The Pace of Change

Quest for the Best

By bpace | August 27, 2008

In McDowell County we are currently going about the business of crafting our latest technology plan. Our quest is to make sure all teachers and students in McDowell County have access to the best learning tools, learning portals, and professional training in the world at all times. This is not mission impossible. This quest for the best is absolutely possible if we craft and cultivate a simple to understand and communicate plan to:

• effectively deploy easy to use one-to-one mobile computing devices
• actively develop and harness free and safe global curriculum, learning and assessment portals
• wisely source global mentors, tutors and trainers to be available anytime students and teachers need them.

Highly-qualified and specialized mentors and tutors are now available twenty-four hours a day through programs such as Futures for Kids, LearnNC eMentors, and TutorVista™. Our teachers and students should have devices and portals allowing always-on access to these kinds of resources.

In McDowell County, we have implemented many district-wide technology integration projects including NCWISE, multimedia projectors in every classroom, IMPACT Model implementation, fiber wide-area network, and Interwrite Schoolpad™ and document camera adoption. We are proud of the positive effects these projects have had on instruction, but we realize our teachers and students need more access to consume and share digital content, more access to always-on tutoring and mentoring, more access to global resources, and more hands-on learning opportunities to be widely and wildly successful. Personally, I believe the one-to-one program recently started at McDowell Early College has the most potential to create a hugely successful, student-centered, global learning environment.

If we succeed in crafting and cultivating a simple to understand and communicate plan focused on the three bullets above I believe it is possible to “make learning irresistible” for all students and teachers in McDowell County. Given our two decades of declining competitive advantage I’m not sure we can afford to do anything less.

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Asia Society - North Carolina Strengths and Challenges

By bpace | July 12, 2008

Thoughts on North Carolina strengths and challenges - group meeting with large North Carolina delegation of approx 41 individuals who attended the innaugural Asia Society - Putting the World in World-Class Education conference.

Strengths:

VIF has a template for internationalizing your school.
Onslow County Schools began a Latin Immersion program about four years ago. Begins with an intense two day workshop for teachers.
Center for International Understanding - Pilot at Carolina Forest Elementary School in cultural correspondence using Elluminate technology. This is to be expanded to Clyde Erwin. Also piloting this in McDowell, Henderson, and Wake.
Onslow representative Robert Grady is an incredible international/global citizen. Huge advocate for international education.
CIU (Raleigh), VIF (Headquarters in Chapel Hill), SPLASH, Worldview (Chapel Hill).
Charlotte/Meck has Cindy Moss, Ph.D. leading work on Internationalizing STEM.
CMS has also started a Model U.N. project. Some high schools doing and enjoying Model U.N. Simulation as a club, but some are teaching it as a class.
Appalachian State University, UNC-C and UNC-CH host a Model U.N. conference.
Implementing CHOICES program in a few districts.
Military bases/communities provide access to tremendous international knowledge.
Friday Institute 1:1 pilot at Early Colleges to provide access to tools.
Some teachers are beginning to start using free Elluminate V-Rooms.
Some districts beginning to sign up for iEARN.
Civic organizations like Kiwanis and Rotary.
Large international business presence.
National Resoure Center
The fact that the SBE has already outlined future-ready goals.
Research Triangle Park
ISSN Schools experience.
Schools/Academies within schools in some areas (Some with International Studies focus
University system.
Worldview international trips for teachers program.
Sister schools partnerships.
New Schools Project.
Public School Forum of North Carolina.
SBE funding for partnerships with China.
Free access to the Confucious Institute resources online (Michigan State University).
Free access to Sesame PANWAPA.

Challenges:

U.S. History SCOS makes it difficult to have time for Internationalized simulations like CHOICES.
Policy makers are just now starting to understand the importance of international understanding.
Parents, typically, don’t yet value international understanding.
Access to video-conferencing/web-conferencing is still sparse.
Teachers don’t have time to learn to use web-conferencing/webcams.
SCOS doesn’t yet address the new goals of the SBE.
Internationalization seems like just another fad to some teachers.
Finding world-language teachers is very difficult.
Funding!
Time for professional development.
The fact that we teach languages in high school and not K-8.
Phobias
Parallelling globilization with the curriculum.
Funding for travel.
Support and buy-in from leaders.
Class size.

