It Could Be "You"

NYSCATE Digital Wave in March--KEYNOTE! and omg

I'm pretty buzzed. Thanks to my friend Andy Wheelock, primarily, I'm sharing my first (and maybe only--I don't aspire to be a road warrior) conference keynote address at the NYSCATE Digital Wave conference this March 13. They folks there shared info in a flyer today (see above). You can read it in the copy I saved in my Dropbox.

There's so much going on this spring.

Top of the list is my lovely daughter's wedding to much loved Tim Buell in April. I'm proud and happy and already rehearsing my toast, which I'll likely flub despite the rehearsal.

Before we get there, though, there's the first annual v-TEACH Leadership Institute Feb. 27-28, then the aforementioned keynote in Western New York. I will also be presenting a session about 3DVLEs there. Be there or be non-virtually square.

Colin had his first day today at what one knowledgeable singer-songwriter friend categorized as "the best recording studio in the world" this very day. He'll complete 6 months of daily coursework at Blackbird Academy and emerge expert in studio recording. He's recording 8 songs now with Reel Love recording studio here, on his own with Bad Ladies, and I can't wait to hear the final runs. Lee Ann and I are the Executive Producers, investing toward the sure day when the world embraces his immense talent.

Lee Ann will be opening the Tin Wings storefront in the Nashville The Nations Neighborhood any week now. Prepare to be amazed and blessed by enhanced access to artful food of the highest order. I took in a test kitchen batch of "Butternut Squash Crumble Bars" today and the verdict from colleagues was unanimous: Tin Wings Worthy!

We'll put the house on the market shortly after Miranda's wedding. It's too much house for the two of us and we need a moving adventure. We're tired of walking past rooms we don't use!

There's stuff brewing at MNPS Virtual School I can't even talk about, but I can talk about my excitement at taking over our Middle School World History class as v-teacher. I'm diving into that full force, finally able to do what I've helped others do for years now--teach online. The spring semester consists of ancient history topics like the Roman Empire, Indian and Chinese dynasties, and Eastern and Western Africa. I'm of course working my way through the course content now, in order to be familiar with what the students have been working with. It's very neat stuff! It can be better, I know, and I'll work to make it so.

Julius Scottus

Keep on doing the next right thing. That's what's driving me.

#thisisnotaholidayupdate

v-TEACH in February! Climb Aboard!

Come join practitioners of the fastest developing field of public schooling: Virtual Schooling. You'll learn more than you can imagine. Calls for proposals also at the site! Click that image above to get started!

NCAC in Washington, DC--Reflections

It was very productive this past weekend to spend some time with colleagues both old and new in the Hyatt Crystal City outside of our nation's capitol. The occasion was the annual conference of the National Career Academy Coalition.

My school will be the first online school in the world, to the best of my knowledge, to gain accreditation under the NCAC National Standards of Practice. This requires satisfying members of a review committee and will likely not happen until at least 2016, when we are currently scheduled to undergo review. There's a lot of work to do prior to that.

But my last post was about an accreditation, so I'm steering clear of that topic for now. What I want to do is briefly detail my experiences at the sessions I attended, all of which, without exception, were in the lecture format. This is not an adverse criticism, though it may sound so. I have thought for years that a format that encourages interaction between the participants/attendees would demonstrate leadership by example in the professional development arena, and after years of providing alternatives in the way of "Playground" sessions at ISTE conferences, I have come to settle for the fact that "this is the way we've always done it" may actually be the best way to do it, at least for educators who can actually do get something out of "sit and git."

So, that said, however inelegantly, here are the sessions that I attended, along with notes and insights gained:

Friday:
9:00 - Teacher Externships: Bringing Relevancy to Student Learning; Dayna Paine, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Clarksville-Montgomery County School System; Becky Padgett, Academic Coach
This was a most interesting session, as Ms. Paine shared a well-thought-out and successful program geared to fill in an experiential gap not in students, but in teachers. She explained that most of her teachers had come to teaching through the regular pathway, high school, college, then to teach. Many have not had varied experiences in other working conditions, at least not in full-time, career minded ways. My main takeaways were that roles of all sets of participants need to be explicit and clear from the outset, and that the externship relationships are intended to be maintained throughout the school year. The "collatoral skills" teachers experience and maybe even learn can make what they do in the classroom all that much more valid and real for their students.

