Last share from the THE Journal Thing, I Promise

Howdy, and happy Friday.

I realize I've shared, perhaps overshared, the various elements resulting from my selection as June, 2014's "Education Innovator of the Month" at T.H.E. Journal, but I'm so pleased with the several ways this honor has presented for me to share the work I do on a daily basis (usually here and elsewhere I'm chasing other treasures and sharing them, like virtual environments and ISTE) that I want to share here just the .ppt that underscores the webinar presented by EdWeb.net on June 26, just after the release of the monthly online publicaton.

That webinar can be seen at http://home.edweb.net/starting-maintaining-virtual-school/ and the .ppt contains links for follow-up that I mentioned during that hour of yammering. If you just want to mine the links, dive on into...

"Innovator" Reflections, Part 4

Thanks for tuning in, and in advance (as well as in retrospect), my apologies for long posts. Prose has always been my downfall.

So in connection with my being chosen as "Education Innovator of the month at THE Journal, a leading educational technology publication, I'm writing here another little reflection on something I have done over the almost two decades during which I have defined myself as a teacher, something innovative that I can reasonably claim to have "innovated." A bit more evidence of my "innovativicity" (there, I just innovated that term, though I'm not really happy with it) than I'll cover in either my upcoming edutalkradio show or my EdWeb webinar next week. Here are dates and times:

Education Talk Radio (will be linked there Thursday, June 19, and live at 11:00am CDT).
Starting and Maintaining a Virtual School, Thursday, June 26, at 3pm CDT. You can register now!

I struggled a bit for today, thinking I might share something called "SLedupotential," a 3 hour "9 educators from 9 states" event that shared some groundbreaking work in virtual environments, back at NECC in 2008. But I'll save that one and get to another virtual worlds experience, my work with 4th graders in Indiana University funded "Quest Atlantis." Quest Atlantis, re-imagined as Atlantis Remixed, now resides at Arizona University, along with its creator, Dr. Sasha Barab.

My dear friend Bron Stuckey (whom I first met in Second Life, btw) was then Quest Atlantis's international face, coming to NECCs and trotting around the globe sharing its successes and challenges; its student-centered, social responsibilities-focused, plain and simple fun; and its educational validity with anyone who would listen. In 2009, I brought my first 4th graders into Quest Atlantis, after training as a teacher online within the platform (my teacher was none other than Bron) and performing the detailed permissions-getting/registering and account creation requirement to include my students in the Questers. Here's part of a blog post from my computer lab:

 USN Lower School Technology blog at http://usnlstech.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html:

This morning (Tuesday, January 27th) marked the first 4th graders' (Ms. Hunt's class) entrance into Quest Atlantis. My goal this week is just to hand out the usernames and passwords I've set up for the kids and to have them log in and begin to become comfortable with the user interface. Though the initial distribution process (handing out slips of paper to the kids with the information printed from a spreadsheet) was a bit clunky, we got in, and we didn't crash the internet connection! Yay! I did meet our network administrator in the hallway afterward and he said there was some slowing down, and we'll be testing over this week to see if I need to perhaps stagger the logins during that period more than I did today.

4th graders in Quest Atlantis!

The kids did GREAT! I asked them to find me at the clocktower and they did, then they moved about the OTAK island exploring and laughing. The excitement in our lab was palpable. This is looking good, very good, and look for ongoing communication about the process. Here's a picture of some of our virtual citizens in their "n00bie" shorts and teeshirts.

Over the rest of the school year, and into the following one, my students quested, explored,  leveled up, and learned. One of the most compelling reasons to take your students into Quest Atlantis is its foundational commitment to what they call the seven critical dimensions. Each element of every quest is designed to reinforce understanding of one or more of these. Here's a graphic screengrabbed from a portion of their Mission Statement:

If you can argue against 4th graders spending time immersed in those concepts and soaking them up into their core value systems, you're a better (and potentially vastly more evil) rationalizer than am I. 

