A Reply,

I'm doing double duty here by pasting an email response to my dear brother Ed in the hopes of updating everyone. There will certainly be more to follow. :O


Hey, Let's talk today. I'm at Metro this morning getting fingerprinted, etc. and processing paperwork. Basically, I've accepted a non-teaching but certificated (licensed) position as "Virtual Learning Curriculum Specialist" for Metro Nashville Public Schools. In this newly designed position I'll be responsible for reviewing and implementing course content for the new virtual high school and I'm hitting the ground running, fleshing out coursework for the 10 full-time students my colleague and supervisor, Kecia Ray, the Director of Instructional Technology at MNPS, has lined up for enrollment starting Aug. 16. Florida Virtual School is a district of itself and served 150,000 students last year, and we can expect our student population to be growing quickly. 


This will be a chance to serve kids for generations by designing a school that takes from the best established practices and builds a model that incorporates better ones, including virtual worlds in some guise. I'm buzzed. It took Lee Ann and me a week to sort out this decision once the job was offered, and now I'm committed. I'll be packing up my possessions and leaving 14 years of memories behind at USN this week and moving into my little cubicle at Martin Professional Development Center by Eakin School off Hillsboro Village, which will be the locus of my work for a good long while. Wish me luck. 

Let's also look for cooler weather. I have a voucher for airfare from the cancellation of my DC/Nashville flight last week. I'm thinking fish, one soon fall weekend. What are you thinking?

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 11:02 PM, Edwin Merrick  wrote:

Anxious to hear about your new job.

ISTE NETS-S in 3D

Hey, ya'll,

I have been remiss in sharing a project I put up one day in ReactionGrid that I hope will provide an interesting destination for teachers interested in learning and teaching in virtual worlds. I did share it briefly at ISTE10 in Denver, CO at the SIGVE Virtual Environments Playground, but I think a few pics online would be a nice addition to the shareout.

This build displays the standards outline for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), which those of us who follow and utilize this kind of thing know as ISTE NETS. There are three "National Educational Technology Standards" sets, one for students (NETS-S) and one each for Administrators and Teachers, each substituting the appropriate letter for the -S in their acronyms.

See them all here.

And now you can visit a visual representation of them in ReactionGrid, the OpenSimulator-based virtual world that has become a staple of my online explorations. Disclaimer: the owners of this beautiful and functional world are becoming friends of mine, so I'm biased as can be in favor of this platform. If Linden Lab took a few cues from their personalized, helpful, and proactive style of service for educators (or for anyone, for that matter), they would ensure the future of Second Life, a future which has come under considerable speculation lately. Don't get me wrong: I love Second Life. Our Special Interest Group for Virtual Environments networks in there and shares fascinating professional development opportunities in a monthly SIGVE Speaker Session every third Tuesday of every month (taking a break for August as teachers get back into the swing of the school year. It's just that the recent elimination of 30% of their employees included, apparently, anyone interested in fostering an education market. We continue on in spite of, not with the help of, Linden Lab. We hope for positive change, as usual.

But I digress. Surprised?

Here are a few pics from the ReactionGrid project, hosted on ISTE Island 1. When you first login to Reaction Grid, look at "Places" on the login screen and choos ISTE Island 1. When you visit, please know that you are invited to visit ISTE's new headquarters on ISTE Island 2 (teleport at the standards build), part of a new project for that organization. And while you're there, feel free to add resources at each level of the standards that illustrate ways to implement them. Don't be afraid to hit the Build button and share away!

View from above

Close up of one standard--fly through and enjoy the view

A side view

An example of one resource for one standard: add your own!

Am I Delusional? Apple Summer Learning Institute Shines in the Closet

Okay.

So I just got finished with the two days that comprised the Apple Summer Learning Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. It was not an invited conference, though I was invited as a "Teacher of the Future" from the National Association of Independent Schools. Anyone who knew about it could pay a fee and attend. There are around a hundred? Maybe? attendees. As a learning experience for the educators in attendance, it was great and the conference organizers and presenters all did a fantastic job. All that said, one would soooo expect the organizers and the attendees to be savvy about collaborative arenas and online platforms.