10:30 - The Academy Model in an Alternative Setting: The Roosevelt Way; Dr. Heidi Houy, Principal, Roosevelt Learning Center; Jennifer Carson, Academy School Counselor, Rockford Public Schools
This session was close to my heart, since as we work toward the brass ring of accreditation, we struggle with many of the same issues of practice that any Alternative school will find. Roosevelt has come a long way in their implementation of the Academies model in spite of that. Clearly their ongoing response to Theodore Roosevelt's call to "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" informs that. The transience of their student population, their practice of meeting each student where they learn and how they learn, and their robust community partnerships all weigh in toward success of their program. And it is a program, though the school diploma is the same one that students in a regular brick and mortar school receive. That said, with 1200 students moving through their system a year, in one way or another, they are working to give students who rarely get the attention they need the special small learning community that Academies can provide. Dr. Houy came from Special Education into Administration and if she had not told us that I would certainly have been able to guess it. She cares and does so in a proactive way. I was most impressed by her adaptations of the Academies Model to the Alternative School setting.

12:15 - Lunch and Keynote Speaker; Roberto J. Rodriguez, Deputy Assistant to the President for Education, White House Domestic Policy Council; Johan Uvin, Acting Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Portia Wu, Assistant Secretary, Employment and Training Administration
Mr. Rodriguez came in after our Dr. Jay Steele, Chief Academic Officer for our MNPS (and, I was proud to learn, incoming President of NCAC!), had pitched some policy questions to our other guests. The answers were predictable but supportive. Mr. Rodriguez also preached to the choir, though I don't think anyone in the room was expecting anything otherwise. He mentioned that President Obama has visited not only our McGavock High School but several other schools across the nation, drilling down to the student level to help inform policy by what works. Disclaimer: I still believe in President Obama, despite his famously low approval ratings these days. I think history will be kind to his Presidential service, especially in the light of mostly successful opposing partisan blockages. If the country is polarized, I am just left of middle but absolutely nowhere to the right. I like his style and his humor and his effort to do well in a bad system. Watch this and see if you can do so with a dry eye.

2:00 - Melting Pot Marketing; Beverley Flatt, Program Manager (for the Academies of Nashville), Metro Nashville Public Schools
This was one of my favorite sessions, and only 20 minutes long. It was "sit and git," but a modified version since it was one of three sessions that could be chosen during the hour as participants rotated between 7 sessions. I spoke with two presenters who told me they had prepared for one hour sessions, so as you can imagine Bev talked fast. And she had alot to say. Her scientific research into the amazingly diverse Nashville community demographic and the appropriate ways to market to each of them is nothing short of brilliant. Raised eyebrows and smiles announced surprised learning around the table. Here's our Beverley's Prezi so you can learn too.

I was sooo tired of sitting down that I took a long walk down to Harris Teeter during the final session. There were some good ones offered though, with topics covering:

• New software for career and education planning
• Leadership practices for National Standards of Practice
• Georgia Career Academies
• School Counselors in academy settings
• Career Academies and afterschool programs
• Engaging business partners
• and another software demo, from ConnectEd Studios
• Monday morning units
• Critical skills for career readiness
• Lessons learned developing Career Academies
• Developing a State network of Academies

I wish I'd gone to at least one of these, but the excellent thing is that many, if not most, of the presenters have uploaded their presentations for download.  I still have the NCAC conference app and will take a good look at what I can.

From 5:00-6:00 There was a "Speed Networking" session, billed as being like Speed Dating, and it would have been fun to watch but no one I knew went to it. I wonder how it went. Anyone go? Comment here if you did.

Saturday:
  I had room service breakfast, which cost me my entire per diem for the day but was pretty tasty. Then I jumped right into it:

