New Snacks4theBrain! Podcast Features NECC2007!

Hey! Just finished posting episode number 58 of Snacks4theBrain! and thought it might be good to let everyone know here. The 20 min. podcast features snippets from Peggy Sheehy, Kathy Schrock, and Chris Dede--all three of whom presented stellar talks at the National Educational Computing Conference in Atlanta, Georgia (Chris's excerpt is from his keynote the subsequent "online learning institute" tagged onto the tail end of NECC). Go visit the S4theB! blog to listen and learn more.

Oh, for those monitoring for news of the new podcast "uber-device" to which I alluded in my Windows Podcasting talk at NECC, the current news is that its release is set for October of this year. As soon as I have leave to let out more I promise I'll do so right here (though you'll probably hear of it elsewhere as well--it's too big an innovation to escape large press).

If you haven't already, check out and keep an eye on the developments that will blossom over at the Web 2.0 in Education's week-long workshop at the University School of Nashville next week.

Second Life NECC 2007 Birds of a Feather Video!!!

It's at the Scott in Second Life blog. Have at it! Oh heck, let's repost it here!

Thank you Zsuzsa Thomsen! You ROCK! I SAW you with that videocam. You did a great job of grabbing pieces of the hour and a half fun-fest that Jeremy and I did before he lost every electronic connection he had when his power went out from the San Antonio thunderstorm. It's always something!!!

Chris O'Neal at the "online learning institute"

Wow.

Chris O'Neal, University of Virginia, working with the Virginia Dept. of Education to provide professional outreach to teachers. He also teaches classes at UV and is pursuing his doctorate in Research and Evaluation. He also is presenting the Panel introduction to the second set of roundtables here at the ECB/SERB "online learning institute."

Some notes:

"If my 11 year old is so tech savvy, what about her little 4 year old cousin who's doing things Chloe didn't do until she was 8? The question I want to ask is "are we ready for these kids?"

Chris showed the video I shared with my teachers just three weeks ago, Mike Wesch's "The Machine is Us." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE .

I like him already.

Teachers need to ask these questions about 2.0 tools:

• applicability to classroom--content, needs, standards


• dependability


• ease of use


• student safety and information literacy


• teacher tech savviness and student media literacy


• copyright and fair use concerns


• tapping into the myspace mind
  

"The digital divide that we do have control over" is who gets computer time in school. What happens now is that the kids who have all the tech at home get the most computer time at school."

"You can have this whole PowerPoint if you want it. Just copy it, delete my name and add yours...I don't care."

Wikis offer collective editing--a whole roomful of teachers editing a document

http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

On Wikipedia, "the benefit of collective intelligence is also collective ignorance. Absolutely tell your students to use Wikipedia, but let's put it in the context of curriculum and tell the ppl who contribute to Wikipedia "Listen, the person who's coming after you is my 11 year-old so you better make sure your information is correct because she's going to research and correct it if it's not."

Losing track at the moment because I'm getting so into this talk. It will all be online at http://ecb.org/ within the week.

Okay, I'm Done!

Led what turned out to be a FABULOUS Birds of a Feather session with Jeremy Koester from San Antonio yesterafternoon. Followup from that experience will mostly be at the Second Life blog, but I can assure you a fun time was had by all (well, "most" anyway!).

I fnally feel like my "Windows Podcasting: Tips, Tricks, and sTragegies for Success" session today is fleshed out enough with talking points and resources for me to talk non-stop for 50 minutes without making a complete fool of myself. Going to take a walk through the conference center after uploading those resources to the ISTE site.

Most of what I'm sharing is now on my new de.licio.us page, so if you're busy elsewise feel free to learn from there!

Had planned to give away two flipvideo recorders but since they haven't arrived from the company yet that plan may be thwarted. I do have some books and other fun stuff from a commercial company that contacted me to offer them, as well as a Griffin iMic and perhaps a few other things, so come buy if you are feeling lucky!

Approaching Grantgivers: How to Write It, How to Sell It!

In the workshop led by charismatic Sheryl Abshire, sweat drippin' off me just like perspiration, since I took the wrong turn in my walk here, walked around the longest block in Atlanta, and ended up running part of the way in the already hot Georgia morning. Sheesh.

Sitting in a room with ten white linen-draped tables each populated by four or five teachers or administrators so interested in learning how to get some of the millions and millions of available grant dollars that they got up early on Sunday a.m. to come to this three hour seminar/workshop (heck I already told you I ran here) and I'm going to bullet some points as Sheryl talks:

• collaborate when you write grants--there's power in collaborative thinking


• think strategically and intentionally


• bring people into the process who have expertise in the field


• her district just got the million dollar Teaching History grant from the USDE


• review the literature and identify funders--this is hard but it's the easiest thing you'll do


• weave in a reference to successful research and or grant in the same field


• be a grant reader -- you can volunteer to read grants for local, state, or corporate grant-givers (the insight you will gain will make you an immeasurably better writer as well as help you find funders most likely to fund your project)


• often your grant doesn't have to be the best--if there are 20 to be awarded you're fine being the 20th best


• analyze the RFP (Request for Proposal) carefully


• follow format for submissions precisely -- if the RFP says 500 words, a proposal with 501 will be tossed out summarily, as will a .9 inch margin when a 1 inch margine is required


