects like Vicki’s and Julie’s would be to have students collaborate and create content that appears seamless;as if they were working in the same room.  I like the recent Gmail video as one example as well.

I used Viddler based on Chris Harbeck’s use and it serves as a nice interactive video tool. Go ahead and leave a comment on the video itself.

Technorati Tags: chromakey, greenscreen, flatclassroom, shareski, viddler

Powered by ScribeFire.

To illustrate the past 2 hours of my day have a look:

• 10:00 Began an Elluminate session with Jeff Utecht, his Plymouth State students, mine and Alec Couros
• 11:00 Clarence Fisher starts a chat session with me using Google Chat about his current visit to Moose Jaw. I invite him to talk to my students in a couple of weeks.
• 11:15 Session comes to a close as Jeff tells me his Skyping with Chris Lehmann…I send a chat message to Chris just to say hi
• 11:20 Tom Turner responds to an earlier “twit“  I posted about my golf swing…requesting the raw footage
• 11:25 edit and upload a 2 second clip to archive.org
• 11:25-11:45 Commenting on my students’ blogs
• 11:45 Comment on Christian Long’s image from today’s ball game
• 11:45 Preparing for an upcoming workshop on Digital Storytelling I check my del.icio.us feed to see a great digital storytelling resource by Alan found by Will

Connected and learning all the time. I’ve got a great crew working for me.

The idea of global citizenship is often a nebulous concept which gets bantered around the blogosphere but often lacks clarity or examples that truly define what it means. One of the best examples was this one from earlier this year.

Today while reading through my aggregator, I came across this story from Christian Long. (Christian is always a wealth of good stuff) So I quickly sent out an email to about 5 primary teachers in our division as an idea for their class. About 5 minutes later, Kathy emails me back:

Great idea, so great that we have already sent our cards.

No wonder Kathy has gained “rock star” status as a leader in developing global citizens. (she knows what I’m referring to). The opportunity for our students to connect and make a difference is unprecedented. Teachers who embrace this notion hardly discuss the issues of safety, danger of living in a global, digital world. It’s not that they don’t teach it, it just isn’t the focus anymore because the potential to make a difference is just too great.

On Monday evening, I’m going to be having a Skye call with my three of my favourite teachers and I think best examples of teacher’s developing global citizens: Kathy Cassidy, Clarence Fisher and Darren Kuropatwa. All three believe this to be a critical component of their classrooms and have many examples to share. I’ll be recording the conversation for a podcast.

In the meantime, why not send Shane a card.

[tags]shaneswish,christianlong,kathycassidy,darrenkuropatwa,clarencefisher[/tags]

In the past 5 days here are three videos impacting the world.

• The Machine is Us…read Jeff Utecht’s take
• Brian Crosby’s class….this is what technology is for
• Franklin Police…to catch a thief

If we still think reading and writing are the cornerstones of literacy, you might want to rethink that.