Now. New Work. Let's Stay in Touch!

Just popping in here to note that I turned in my keys to the Cohn Learning Center and the Virtual School today. It felt good. It's a long story and to be kind I don't want to tell it. Suffice it to say that though I poured my heart and soul into my work at MNPS Virtual School for six years of my life, I am done and gone. Best of luck to the school.

For all the kind and supportive words from all of my colleagues and friends on social media and other fronts, I have the most profound gratitude. You all got me through this tough spot in my professional career. I thank you, I thank you, I thank you. And to my family, with which I have been blessed despite my own failings, I love you completely and I hold you in my heart always.

Now, to the future. I am completely excited to be returning Monday to the K-4 computer lab, but this time not to an independent school, where I did similar work for 11 years, but to my new home--Warner Enhanced Option Elementary School.

When told the official ask had been requested, I created a blog for families similar to the one I maintained for a decade at University School of Nashville, and I'll likely be more often blogging there than here in upcoming weeks. I hope to to build a curriculum and a future for my  24 classes a week, K-4. I'm on it already. When my students leave for middle school, they will be armed with confidence that they have the skills to deal with the rapidly escalating flood if information. They will know how to stay safe online. They will be able to tell when information is manipulating them, instead of being there to be manipulated by them. We will scaffold all this around the new ISTE Technology Standards for Students, just released last month and exceedingly comprehensive and spot-on. Let's play. Let's be good and have fun. Let's learn, share, and enjoy our time together.

Here's a pano of my dear boy Colin in my newly spiffed up computer lab. Watch for more soon!

Have a great week.

Now I have to make some mouse pads. God bless Google. :)

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.

The How and Why, Long Story Short

Interesting. No matter how long I live, there's always something more interesting to learn.

As I float into the second half of my sixty-fourth year, I'm finding myself more and more reflective. I guess that's natural. And when I tapped into my LinkedIn account this morning, I discovered a post from Penny Christensen, a LinkedIn contact and "e-Learning Specialist," leading to something called HotLunchTray.

I'm up early as always, my pesky dog sitting next to me on the leather love-seat, and though most lately I've been using the morning time to level up

Sophyae, my Warrior Blood Elf in World of Warcraft, I'll bite.

Back when I first joined the Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach in 2001, hired on one day a week as Teacher-In-Residence, when it was the Office for Science Outreach, I attended a start-of-the-school-year retreat that was held in an office at Vanderbil. That morning, to begin to get to know one another, the small team sat around the table and shared about ourselves. Around that table was Jan Zanetis, Ginny Shepherd, I think Kecia Ray, and half dozen or so other educators who by turns shared about their lives leading up to the day. The date was September 11, 2001.

My ten minutes were hands-down the most convoluted story of the morning, which as you likely have already surmised became much more so as the day wore on. I shared about my first attempt at college in Knoxville, at UT, all the way up to the day. Maybe a list would suffice:

• Dropped out of UT after 4 quarters, having been denied Sophomore entry to a fiction writing class limited to Juniors and Seniors after having created and published a year's worth of the off-campus literary magazine "Druid" (I just discovered this digitized version!)
• Worked in the UT Undergraduate then Main Libraries for 5 years
• Published in small poetry presses
• Left on a Leave of Absence to write on a journey to Alaska
• Played music for income for two weeks for the first time in Bozeman, Montana at the Holiday Inn while the VW camper was having its engine rebuilt
• Played music and worked in book and liquor stores in Anchorage, AK
• Apprenticed in the Alaska Repertory Theater, mainstaged in two runs of the play "Diamond Studs"

  

  That's my Stetson on the left, and that's the northernmost school gym in the USA

• Formed the Last Frontier Band, the official Iditarod Race band for 1979
• Moved to Los Gatos, CA and played music full time, also working in the public library
• Wrote a novelette, "In the Running," never published
• Moved to Nashville and worked as Master Bartender for TGIFridays
• Saw my dad through his death, left as a traveling Master Bartender for Fridays
• Wrote a novel, Lives, and a book of poetry, Speculativity, self-published and available at Lulu.com and Amazon
• Moved to North Miami Beach to tend bar for Fridays
• Sold dedicated word processors to lawyers in Miami
• Became Head Bartender for Williams Island in North Miami Beach, then Manager of the Tennis Club Restaurant
• Married the love of my life, Lee Ann
• Moved to Nashville as General Manager of Slice of Life Restaurant and Bakery
• Second love of my life, Miranda Lee Merrick, born 
• Assistant Manager of Ruby Tuesday's in Bellevue, Green Hills, and Rivergate
• Experienced an Interest Inventory weekend in Louisville, where they said, "Duh, you're a teacher."
• Returned to Peabody College at Vanderbilt University and finished out college with a Cum Laude degree in Elementary Education with a second major in English, Creative Writing
• Third love of my life, Colin Stafford Merrick, born
• Student taught at Sylvan Park Elementary (6 blocks from my current school) and Dodson Elementary
• Hired as interim sub for half a year at Dodson, teaching 4th graders
• Hired as 3rd grade teacher at University School of Nashville
• Transitioned to Lower School Technology Coordinator
• Hired as Teacher-in-Residence at Office of Science Outreach