So this Quest Atlantis experience is not something I made up, but making the effort and taking the time to bring it all into our K-4 computer lab, I would argue, qualifies as innovation. It resulted in many moments of epiphany and beauty in that learning and teaching experience, and I'll share one on my way out today. Louie and Gabe, one the son of a highly prominent rock-and-roll songwriter performer, the other the son of a schoolteacher, had risen in skills to the level at which they could modify their avatars. Take a good look at the picture and its insert, rasta hair and all, they made themselves twins. In the physical world they never could have done this, but in the virtual one, surrounded by meaningful positive experiences that they themselves have chosen from among the many available, they are twins. Life(s) is good...

Thanks for reading. More later!

"Innovator" Reflections Part 3

So, okay, I'm going out of order. Sort of. But one of my most exciting and magical innovations was devising and implementing SLedupotential at NECC 2008. That, of course, was back when ISTE called it's conferences the "National Educational Computing Conference."

All right, I'm lying again. I'll be a good boy and save SLedupotential for another post in this series.

Did I mention Snacks4theBrain? Yes I did, last post. Working one day a week for the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach, I produced and published 84 (or maybe more) podcasts, each of which you can still access at iTunes, and I've spent a little time looking for references to it. Here's one in an article at the Vanderbilt Register from 2006: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/archived-news/register/articles/index-id=28948.html.

How did I even get into this? Well, as I recall, I had been listening to podcasts from the early days, from the irreverent "Soccergirl" to Richard Vobes' "The Vobes Show," a daily online offering from a glorious madman in England. I also subscribed to Adam Curry's podcast, where the early MTV vjay held forth from his Netherlands expatriat residence, earning him the moniker "the podfather," because he claims to have invented the genre. Podcasts, of course, are online resident audio files, and after some time listening to my favorites I thought, well, how about one dedicated to emerging science? And let's make it entertaining. And let's add some music. I used

One of my favorite podcasts, The Goodbeershow, featured folks sitting around a table at a watering hole in Muncy, Indiana talking with Jeffrey T. Meyers about the beer(s) they were sampling that night, and he featured live or recorded music along with the ribald discussion. As it turned out, I was able to sit in and contribute to two shows in Muncy and to host one at Yazoo Brew here in Nashville when Jeffrey was passing through town. What fun all that was.

I proceeded to establish a format. I would open with a standard recorded intro, describe what was to come, play some independent (read: "free") music, interview a working scientist about her or his work, play some more independent music, and mess around a bunch. I would plug the Center for Science Outreach and their good work, reference the website, and play around with sound effects like a crazy person. I worked first in CoolEdit Pro, then Adobe bought that software and I moved to Adobe Audition. Eventually I was working with the freeware Audacity. And eventually, after all that work, I called it quits when I left the CSO (described in the last post).

I was "in the Cat Bird Seat," as my father-in-law would say. I'd invented something, was able to produce it mostly at home every Monday whilst working for the CSO, run in for meetings when necessary, and everyone was happy. Best of all, I interviewed a bunch of brilliant people, pretending that I knew what I was doing and, almost unimaginably, getting away with it.

You know that Vanderbilt scientist the national news always breaks out when there's any kind of viral outbreak? Dr. William Shaffner? I interviewed him about the Swine flu. Check. You know David Warlick, brilliant front vanguard for change in education? I interviewed him and we became friends. Peggy Sheehy? Of Second Life Teen Grid reknown? Check, and dear friend. Steve Spangler, the modern-day Mr. Wizard? Check. It's all there at Snacks4theBrain. Still and always. They are archived in the Vanderbilt University Discovery Archive. Go listen to one and help keep the series alive. I'd appreciate it. Hint: The best way to do this is to "Save File" and listen locally. You may need to rename it, taking out some weird characters, before it works. Looks like they need to do some maintenance on their 2008 archives. Ha. The direct link in http://discoverarchive.vanderbilt.edu/handle/1803/3186 but I've already renamed it and made it available for you at the following:

Here's a link to one episode, my replay of an earlier Dr. William Shaffner interview, so if you have 30 minutes for some weirdness and fun, go for it. 

http://abcnews.go.com/meta/search/imageDetail?format=plain&source=http://abcnews.go.com/images/Health/FLU_Snapshot_William_Schaffner 

So yeah, that's something I'm proud of. Something else I made up. More "innovation," though I was just making things up. It's what I do.

So SLedupotential next post? Maybe. Maybe not...

Stay tooned.

