"Innovator" Reflections, Part 5

So if you are a multitasker, I'm dishing up your favorite thing! You can read this post whilst listening to the fun 40 minutes I spent with Chris Piehler, Executive Editor of T.H.E. Journal and Larry Jacobs, host of the superb self-PD resource, EduTalk Radio.

More Education Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with EduTalk on BlogTalkRadio

I could probably leave it at that today, I'm so pleased with how that went. I knew I was in good hands when Chris said such nice things in response to Larry's introductory question asking why I qualified for the "Education Innovator of the Month" of June. But I did mention SLedupotential yesterday, and in the spirit of my pledge to blog every day leading up to my EdWeb.net webinar Thursday (register NOW, here!), here goes...

Question: What do the 35 avatars in this picture have in common?

 

Answer: They are all educators participating at the same time in the physical world's NECC 2008 conference session, "SLedupotential." Well, on reflection (and that's why we're here, right?) some may not have been in San Antonio at the time of the picture, and I'm guessing that Mike McKay in Japan and Gia Rossini in London are in there somewhere. We did, after all, have a packed room in the Conference center, and we did spend 3 hours learning with one another, as "9 educators from 9 states" took turns sharing why we all just knew that virtual worlds like Second Life were the shizz.

We had spent months planning, meeting in Second Life, collaborating in Wikispaces and in the new Google Docs, and when we finally got there, it was an absolutely beautiful 3 hours. I'm just realizing that I don't really need to do much description here, just claim it as my own (and as the achievement of really more than 9 educators, working around our country and internationally to bring others into our forward thinking fringe), and to point you to the still-live website for resources, reading, media experiences, and to understand the scope of the innovation. Go explore, in depth, http://sledupotential.wikispaces.com, but be sure you give yourself some time. There's a lot there! Here, I'll leave you with our sketch for the session, to which we really did adhere:

Sledupotential Sketch: 9 educators, 9 states, 3 hours, June 30, 2008, NECC2008

7-8:30: Early arrivals get help with basics. The goal is to have them sitting in a tie-died chair in the virtual room. Landmarks to that are at HQ, the Blogger’s Hut, Podcasters’ Place, and the NECC pavilion, as well as my own li’l space at Book Publishing Island. Tech set-up continues apace.

8:30: Formal welcome, ScottM emphasizes
• Learner-driven intentions
• This is an experiment in a number of ways
• The wiki is a tool/resource we have used since day one and which we expect to continue to build today and into the future (basic wiki editing for those who need it) The Attendee Questions page
• Your being here implies permission for use of your contributions for non-profit broadcast by any participant in any media, including a live audio feed for Second Life participants, podcasts, blogs, picture sets, etc.—any problems with that?
• Multi-tasking is cool
9:00: Speed intros of panelists (ONE minute each).
Name:
I work/teach in the rw in/at:
My real life family consists of:
In Second Life my primary work has been:
8:50: What is Second Life? What is the 3D internet? What other platforms are there?
9:00: Who’s doing what in SL?
9:10: SL as PLN. What is your profile and how do you edit it? SLetiquette. Prims. Building. Objects and ownership. Inventory.
9:20: Explanation of breakouts: 3 of them, 18 minutes long, 2 min. transition. Suggested topics can be changed during this period. Each session will choose a moderator and open a text edit file and save it to their computer’s desktop. These will be copied and pasted into the “Breakout Reportouts” page of the wiki during reportouts. Suggested sessions: Further Basics, Other MUVES, Further (Deeper) Education Tours. Everyone does everything, changing the assigned time.
9:30 Breakout session 1
9:50 Breakout session 2
10:20 Breakout session 3
10:30 Reportouts and time to get notes posted to the wiki
10:40 WTF? Ethics, Relationships, Safety
10:55 ScottM reports out the history of the collaboration. Others chime on on how they felt about the grand experiment
11:00 Questions, answers, unfulfilled requests and demonstrations
11:20 Giveaways. Signed books for 1st and 2nd names drawn, iPod kits for all attendees.
11:30 BFN

And that's a wrap on this Friday morning, on a day when I'm taking a vacation day from my much-loved work. Not that I'm not working! Have a great weekend!

"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!