• I next attended (Innovation) Developing Workplace Internships: PG&E Energy Academy Summer Internship Program; Geneve Villacres, Community Relations, Pacific Gas and Electric Company; and Jerry Winthrop, Lead Consultant, California Department of Education. This session was an engaging look at a big program, statewide, really, and uniquely designed to deal with the rapidly graying demographic of their current skilled workforce. Though we don't have an Energy Academy, learning the way this huge project was implemented and has developed was heartening. I'm sure there are similar situations in Business and Marketing and that we can help provide skilled workers in this field and I will keep those methods in mind as we proceed. I was sure to leave my card with the capable Ms. Villacres since they did not upload their presentation and they promised sharing with those who reached out in that way.
• I tried to attend the "Recent Research on Career Academies" but it was very slow paced "sit and git" describing research solely conducted in California and I needed something more "git up and go." So I went to what had been my first choice anyway, something unfortunately typo-titled in both catalog and app as "Managing by Manage: Team Work in Nashville" Huh? Just goes to show that no matter how many sets of eyes you get on a document things can slip through. However, this was my friends and colleagues and I wouldn't have missed it even if the data talk had been more hands-on or broadly based. Whitney Weeks, VP, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce; Chaney Moseley, Director for the Academies of Nashville; and Matt Seaton, Director of the Pencil Foundation, tag teamed around the topic of the big overarching Leadership Councils they have created and improved to further focus the work between Business and Education Community Partners who support the Academies of Nashville. I was interested to see the reactions of attendees from Montana, Illinois, Hawaii, and a couple of other places, to the suggestion that this really effective system might be helpful in their settings. First of all, none could summon up a local organization that might fill the role(s) filled by Pencil Foundation in Nashville. Some seem to have strong disconnections between what their students need and what the community can provide, and imho I feel that Leadership Councils could help with this. Nonetheless it was fun to see these three more or less sardonically play off one another and I could tell that their presentation was both entertaining the attendees and challenging them to think. I'm grateful to work with them if not daily, at least regularly.
• Lunch was on your own ("Who doesn't serve lunch at a conference on Saturday?" was the question posed by one of my fellow lunch explorers) and we met at Italia Cafe Italia in a quaint strip of mostly ethnic restaurants on 23rd Street, just a few long blocks away from the hotel. I don't think the food was all that good--my "Caesar salad" was iceberg lettuce and dry sliced chicken breast but the Calzone was reportedly good. The best thing was that my nephew Ed drove down from his home and met us and I got to chat for an hour with him and have him meet four of my Academies colleagues. 
• Back at the conference playing field, I hit "Teaching Game Development in High School;" Eric Preisz, CEO, GarageGames, LLC. This vendor-delivered session surely enlightened me and I learned a bit, and though we don't have an IT academy (yet) we do have a Gamers' Club and this might be something of interest to them. I know the development structure I learned may be of great use in any development project. I'm pretty sure it flew over the heads of some in attendance, though, and when it was just about to wind up I headed out for a bio break.
• By then we were down to the last session, and since I was somewhat sleep deprived from a great night eating, laughing and hiking 4.79 miles (yes, Beverley measured it) I went upstairs and took a power nap, which turned out to be a good thing since I was about to have a very decent roasted chicken dinner at the NCAC Awards Banquet, ending with Nashville receiving the first ever Model Community award, all 50 or so of us onstage (will add pic when I can find it!), then walk to Bar Louie with my colleagues to have tasty adult beverages and play "HeadsUp" on our iPhones. Another late, but fun night

Hiking to the Lincoln Memorial from the Washington Monument

The conference was over, and so am I.

Wainhouse Research Virtual EDU Summit: Innovations & Interactivity in the Collaborative Classroom

Hello? Do you have your online calendar handy? Quick! Add a notation to attend this free online Professional Development opportunity November 12!

Modified from http://engage.vevent.com/index.jsp?eid=1996&seid=459&language-code=en&country-code=US&page=10000&no-login=false&clearSession=true

From the organizers:
  
The Wainhouse Research Virtual EDU Summit will be an engaging online event for educators, trainers and technologists who seek to implement collaborative tools and interactive services to enhance education environments. Our goal with the Virtual EDU Summit is to foster greater understanding of the technologies and solutions that are transforming today’s classroom and help educators and students to work, team, meet and learn in real-time, on demand, and over distance.

Make plans to attend the Virtual EDU Summit, where we will focus on the rapidly evolving set of technologies – from Learning Management Systems and web collaboration to video conferencing and lecture capture – and how the implementation of these capabilities can enhance the learning experience. From flipped classrooms to Massive Open Online Courses, from user-generated content to personal learning networks, we’ll hear from a variety of experts familiar with the revolution in education and training.

Join us for presentations featuring Wainhouse Research, WCET, GCI SchoolAccess, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, and others in an online venue designed to foster live interactions and Q&A opportunities.