"Innovator" Reflections Part 2

Even though I didn't label the last post "'Innovator Reflections' Pt. 1," I'm going with it henceforth . Yesterday, in connection with the upcoming release of my selection as "Innovator of the Month" of June 2014 with THE Journal, I said I'd post daily until I ran out, or at least until Thursday of next week, when my webinar entitled "Starting and Maintaining a Virtual School" will hit the 'netz live and then be archived. I have been reflecting on the innovations I'm most proud of and I'm going to lump two into this post at the risk of running out soon.

From 1999 to the middle of 2010, my main work took place in the computer lab at University School of Nashville, after having taught 3rd grade for 3 years there. In 2001, I was asked by Vanderbilt University to leave USN to work full-time as "Teacher in Residence" for the Vanderbilt University Office of Science Outreach. I had been recruited by Dr. Susan Kuner, with whom I had done some work in the then very infant stages of videoconferencing at Vanderbilt Virtual School (not really a virtual school, but rather its own videoconferencing outreach, a very early iteration from which I learned bushels).

I loved my job at USN and my beautiful daughter Miranda was attending school there, and with my amazing son Colin just starting there as well I didn't want to leave my kids, or my students, all ~360 of them, whom I saw each week in the lab. We worked out a deal--I would work Mondays at the OSO, and my classes at USN would be compressed into the remaining four weekdays. It was doable, and we done it. This went on through 2008-2009, when the grant funding supporting the position ran out and I was let go, gently and with genuine compassion, by the Director of the by then Center for Science Outreach, Dr. Virginia Shepherd. Ginny explained that with the newly minted School for Science and Math taking off so solidly, priorities had changed, and I silently added in my mind that they had discovered that they needed the funding they had been allocating to supporting a rogue, independent, innovator for their new project and more classroom teachers for this amazingly innovative project. Learn more about it at theschool.vanderbilt.edu.

All this to say that I had a blast working with the CSO, all the way from its foundations as the OSO. That's where I first met and worked with dear friends Dr. Kecia Ray, now President of the  International Society for Technology in Education, and Jan Zanetis, now CEO of the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration). Ginny Shepherd more or less let me make up things, and the two best things I made up were the "VIA Dyer" Interactive Videoconferencing series and "Snacks4theBrain," an 84 episode podcast from the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach. Let's briefly detail these.

VIA is an acronym I used to describe "Videoconference Interactions with Astronomers and the "Dyer" is simply Dyer Observatory at the top of a hill just outside of Brentwood, Tennessee. The double entendre, in that the interactions came "via," or "by way of" Dyer Observatory, was indeed intended. I do not recall how I first got hooked into Dyer, but I believe it was that the OSO had placed one of a couple dozen grant-purchased high-end videoconferencing codecs (hardware) in school around the MNPS school district and also one up at Dyer, and I first went up there to help them get it set up. There I met with a man who has become one of my closest friends, Rocky Alvey. He's a story unto himself, then Superintendent and now Director of the Observatory and truly a Renaissance Man.

Long story short, over the course of a couple of years I helped design the website for the Observatory, upon which they have built nicely, and we served up a couple dozen weekly and then bi-weekly interactions with students around the country. A classroom would sit together in front of their own codec, wherever they were, and I would set up the videoconferencing camera on an expert in the field of astronomy, and they would do a little presentation, often a PowerPoint that I would operate as the "next slide" guy, then answer questions from the remotely located peanut gallery. Here's a snapshot from the Internet Wayback Machine (a great resource) from 2004 and here's a pic of one of these interactions featuring former astronaut and then-Director of Dyer, Dr. Rick Chappel:

Producing VIA Dyer was as much a learning experience for me as for the students. That's why I did it, really, trying as I have since I became an educator to push the technology into the service of learning and teaching. Building that program, then reluctantly letting it go (though Rocky has not--see a 2013 videoconference video from Dyer!), was a learning experience for me that prepared me for what I'm doing now. I am thankful to Dr. Ginny Shepherd for believing in me enough to let me innovate, and for Rocky Alvey for being open enough, and innovative enough himself, to support and help develop VIA Dyer. Maybe THE Journal needs to hit up my man Rocky!