In many ways North Carolina, along with Wisconsin, is on the cutting edge of globalizing education, just for two few students. We need to continue to work hard to expand global learning to all of our students.

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Asia Society - ZON and PANWAPA

By bpace | July 11, 2008

This session showcased two new global and game-based learning opportunities for elementary students…

The Confucious Institute at Michigan State University has created a video game simulation to help students learn Chinese. The game is called ZON.

You advance in wealth in the game through acquisition of language skills.

45% of 10 year olds in the U.S. own or have regular access to a cell phone.

Sesame is now for the first time more focused on digital media than on television production. Very few digital programs aimed at 3-11 year olds has a specific educational focus.

Sesame has a new virtual world for 3-11 year olds called PANWAPA - “where kids shape the world”.

International Children’s Digital Library - ICDL - 150,000 pages of digitized books

Sesame Street Chinese is now being tested.

Sesame is working on building a Global Elementary Model:
(Asia Society, Cooney Center, Mott Foundation, iEARN, Apple ALI)
Learn more here… www.joanganzcooneycenter.org

iEARN was also a focus of this presentation.

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Asia Society - Internationalizing STEM

By bpace | July 11, 2008

Live blogged…

Presentation by Cindy Moss, Ph.D., Director of Science and Math, Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System.

By 2012, 90% of the world’s scientists and engineers will live and work in Asia. (NSF Indicators 2008)

U.S. was near the bottom of OECD countries in PISA scores in all categories in 2003.

Using global problems makes science and math relevant…

Examples: Environmental issues - GLOBE - International scientific endearvor.

“Kids love to share data with their international counterparts!!!”

- Cindy Moss, Ph.D.

Thomson Gale has a Global Issues Database.

New program - Engineering is Elementary (Produced by Boston Museum of Science) www.mos.org/eje

Information about STEM colleges… www.edtrust.org

Presentation by David D. Molina, Ph.D., ISSN Mathematics Consultant…

A Framework for Mathematics in a Curriculum Focused on a Global Perspective.

What mathematics do students need to know to solve complex problems in a complex world?

Because the world consists of situations, events and phenomena that can be represented, described, or quantified we need to design a mathematics curriculum from a global perspective. For example spherical geometry is important to understanding how global positioning systems work. Probabillity and statistics is usually reserved for only the few students who take an AP statistics course.

Bringing in local business and industry and better yet taking math and science teacher out to the business and industry on workdays may be the key to increasing the teachers global and curricular perspective.

Rich interdisciplinary units may be the way to go, but require teachers to have planning time together.

Global Scholar is a tool to assess where kids are.

The key to STEM may be getting science and math teachers to work together to help kids learn from a global perspective.

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Asia Society - Simulations Bring Diplomacy to Life

By bpace | July 11, 2008

Stepping into the role of a diplomat…

This is the first Asia Society - Putting the World in World-Class Education Conference. This session focused on globablizing content and curriculum through simulations.

Through assuming the role of an international diplomat students learn the art of negotiation while garnering an understanding of their global environment.

CHOICES Education Program - A program of the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. CHOICES began in 1988 to combat the fact that American students don’t have a good international understanding. Their goal is to create a more informed and more engaged American public. The method is to bridge scholars who know content with teachers who know students.

At the core of all CHOICES units is a framework of “choices” or policy options - set up as a role play or simulation.

Students enter into a simulation as a citizen of different countries and at different moments in time. The simulations require students to research and become experts on the information because at the table they have to be knowledgeable in order to resolve conflicts and understand the nuances of the issues in order to negotiate their countries best interests.

Simulations are great for kinesthetic learners. Diplomat simulations are also great for helping students experience making decisions that impact others.

Simulations usually take time to complete. Students also need time to debrief.

One popular genre of diplomatic simulations… “Global Environmental Problems”.