Review the agenda to identify key presentations made available on the day of this virtual event and prepare to explore the virtual hall to engage with other show attendees and to learn about innovative technologies from leading vendors.

Virtual Event Details:

Media Partner: AV Technology Magazine; EDUwire

Admission to Attend: Free

Sponsorship Fee: $1,500

Sponsorship Benefits: Virtual Booth Presence, Access to Attendee Registrations Generated by Wainhouse Research and summit media partners

Expected Registration: 300-400

Sponsors: InterCall, PGi, BlueJeans Network, Kontiki, Wainhouse Research, AVTech Magazine

Registration Page: http://engage.vevent.com/rt/uccsummit~edu

Live event date: November 12, 2013 1-5 EST

ITEC in October Looks Promising

Here's something to blog about--old friend Leigh Zeitz emailed me the other day and invited me to share in a remote session at the Iowa Technology & Education Conference in October. I'll do so.

This "flipped" conference is built upon educational videos which are watched onsite and then augmented by a Skype or other technology-supported videoconferencing platform visit by the video's creator. For my session they selected my K12 Online Conference piece from last November. This prompted me to go back and revisit it and, what do you know, it's pretty interesting.

I've been pretty much removed from 3-D synchronous learning environments for the past year or more as my "real-life" work has captured my passion and focus, such as it is (that's a little joke for those who know me and my sometimes scattered attention span). I've been too busy with that to even propose a topic for this year's K12 Online Conference, which I see will be Keynoted by one of my very favorite Professional Learning Networkers, Shannon Miller. Sheesh, another online event for my calendar, albeit a distinctly necessary one.

In preparation for this session I plan to do some update research, so do stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, if you missed it, you can take that 20 minutes and catch the original here:



I for one am looking forward to ITEC, and to catching as much of the conference as possible, with luminaries and PLN colleagues Jeff Utecht and Kathy Schrock amongst the speakers. I'd actually love to get up to Iowa, but I can't see pulling away from the important work I'm doing at MNPS Virtual School to do so.

Thanks, Leigh and ITEC, for the invite, and I'll be there virtually and promptly!

Jeff Pointek Selected ISTE2010 Keynote

Hawaii Technology Academy's Jeff Pointek has been selected to open up ISTE 2010 in Denver, Colorado June 27-July 2. The selection process gave all 85,000+ members of ISTE a voice in the pick, and I didn't vote for him: I personally wanted Chris Lehmann to open up onstage about his creative and forward-thinking work at Philadephia's Science Leadership Academy. However, I will admit that Pointek was a close runner-up for my vote, since he is the one keynote nominee I have not seen or heard present. Heck, ISTE stacked the deck for success with a tidy collection of stellar options that included the two I've already mentioned, along with Alan November, Peter H. Reynolds, and Gary Stager. I'm glad that democracy has had its way and we should have a stirring keynote address from Jeff Pointek to light the fire in Denver.

There's been a bit of twitterbuzz the past couple days following the announcement, as folks try unsuccessfully to find an article referenced during the selection process, and to streamline things I'll embed what is not actually an "article" but a web "artifact," Pointek's slideshare entitled:

Cape

View more presentations from jeffrey piontek.

See you in Denver!!!

Sunday at NECC09--Opportunites for Input

Today at NECC I reconnected with the real reason for coming to these things. It's not the opportunity to present on a topic dear to my personal and professional heart. It's not the odd, virtual, but also real in the "real world" celebrity that my blogs, my podcast, and my virtual worlds networking seems to have brought my way. It's not the food or the drink, or even the chance to be in a distant city--in this case our nation's capitol. It is, in short, the people.

I was talking with Scott Meech and Judi Epcke, just before exiting the convention center for the Metro (subway) to go change clothes for the President's Reception, and in those 20 minutes I enjoyed sharing opinions and insights with them so much that I knew I had to write this post. Much earlier, first thing in the morning, I spent 4 hours with 300 or so of the most influential people in the International Society for Technology in Education. After some very inspiring talks from an invited panel, and prepped by two documents we had been charged to pre-read, we broke out into 5 topic groups based on our expressed interests, from the following field of options:

• ACCESS TO HIGH-QUALITY LEARNING EXPERIENCES - What role can technology play in broadening access to high-quality, rigorous learning? (Including students living in poverty or in rural areas, learning English, and coping with disabilities?)
• IMPROVED ASSESSMENT - What role can technology play in developing and delivering high-quality assessments of the skills and concepts needed for college and careers?
• DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING - What role can technology play in facilitating data-supported continuous improvement processes?
• TEACHER DEVELOPMENT - What role can technology play in enhancing the professional growth of teachers and improving the effectiveness of their teaching?
• STUDENT ENGAGEMENT - What role can technology play in promoting the engagement and success of students, including those from at-risk populations? (i.e., the kind of system innovation needed to dramatically improve high school graduation rates?)