That pretty much got us up to the day of the share. I went on to create a podcast for the CSO, "Snacks4theBrain," recording and publishing 84 episodes of interviews with working scientists and technology tips, laced with independent music. That was a wild ride, working Mondays for CSO and teaching K-4 students in my technology lab. CSO's funding ran out for the TIR position in 2008, and I went back to 5 days a week at USN. When Kecia approached me to help craft a virtual school for our large urban public school system (the 42nd largest in the country, of  "about 13,600 school districts") I agonized about it, since I loved my work. In the end, which was to be the beginning, I resigned from USN (becoming pretty much a non-person in that institution's eyes, but that's another story) and took on the task, and here I am today, still riding that fascinating wave, looking at our final review for SACS accreditation this coming Monday, as MNPS Virtual School maintains and continues to improve its standing as "Tennessee's First and Highest Achieving Leader Since 2011."

Dig through this blog and you'll find a bunch of stuff, including some awards and other junk, but the main deal is that through teaching, I believe I've done some good in the world. Last evening at our annual Picnic in the Park I grilled, with a student's able assistance, 48 burgers and 30 hot dogs. It's just work, but it's good work. I'll keep plugging away hoping for more. It's for the students.

Adrienne was really the grillmeister!

Done. Thanks, Penny! Now back to that Blood Elf.

Virtual's Cool!

The above logo from http://cooltext.com says it all. We're cool. We're a school. Whatever else happens in the State of Tennessee, now a wild west wide open experimental ground for profit-seeking distance learning vendors who can corral a local school district into turning over the reins of its development to their commercial entity, Metro Nashville Public Schools has created the first virtual high school in Tennessee's history. Here's our small but dedicated team's picture with the Mayor to prove it!

            Kelly Brown, Barbra Thoeming, Mayor Karl Dean, Scott Merrick, Michael Terry, and Sherry Hill at the Mayor's 1st Day Celebration 2011-12

Rally on! More updates as we announce changes and improvements. For now, visit http://vlearn.mnps.org for everything we know!

NewsChannel5 in Nashville Covers Virtual School

We'll be at the Mayor's First Day Celebration today, Sunday, August 7 to share the developments at MNPS Virtual School. This piece from Nashville NewsChannel5 helps explain our excitement! Yay, Gabby and Barbra. And yay to the rest of the team who's been working so hard for nearly a year to make this happen!

Saturday Afternoon Movies

I can't believe this has been online for two years and I just encountered it. Truly, as James Gleick says in this recent Wired Magazine article, the basis of the universe is data, and no one can know it all. Here's a little movie for you all:

Educational Change Video Marathon

I'm leaving work at the end of the day today to visit my alma mater (Peabody College for Teachers at Vanderbilt University) a few blocks away from my office at MNPS Virtual Learning. I'm going there view what I think is the first local screening of the independent film "Race to Nowhere." This is a movie I've been looking forward to seeing ever since I first learned about it on Facebook. Formerly subtitled "The Dark Side of America's Achievement Culture," its trailer, which I share at the end of this post, is intriguing, to say the least.

As the father of two beautiful children and something of an advocate for change (I feel personally responsible for the word "radical" appearing in the National Educational Technology Plan: "...the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies should identify key emerging trends and priorities and recruit and bring together the best minds and organizations to collaborate on high-risk/high-gain education R&D projects. It should aim for radical, orders-of-magnitude improvements by envisioning the impact of innovations and then working backward to identify the fundamental breakthroughs required to make them possible."), I am most interested in seeing this film for myself, even if it means subjecting myself to "heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink..." as advertised at the film's website.