Not the case. I set up a twitter hashtag, but I don't see any way to get it to the participants and if no one's using it but me that's all you get with a search. Since the event is the "Boston Apple Summer Learning Institute" for teachers, the tag I made up is #basli,10 and there ya go. Searching around, I did find this one brief but thoughtful post from a principal who attended the separate session for his ilk two days prior to the one for teachers.

The conference organizers made no concerted effort to share any means of online collaboration. This is Apple, ya'll. They should know better.

The problem, of course, is that they do. And they're choosing not to support this arena of collaboration or allow us to continue the dialog outside of their staged event. Is that because Apple doesn't have a competitive (to twitter) microblogging platform? I don't know. I shudder to contemplate. I've learned a lot here. Sadly, I have little venue to share it.

When I say "us" above I mean the people at the conference of course, but also the people in my PLN who share my notions about how the current (agrarian, teacher-directed) models have failed our students and how serious rethinking is in order. You may not be one of them, but you got to this page, so you may have some interests that flow along this stream.

I met a bunch of change-committed teachers in my BASLI experience, and I'm grateful to NAIS for sending me, but seriously, now, are we here yet, or are we stuck in the last decade? There is no reason for a conference like this to isolate itself outside the robust discussion that gets carried on through social media every day of every week.

Apple, think about the Global Share. I think it will benefit your message and your profit line.

Apple Summer Learning Institute in Boston

I'm at the Apple Learning Institute for Teachers for two days of learning for teachers in Boston, MA, at the lovely Colonnade Hotel. I'll try to post here as I go, maybe liveblog it if the arrangement and access seem just right. I'm a PC guy at heart, or at least I am now, and I'm wondering if the experience these two days will "turn" me. We'll see. Most likely, if you're interested, I'll be tweeting and Facebooking and sharing in other ways, so if you're one of my PLN, be on the lookout. 

Virtual Environments Playground Walkthrough

Hola, ya'll,

I'm cleaning up my laptop after travel to Denver for ISTE10 and my wonderful experience with friends and colleagues from all over the country, nay, all over the world.

I'm also preparing for my trip to Boston Wednesday for Thursday and Friday's Apple Summer Learning Institute for teachers. I'll certainly be sharing from there.

In the course of my cleanup, I discovered a number of fun little video snippets that I will store and share as I find useful. Here's the first, a walkthrough of the Virtual Environments Playground on Tuesday. I'd just finished sharing what was going on there with Jan Zanetis of ISTE Live, videoconferencing out to several locations nationally, and at one point in this video you can see Jan continuing to interview one of our attendees for the remote audiences. I think this does a pretty good job of capturing the feel of the event, which lasted for three days, beginning Monday morning, June 28, at 8 a.m. and wrapping up at 1 p.m. Wednesday. Walk through with me...

Tools for the 21st Century

This came across my laptop screen in my ramblings this morning and it looks so good I want to share it. I use most of those tools myself and if the author's introduction to Twitter is any indication of the rest of the ebook's quality, you need to read it and share it!

Cheerio,
Scott

Open publication - Free publishing - More 21st century

Thank You, Jane Wilde!

Jane, 
you as you know are largely responsible for our astonishing success. I hesitate to say that when we have another day (or, pleasantly, it feels like a half day) of sharing and learning, but I feel pretty confident we're onto a model that works. Maybe we can collaborate on a good long article L&L will pick up, or for some other venue. Extending the sharing of the sharing.

Today I'm out early at 8:30 for the panel discussion "Distance Learning Comes of Age" and I'll be sitting on the panel sharing our success very briefly as well as sharing some details of our successful distance event coordination. What's the name and venue for your paper in Toronto? I'd love to share that as well.

We'll debrief after your rousingly successful paper presentation. If you ever, and I mean EVER, need any help from me just hear that old "You've Got a Friend" song in your head and pick up your cellphone and just call on me.

Wow.