I was assigned to my first choice: Student Engagement. Among my colleagues in that group were David Warlick, Peggy Sheey, and Bernajean Porter, three individuals I consider close friends, and all of them celebrated (and rightly so) innovative educators. David has been, for years, telling us many of the things we are revisiting in our deep sessions at this conference, telling us for years. I remember hearing him saying in 2000 that the internet has become one big conversation. How prophetic was that? And how is it that so many people don't "get that" yet? Peggy was just this very day awarded a coveted "pink jacket" as a symbol of her "Making it Happen" award from ISTE. She is fearless and unstoppable, lucky to be supported by her visionary administration and the huge organization that is ISTE. Bernajean wasn't at the awards reception to receive hers, but I understand that she gets one this year, based on her unflagging pursuit of her vision for digital storytelling as the foundation for learning, and for making the products of learning eternally contributive to the dialog in digital formats.

Once we had broken out into our 5 groups, those were assembled into sets of smaller groups of seven each, and the only one in my group that I already knew was Lisa Linn, my wonderful co-facilitator of the Second Life Playground and a longtime friend first from SL and then from NECC. She's an educator in Southern California and under serious constraints that limit her potentials for innovation, and her frustration with that is often palpable. Others in my group included one from Africa, one from the Virgin Islands, and one from Thailand. Another was from California, and two vendor/educators, one from OneText (the First Class email folks) and one from Smart Technologies. Toward the end of the experienced we were joined by a New Zealander. We were asked to pick roles for our group in standard breakout session manner, and I was chosen facilitator. Andrea from OpenText, was the reporter, Kimberly from Smart was the timekeeper, and Lisa reminded the rest of us to speak loudly and slowly for our international guest. What transpired over the next two hours as we pursued our directives to reflect, discuss and arrive at consensus on several topics was nothing less than inspirational.We were treated to some results reported in the NetDay Speakup survey from 2008 then set to work. I quote the charge:

"Imagine that the person who controls the purses strings one level higher than you walks in your office one day and says, "We need to transform the way we do business. I have access to stimulus dollars and other federal funding to invest in technology solutions that will provide along term pay off in improving our productivity and student outcomes. How can we leverage technology to promote the engagement and success of all of our students, including those from at-risk populations? How can technololgy help us innovate and dramatically improve our high school graduation rate?"

We were asked to reflect upon 5 questions, and given 2 minutes to do so. Then we were asked to discuss them, focusing on numbers one and three, and achieve something like consensus on brief contributions to the document that will eventually go to the Obama administration as our organization's recommendations for a National Educational Technology Plan. Wow.

1. What will the transformed system look like in the end?
2. What Barriers need to be removed (in addition to having access to sufficient funding?
3. What steps must be taken to achieve the goals?
4. What metrics will you use to measure progress?
5. Who will you cite as examples of progress toward this goal, demonstrating that the concepts have been tested?

The final exercise was for the reporter to use the provided laptop to access a document at etherpad.com. If you don't know that tool, investigate it. My friend Jeff Aganemoni first shared it with me, and it's one I'll use in my computer labs next year. The reporter was to distill consensual group responses. Then each table reported those out and against all odds, it worked. Our report-out was incomplete, but the essential message we agreed upon was there. There must be a radical paradigm shift, at all levels of participation--student, teacher, administration, family, community, and government. We must teach concepts in ways that are relevant to their lives and which encourage and reward students for their demonstrations of cognition through reasoning, intuition, and creativity. New assessments must replace current ones, which assume that it is the job of schools to teach everyone everything, regardless of interest or learning style. NOTE: all of this is reconstructed and essentially inaccurate, as I was too busy facilitating and contributing to take notes, but the bottom line is that I feel we contributed substantially to the document which will eventually go to the Administration, the top one, as our recommendations for the National Educational Technology plan. Do you want to contribute as well? Visit http://edtechfuture.org and state your views. It's got to change. It's "broke."