• get clarification if you need it (and if you don't--you're calling to chat people up makes you familiar to the grant-givers: Find someone who will talk to you!)
• Bubbles (Sheryl passed out bubbles and had the attendees blow them to illustrate how the grant-writers see the "roomful of grant applications" and emphasize that yours needs to be differentiated by precision and mission
• Clearly state who is applying (144 3rd and 4th graders at an independent K12 school and their collaborating students, 200 5th graders in Kobe, Japan)
• Cite prior successes, reframe earlier or ongoing projects
• Give the grant to a non-educator to ensure that it's jargon-free
• FUNDERS FUND GRANTS THAT ARE NEEDY BUT NOT DESPERATE--They will fund grants that they think have a chance for success and if you are hopeless and helpless the response is "I can't help them..."
• Your Needs Statement is precise and to the point, directly relates to the priorities of the district/school as well as those of the funders, is stated in terms of the student/staff to be helped (not the grant-writers'), makes no assumptions, and makes a compelling argument (the art of it)
• Objectives are clear statements of the outcomes expected--great description of the importance of connecting budget to objectives--readers color-code each objective and match budget items to each one and there had better be a balance and no objectives unmatched by a proportionate amount of budget items
• The budget is very specific
• If you include people in your grant be VERY careful--increases in health care, salary increases, etc. can well lose you staff mid-stream due to lack of research up front--check with your payroll person, etc.
• If your grand does not get funded do not give up, ask for readers' comments or ask for someone to call
• Look for rubrik and give it to your pre-reader to score it--you may have to ask for it
• You will never get a grant if you don't keep writing it

Notes for me:

issues--develop higher order thinking skills, improve access to technology for solving curriculum-based problems, Adult education--does it exist? are its methods the latest?, staff development,

(This post is currently in process--stay tuned)

Things are Heating Up for the Summer

I recently added a "Scott Merrick in Second Life" blog, just what I need, another blog to keep up with. But I feel it's important to parse off my interest in what's going on in Second Life from what's going on "irl" (in real life). Seriously, I think I need to find some new organizational software/program to help me prioritize everything I'm interested in--family, both my paying jobs, learning about teaching, teaching about learning, teaching, my NECC podcasting presentation, the new Computer Sciences department that is forming at my school, interactive videoconferencing, my summer workshop design and implementation (more on that later), distance learning, listening to music, playing music, reading, writing, and more: and that's just in my first life!

So visit the SL blog for what's going on there--there's a lot happening at NECC2007 in both first life and second. I'll keep track of each at its appropriate blog. Sheesh!

NECC 2007 Presentation! Come to Atlanta!

Hey, just updating about my NECC2007 presentation acceptance! NECC is the International Society for Technology in Education's annual get-together of over 10,000 teachers, techies, and school administrators and it's always rewarding to go. This year I'll be all over the place, so Skype me "scottmerrick" if you need me but if you really want to see me workin' a room I'll be in a room "tba Mid-May" on Tuesday, 6/26/2007, from 3:30pm– 4:30pm presenting a workshop session called Podcasting with Windows: Tools, Tricks, and sTrategies for Success!

Clever title, eh? The brief marketing blurb ISTE asked for is: Just because we don't have that nifty GarageBand drag and drop stuff doesn't mean we can't podcast! Seasoned podcaster to teachers: You can start today!

And here's the session detail:

Participants will leave with the ability to seek and obtain various freeware or commercial products that work best for them--for their budgets, their software preferences, and their schedules. They will better understand just what podcasting is and how it has developed into a tool many educatonal institutions and school districts are utilizing in ways that could not have been imagined only a couple of years ago. Participants will leave with their curiousity piqued: How can I use this valuable technology to the benefit of my students? my teachers? my parent-base?

Participants with laptops will no doubt begin to access the tools before the session is complete.

A broad survey of tools both commercially available and freely downloadable will be provided, along with URLs and links to reviews and tutorials. These will include podcast aggregators like iPodder Lemon, iTunes, Juice, and many others, plus resources to sites that catalog and review these. Several microphone options will be shared, as well as hardware options for remote (off-computer) recording, such as a Pocket PC, an iPod with Griffin iTalk, and a digital voice recorder; and recording and compression software solutions will be demonstrated, including Audacity and Adobe Audition. The process of mixing a multi-track podcast using one of these tools will be demonstrated (these skills translate well from one piece of software to another).

Details of just how the Windows podcaster can upload a file to a school web server will be touched upon and demonstrated, using ftp protocol, and the process of creating a feed will be demonstrated using the free service at feedburner.com in conjunction with the free blogging service at blogger.com. These processes are the final step in making one’s podcast public and as such are very necessary. A discussion of several “automatic” services that offer to simplify the process will be offered, along with their pertinent URLs.

An educational podcast does not need to be just a spoken message or lecture. One approach to keeping one’s podcast interesting to a broad range of listeners is to include independent music as one of its features. A great deal of good independent music is available to all podcasters, free for use without royalty payments; and those resources will be shared and demonstrated, including the Podsafe Music Network at music.podshow.com and the commercial site magnatune.com (“we are not evil”).

Participants will also leave with target list of useful educational podcasts they can explore on their own to see just how innovative educators all over the world have begun to take the discussion of educational best practices, technology, and reform more public than at any other time in our history.

Examples from my own podcast, currently 46 shows [Make that 52 as of this post!]and going strong, Snacks4theBrain! will be shared as evidence of the successful application of these tools and strategies.

Come see me in Atlanta! Cheers!