Okay, that's enough for this morning: I lied. I'll share "Snacks4the Brain!" tomorrow. It's a doozy of a story that requires more description than I have time for this morning. Got to shower and get in to today's work at MNPS Virtual School, where "We Never Close."

See ya (that will mean more when you hear some S4theB!: heck, if you're an auditory learner and want a preview, head on over to iTunes and grab some Snacks before checking in here tomorrow. It's a body of work, don'tcha know.

"Innovator" Reflections, Part 1 -- "Innovator of the Month" at THE Journal--Honored, I am.

It's been awhile. I've been very busy with my work and more. Putting up our Summer School program at MNPS Virtual School, getting ready for ISTE, preparing for an upcoming EduTalk Radio interview, prepping for a June 26 webinar for THE Journal, and living life with a wife whose entrepreneurial efforts at TinWings are maxing out her time and our world!

I've also been fishing:



Catfish at Marrowbone Lake from a rented canoe

So. An editor from THE Journal, a leading publication for technology in education, emailed a query to do a phone interview because "someone" had suggested I might be a likely candidate for their ongoing "Innovator of the Month" article. This was clear out of the blue for me, and I tentatively responded affirmatively. Any given month, we're innovating at my work, as the process of building a lasting, viable, and valid online public virtual school moves along its path.

I've done my share of innovating over the past couple of decades, once I found my own path, mid-life, as an educator. Back when I was teaching 3rd grade at University School of Nashville I collaborated with a friend newly found on ePals.com, Darrick Mosser, to build what they now call Project Based Learning between my 3rd graders in Nashville and his 4th graders in Japan. To do the videoconferencing part of this, I strung 50 feet of telephone line from the nearest telephone, in the office of the Learning Specialist, to my classroom, stringing it through the dropped ceiling tiles of the hallways and dropping it to my classroom Mac, on which I had installed CUSeeMe. The students met to meet their already established ePals penpals (Darrick's kids in an classroom overnight sleepover, brave man), and together we thought about what we were going to do over the coming months. We set out an interview project, focused on the time of America's Great Depression, and together brainstormed some questions everyone would ask their "elder," someone who had lived through that time. We decided everyone would produce a portrait of their elder and a portrait of themselves and write out their interview questions and their answers and we would publish this on the internet. Only then it was the Internet. We named our project "ElderQuest."

Finally, we set a date for another classroom sleepover when we would meet again to celebrate. We did, and I put up everything on the school's website (long taken down but archived somewhere on an old hard drive), and then we moved on to cursive writing. Those were the days, well before the Lower School moved on to standardize what was going on at the grade level at any time, all in the service of common practice. I don't think ElderQuest or something so organically developed would be possible today in any classroom, public or private, though I think it should be. Those were the days that the art of teaching trumped the dictated, orchestrated practice of it.

Anyway, I"m doing the EduTalk Radio show interview live on the 19th, this Thursday, and it's to be focused on my current work. What I intend to do each morning until then (just innovated during the writing of this post) is to think back on what got me here, and to write about something I did that I consider could be thought of as "innovative," one per day until I'm played out. If it goes past Thursday, it can be a resource for my related webinar on Thursday the 26th, titled "Starting and Maintaining an Online School." This'll be fun. For me, anyway.

Here are the links to the live (then both will be archived) events this and next week:

Education Talk Radio (will be linked there Thursday, June 19, and live at 11:00am CDT).
Starting and Maintaining a Virtual School, Thursday, June 26, at 3pm CDT. You can register now!

Videoconferencing To Bring the World to Students

T.H.E. Journal today published a tasty little article on old friend and colleague Janine Lim's pioneering and persevering work to promote and facilitate the adoption of Interactive Videoconferencing in education. I'm so proud of her I must share here.

My own school has recently been granted the loan of a marvelous Tandberg Edge95 codec by Tandberg Education Market Director (and another dear friend) Jan Zanetis. We are currently working on configuring it to get through our newly revamped firewall (an issue mentioned by Janine in her interview); and with any luck, we'll be embarking on some more distance learning adventures of our own. You might stay tuned for that, but in the meanwhile do treat yourself to that article!

Videoconferencing To Bring the World to Students, by Denise Harrison.