I'm sittin in a the Old Dominion Brewhouse 10 minutes before the President's Reception and I'm not really up for hitting the 30 minute subway trip up to my hotel to change clothes, then doing it again to come back down and again to return to the hotel after. I do like the DC Metro, but not that much, especially at the end of a long and taxing day. Long in good ways, taxing in spectactular ones. My apologies to the President's Reception, which I'm sure went swimmingly without me.

New Orleans Bound!

Stay tuned for liveblogs, pics, and everything else I can manage from New Orleans over the next couple days.

From the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach's website:

Scott Merrick, Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach's Teacher-in-residence, has accepted an invitation from conference organizers to speak at this year's Internet2 membership meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. The conference website explains that the "Fall Member Meeting will feature track sessions and demonstrations that highlight innovative uses of advanced networking for research and teaching, as well as the development and evolution of high-performance network infrastructures in support of local to global cyberinfrastructure." Merrick will share the spotlight October 14 on a panel about Virtual Worlds with Margaret Corbit, Cornell University; Ben Fineman, Internet2, Moderator; Merrilea Mayo, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; Chris Melissinos, Sun Microsystems; Rob Rothfarb, Exploratorium; and Kathy Schrock, Nauset Public Schools. He will also attend sessions from the event-packed program and network with leaders in information management from all corners of the nation.

Gearing Up for Internet2, New Orleans!

Hey, all,

The program is complete for the upcoming meeting of the Internet2 Special Interest Group in New Orleans, Louisiana in two weeks. I'll be there, participating in a panel called Virtual Worlds: The Future is Now. I'd like to thank the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach for sending me, University School of Nashville for supporting me with professional leave, and my family for allowing me to take 3 days away from home the week before artclectic2008!

It's a very full set of days, as a reading of the program will certainly verify. If you have anything you'd like me to consider sharing out to this prestigious conference, please comment here or contact me directly at scott@scottmerrick.net. Here's the text from the program describing my panel:

Virtual Worlds: The Future is Now
October 14, 2008, 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
UTC/GMT -5 hours (CDT)
Location: Nottoway

Margaret Corbit, Cornell University
Ben Fineman, Internet2, Moderator
Chris Melissinos, Sun Microsystems
Scott Merrick, Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach
Rob Rothfarb, Exploratorium
Kathy Schrock, Nauset Public Schools

This first of two virtual worlds panel discussions sponsored by the Teaching & Learning SIG and the K20 Initiative will bring together a diverse set of speakers across several sectors including Higher Education, K12, Informal Education, and Industry to discuss the current landscape of virtual reality environments for research and education. An examination of several worlds including Second Life, Active Worlds, and Lively will reveal the unique challenges and opportunities for using these and other emerging virtual worlds within the constraints of real world goals and outcomes. The panelists will also have an opportunity to present their vision for where these virtual worlds can take us, especially combined with the power of advanced networks and technologies and the development communities in support of advanced networking.

NYSACTE Video from Brian C. Smith

Here's a video from Darren Draper, a colleague of Brian C. Smith, who posted it at the NYSACTE ning.com site. The piece compiles a whole lot of current thought about education into an enjoyable, thought provoking set of comments and questions. It's resident on Brian's NYSACTE (New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education) conference ning. See what I mean:

Got the Winter Crud but...

Lying flat on my back with a chest cold today but it does give me a chance to catch up, inbetween nappies. I've been most active in my Second Life blogging lately. So much happening there, not a great deal happening here. Excepting, well, hmmmm...

Awaiting word on the proposal applications for NECC2008 in San Antonio. I put in three: two for the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt and one for Second Life. The first two are similar, one a session with IVC and one a poster session with IVC capability. I've done several of the former but none of the latter and I'm hoping that if one is accepted over the other that the poster goes through. I didn't even make it to the poster floor last year in Atlanta but I recall from the year before that it can be a busy place; plus it'll be a challenge for me to put together something in a new (two hour!) format. I'm so proud of the work that's going on at the school that I'd love to get the chance to share it out face to face with fellow educators: It's a big task to implement a program that brings 100 public school high school students, 25 from each grade level (the ultimate goal), to a university research campus one day a week. The fact that such a small staff makes it happen is nothing short of remarkable. The use of Moodle as a LMS (Learning Management System) is going well, and everyone's learning, even the young and stellar faculty!