Much love from Denver and always everywhere,

Scott, and on behalf of SIGVE

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 12:12 AM, Esme Qunhua  wrote:

Hi there Scott,
Wow! I am amazed by what we have accomplished in the past two days.  We have had our share of "tech-happens." But even the variety of glitches have been interesting and kind of funny. I mean, what can you do when the basic building instructor can't log on, and even if she could wouldn't be able to rez stuff. (Note: This was due to a Linden Lab database issue that developed at the time of the final presentation by Cindy Burton on Tuesday).

So many of the presentations have been inspiring.  The amount of content that has been shared in such a compressed time period has been awesome.  Please share my appreciation with your volunteers.

Esme

--
Esme Qunhua/Jane Wilde
Geek
Faculty, Marlboro College Grad Center
Marlboro College Graduate School

Invitation to Participate and to Learn!

Hello, ya'll,

I'm spending this day packing for ISTE 2010 and the surrounding two weeks in Denver and helping to prep the house for our house sitter, typing out "away lists" for our good close neighbors, and checking in and out of various online platforms to make sure none of the elements in our complex planning for the SIGVE Virtual Environments Playground have gone derailed. I'm keeping light on my virtual feet, dancin' like a butterfly and stingin' like a bee.

I want to invite any and everyone to keep abreast of our work in Denver by frequenting the links below, especially between June 26 and June 30. After that I'll be laying around and having family fun in Denver 'til the 7th of July, when we return home. I'll be off out to Boston July 21 by myself for the Apple Learning Institute, and I'm sure that by then I'll have a great deal more to share.

To put things in perspective, we have put together 35 live presentations over 3 days, mostly a half hour each, back to back, the entire run of the Playground, starting Mountain time 8 a.m. Monday morning, June 28 and running up to Playground closure Wednesday, June 30, at 1 pm. In the playground is a small presentation stage, a table station with 8 hardwired-to-a-dedicated-subnetwork Macbooks, and there are 4 hardwired Earthlink PCs stationed at tables around the room. At any given time there's likely to be a Playground Poobah or other helper at one of these machines to help you learn about how the 3D internet and 3D virtual worlds can make your teaching and your learning more effective, more relevant, and more...fun. There. I said the "f" word. An LCD projector will be displaying presenter slides, inworld tours and demonstrations of (and from) various worlds on a Promethean Board, and casual seating will allow visitors to plop down and login to anywhere they wish via conference wireless.

Here are the key places to check for ISTE SIGVE fun and learning:

The SIGVE Wiki
is the official nucleus for the International Society for Technology in Education and it includes schedules, updates, links, and resources surrounding our growing community's work in the arena of learning and teaching in virtual worlds. If you're an educator, even if you are not an ISTE member, I invite you to join this wiki and to add to its exponentially increasing value. The global community of educators (and students) involved in this work can use your expertise, and ISTE's wiki platform makes it easy to share.

The ISTE SIGVE Playground ustream
will, bandwidth cooperating, be the place where live video from within the SIGVE Virtual Environments Playground can be found during scheduled Playground hours. That's (Mountain Time) 8:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Time Zones made easy for ISTE SIGVE Pg
will help you translate our local Mountain Time into your own local time if you are not in Denver or in the Mountain Time Zone.

To my Playground co-facilitator Lisa Linn, to my inworld Grand Poobah Jane Wilde, to Marianne and to Rosie and to Julie and to Noreen and to Kelly and to the erstwhile Andy, to Terra and to Wanda and to everyone else who knows they've worked hard enough for the old guy to have had the wherewithal to remember to type their name here but didn't, and to all those other colleagues who are invested in SIGVE but haven't yet taken advantage of the opportunity to contribute (and I know that you will!) please, ya'll, please offer your congratulations and gratitude along with my own.

I hope you can find time to join us and to take advantage of the work that dozens of folks, all volunteers, all working from their divergent geographical locations over the past 9 months or so, have put into crafting our event for ISTE 2010. We gift, to you, the ISTE SIGVE Virtual Environments Playground!