Potential Presidential Advisory Panel Group Roles:
Group Director
Economist
Scientist
Domestic Policy Analyst
Foreign Plicy Analyst

Other students assume role of president/presidential cabinet until it is their groups time to present. Simulation leader/teacher comes up with 3-5 options/perspectives such as “Put the Economy First” for each student group to assume. Each student group supports their “perspective”.

Learn more about simulation units created by Susan Graseck, Founding Director, Choices for the 21st Century Education Program, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University online… www.choices.edu

We need to carve out more time in schools for serious simulations. I would love to see more simulations across districts and countries through web-conferencing.

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NECC 2008 One-to-One Seamless Integration

By bpace | June 30, 2008

Live blogged…

Howard Levin, from The Urban School of San Francisco, is doing a wonderful job showing practical benefits of 1:1. He is currently explaining how students are now working on their lab reports after hours and their lab reports are so much better and deeper because of all the tools they have at their disposal.

Howard is now indicating that the area of production (end product) is the real key area in which he sees the huge advantage of a 1:1 environment and the laptops absolutely do not stunt creativity. In many cases the media project is traditional like hand drawn art work. The students used their laptops for inspiration, to videotape friends to find the perfect still picture to work from, to compare their work, to ask for feedback along the way by taking digital photos of their canvas, and by recording and sharing their thoughts with others working on similar projects. Some students consulted with professional artists.

Moving on to animations in science. The students enjoyed creating computer animations for messenger DNA. These were just like you would do with clay, but the difference is that students can then break down individual frames one by one later and talk about mistakes and successes and then share their work with the world.

Howard believes that human writing is moving to speech-to-text. The laptops allow students with physical disabilities to compose research papers as fast or faster than their peers.

His students post to TellingStories.org

To learn more about Howard’s work go to UrbanSchool.org

This was a great session with many visual examples.

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NECC 2008 Technology Policy Workshop

By bpace | June 29, 2008

Dr. Larry S. Anderson is the founder and director of the National Center for Technology Planning.

Ice breakers from Dr. A…

“When you are on the phone with someone and you want to hang up hang up while you’re talking.”

“You are never late for today you are always early for tomorrow.”

“Good technology plans should be one page in length.”

Group think: Today’s top policy issues for which a technology policy may be needed.
1. Electronic Stored Information Retention
2. Employee Code of Ethics
3. Acceptable Use Policy
4. Policy Addressing Use of Personal Electronic Devices
5. Internet Blocking Policy
6. Computer Related Discipline
7. Network Security
8. Technology Standards for Employees
9. Computer Forensics Policy
10. One-to-one laptop/device Policy
11. Employee Privacy
12. Student Privacy
13. Training/Professional Development Policy
14. Appropriate Use Policy
15. Copyright Policy
16. Funding Policy
17. Differentiation Policy
18. Student Email Policy
19. Donations
20. Life-cycle Upgrades/Disposal of Equipment
21. Passwords
22. Domains
23. Remote Access Policy
24. Software Installation Policy
25. Personal Storage Devices
26. Online Testing Policy
27. Release of Directory Information
28. Equipment Checkout
29. Procurement Policy
30. Distance Education Policy

Policy doesn’t always have to be viewed negatively. Policy can serve as a guiding light. Good policy guides more than it restricts. A well written policy should enable.

Resource: http://www.naace.org/impict/lc-policy.html

Good technology policy may be the hardest to write because the technologists are often unaware of the policy implications of the technologies they create and policymakers are often unfamiliar with the technologies they regulate.

All public school policies belong to the school board.

An example of a better Acceptable Use Policy: (”Not perfect of course.”)
http://portal.sjcs-savannahga.org/sjs_aup.htm

Dr. A recommends everyone have a RUP instead of an AUP. (”Responsible Use Policy”)

Students do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse door. (Tinker 1969 armband case sets precedent.)

Be very careful about using the word “will” in policy.