It's also delivering some great audio for my podcast, Snacks4theBrain!. If you haven't caught the last one, featuring portions of an interactive videoconference between School freshmen and the director of the National Ice Core Laboratory, do so post haste...

I've blogged about the SL 3-hour workshop presentation proposal but if you missed that you can find its meat, carved up and served to the reviewers' table by 9 chefs from 9 different states in the country, at the SLedupotential wiki.

Finally, my lovely wife has just completed a huge fundraising event for and at my school, and you can see something about that at artclectic.org, the event's website. Due to the work of many volunteers it was immensely successful (and I should say that it is a testament to her capable and untiring work all year long that it even happened!), raising let's-just-say a bundle of discretionary funding for my school, including funding for teacher professional development and for its exemplary need-based scholarship program. artclectic (no caps) is also what my school director likes to say a "friendraiser," this year achieving great mention and excellent review in the local press and nothing but superlative comments from everyone I talked to. For me, it was a chance to see artists who are both world-class artists and wonderful human beings, some of whom I consider friends from the long association over the years Lee Ann's been making artclectic tick. To watch the little ones move through the stunning gallery on Education Day, especially, was both heartwarming and encouraging. I've been working on a video from that day, and when it's done I'll share it here!

Sigh, going back to sleep now...

K12 Online Conference Starts Today!

Just shunting ya'll over to David Warlick's post about his opening keynote--will be listening a bit later...The chat interface David has tweaked (he calls it "Twitteresque," a reference to Twitter, a fascinating tool in and of itself) is amazing. Go read. Go listen...

"sledupotential"

If you're not aware of what's going on with Second Life, the huge online MUVE (Multi-User Virtual Environment), you may be surprised to know that educational opportunities abound. I maintain a fairly oft-accessed blog about education in Second Life and usually keep my posts about that area of interest at the "Oh Second Life" blog. However, I want to encourage anyone interested to visit a wiki I set up over this past weekend, one I'm calling "sledupotential."

Since ISTE's annual NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) issued a call for proposals this past month, I've been wondering what sort of offering I might make for the 2008 conference in San Antonio. I've been going to these things since 2000, and I began presenting at the 2002 conference in San Antonio, helping design and deliver a half-day session on Interactive Videoconferencing put on for the then "Office" of Science Outreach at Vanderbilt University. Since then (with the exception of one year, NECC in Seattle, when I spent my time attending rather than presenting workshops) I have presented on various topics in New Orleans, San Diego, and Atlanta, missing only Chicago in 2001 and Philadelphia in 2005. See a history of past NECCs here.

These conferences have provided some of the most pivotal experiences in my adult learning life, as well as helping me establish collegial bonds and friendships of long duration; and I look forward to the conference every year. This year may be a landmark, though.

I'm going collaborative. Seriously collaborative.

See the wiki, which explains the process better than I can here. "sledupential" promises to be the most learning-loaded and thought-provoking session I've ever had the privilege of helping facilitate. I'm smiling now, smiling wide: Maybe it has something to do with the nine other colleagues from all over the country (haven't gone international yet but chances are we will be so by the end of the day) who have signed on as co-presenters. Maybe it has to do with the way this idea developed from a more-or-less casual chat at an ISTE "social" in Second Life.

Maybe I'm just crazy!

Time, as it always does, will tell. :)

Online Conference October 15-19 and October 22-26

Mark your calendars and peel off some multi-tasking time during the work-weeks October 15-19 and October 22-26 for the K12 Online Conference 2007. It looks like it'll be ripe with learning and sharing opportunities for anyone who can stop by. I'm also very interested in the tools that will be used for the mega-shareshare. If you see me there, say hi!




Learn more...

The official conference website has Wes Fryer asking bloggers to post three things they hope to gain by attending this year (remember, this is all online--all virtual--all digital).

Here are mine:

1) Making/renewing friendships with educators who are interested in making education better

2) Seeing how all this works, when facilitated by some of the best practitioners in the field, and discovering new tools or at least valid new use for tools I already know about

3) Adding one more thing to my already overwhelming to-do list!

Okay, the last one might be a little sarcastic, but since number 2 is really two things, I feel covered :)