"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 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!