Other Anderson collected resources: http://www.backflip.com/members/lsanderson

Dr. Anderson has a podcast. Think Like A Leader

A great resource: http://www.CTAP4.org/cybersafety/

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NECC 2008 Web 2 Smackdown

By bpace | June 28, 2008

Here are the tools explained during the smackdown at Edubloggercon 2008…

1. www.polleverywhere.com use cell phones to create a student response system for free using SMS text messaging. Carrier charges apply.

2. www.chacha.com - call ChaCha and ask a question and ChaCha will text message back an answer in anywhere from 20 seconds to 5 minutes. No charge except for the carrier charges for text messaging. Similar to Google 411.

3. Animoto - create professional looking music video fast - free professional version for educators.

3. PicLens - allows you to take a set of pictures or videos from Flickr or Youtube and create a photo wall.

4. Coveritlive - allows multiple amazing ways to cover an event or presentation and involve others.

5. Qik - live streaming via your cell phone

6. Mogulus - like having an entire TV studio with multiple cameras. See www.edstream.tv as an example.

7. Handipoints - kids can earn points for completing tasks and parents or teachers can grade them on the task. Great for elementary/primary students. Kind of like a personal daily report card.

8. Diigo - Ability to add bookmarks quickly to multiple blogs or twitter accounts or for groups of people.

9. Secondlife - education islands.

10. Webcast Academy - learn how to webcast.

11. MakeBeliefsComix - drag aAnd drop to create comics. Kids do not have to login to this site.

12. Ajax IM Lessons - Teaching students IM technology.

13. Doodle.ch - Identify the dates and times that a large group of people can best pick to meet.

14. TimeBridge - works best if you use Google Calendar.

15. Tag Galaxy - this is very cool. Pull pictures tagged in Flickr with a certain keyword onto a virtual globe for presentation.

16. Chatterous - Backchannel chat.

17. Exalead - Search engine that previous pages visual before you click.

18. Plurk - Like twitter but on a visual timeline.

And many more discussed in backchannels. Here is the wiki for the Web2Smackdown.

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NECC 2008 - Moodle and More

By bpace | June 28, 2008

Spending morning in Moodle and More workshop. Presenter’s Carmalita Bieniek and Jeanne Myers from NYC are modeling embedding video in Moodle to make the course more appealing to visual learners. One of the course topics was called A Vision. Here is the YouTube video they used to begin that course topic/forum/chat in the Moodle course.

Youtube will suggest other related videos when this one ends.

Carmalita is now explaining how she likes to turn on the glossary feature and ask the students to create a live multimedia enhanced dictionary for each course. They like to call it the “Interactive Living Growing Glossary”. Teachers can use a rubric to grade/credit student contributions.

Another suggestion is that whenever you are facilitating a completely online course require registration and keep the enrollment key - in case someone questions copyright you can prove fair use.

Here are resources Carmalita has tagged onlinelearning using Del.icio.us.
Here are resources Carmalita has specifically tagged moodle.

North Carolina State University is transitioning from Blackboard to Moodle.

Jeanne recommends teaching teachers to embed social bookmarks, twitter, etc. into Moodle blocks so that teachers can visualize ways they can communicate with students really quickly using their Moodle pages.

Carmalita recommends the book Moodle Magic.

Here is the Moodle Ning social network.

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Topics: Visual Learners, Web 2.0, education | 1 Comment »

NECC 2008 Riverwalk Architecture

By bpace | June 27, 2008

Finally made it to San Antonio after a series of delayed Delta flights (mechanical issues :-(). Took a picture taking walk on the Riverwalk. The architecture and landscaping truly is beautiful. Here is my quick Architectural Pictorial of the Riverwalk on Flickr…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barrypace/sets/72157605843523380/

Planning to work in a trip to the Alamo and possibly dinner at the famous County Line BBQ before heading over to the ISTE Affiliates Reception tonight.

Also considering UStreaming some sessions if the presenters are willing and maybe hosting a Fireside Chat in Elluminate on tuesday night. If others are interested let me know.

Also waiting to read my wife’s blog post for today. She has recently started blogging and is quite the wordsmith, especially compared to me :-).

By the way, for those attending NECC and staying downtown, Hippo’s is about your only choice for a grocery store. Nearest chain grocery store is six miles out.

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