Anticipation has me musing about the trend for change advocates to "Hollywoodize" their views by creating videos or, as this one is, full-length films and promoting their entertainment value, even to the point of profiting from them. Again, I want to share the trailer for tonight's film here, but before I do I'd suggest you beef up your upcoming Education Change Video Marathon by adding one or more of these film/videos to the bill. Here are several I've recently viewed, along links to their own trailers and some descriptive text from their respective websites. Watch each trailer and tell me you aren't motivated to view at least one of them:

Pricele$$, from Habitat Media, about the true cost of our current political fundraising legislation -- "PRICELE$$ is a one-hour documentary journey from 4th of July revelry to America's croplands; from hopeful windfarms to our nation's capitol in search of some answers. Maybe even a solution. The colorful cast of characters will inform, move, and amuse you. You'll be privy to personal accounts of lives upended and hear how postal rates cause global warming. You'll learn the definition of "running clean" and discover the fate of two politicians who actually enjoyed fundraising. Even the third graders in our film know something has to change."


ACT Out Against SAT, from Sam Kaufman, about the unfairness of using SAT scores for college entrance -- Host Allie Kaufman says, "I'm a high school student; my father is an award-winning filmmaker, and together we uncovered startling evidence that proves standardized tests are totally unfair to many students. If you've visited our website and watched our film athttp://www.ACToutagainstSAT.com then you know the tests are biased against females, students whose second language is English, against minorities, students who can't afford quality test prep classes or tutors, and all those students who aren't good on standardized tests--even though they do great in school. And you know that the SAT Essay section is a complete joke." And here's an article from the Huffington Post describing the petition driving effort.


Waiting for Superman, from Davis Guggenheim and Michele Rhee, a stirring (and controversial) film about "the failures of the public education system in America that makes suggestions (also controversial) to "fix" it. Disclaimer--I have not actually seen this film, but just now went into my Netflix queue. I'll weigh in on the debate just as soon as I experience it first hand. 


Okay, here is the Race to Nowhere trailer, posted from TeacherTube so that even working teachers in firewall/blocked schools should be to watch it this very moment:

Tennessee Educational Technology Conference 2010

I spent much of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday schmoozing and attending sessions at this year's Tennessee Educational Technology Conference at the Nashville Convention Center. Let me just say this: Any conference that centers around educational technology needs to make sure their gathering place provides ample free wi-fi for its attendees. I know it's an old building, but they've done better at that in the past. Many of the attendees at these things need to be connected and they don't need to have to pay for a very laggy top-floor-only connection or plug into a hardwired laptop on the vendor floor. Just sayin'.

That's better. Now. This was a great conference for me because I

1. met Debi Crabtree, Virtual Learning Coordinator for  Hamilton County Virtual Schools (and I'm still wondering why they can call their program a "school" and we can't) and her partner in presentation, Betsy Norris, and to sit in on several of their 5, count 'em, 5 presentations;
2. got to watch my boss, Kecia Ray, present twice;
3. discovered, thanks to Debi, CompassLearning, an online course provider that Debi says is "the most interactive and engaging content out there." I'll be reviewing that content this coming week for our own program; and
4. attended friend Rusthon Hurley's keynote address, where he emphasized the power of video in education.

I only had my Samsung "dumbphone" with me for picture taking, though I did also snap a couple things with the Mac PhotoBooth program, so though I apologize for the quality of the snapshots, I'm posting those four pics right here:

e4tn presentation re a new Middle School beta

program for online learning

e4tn demos their LiveScribe exploration

Debi Crabtree shares Web 2.0 resources. I even learned 

a few new tricks. I am grateful to Debi for her sharing spirit and 

her eloquence and I soooo look forward to our future

collaborations!

Rushton Hurley wows a packed house

Thanks to the organizers of the conference for a rich learning experience, despite the missing ubiquitous wi-fi. Sorry to my tweetz and other PLN for the lack of communication during the conference! I'll share out some resources here later!!!

Howie DiBlasi contributes version 6 to "Did You Know" Series

Pal Howie DiBlasi, a vocal proponent for educational change to suit the changing learning styles, needs, and tools of our time, has contributed his own information packed version of the classic "Did You Know" series. While I have some issues with what may be in some subtle ways an underlying jingoism, I think it's a must see for all educators. Food for thought, ya'll, food for thought...

The Dalai Lama Makes a Joke

Or does he? Happy snow day. I'm getting some work done from home today, but I'm also "paying more attention at [my] inner values." Thank you, David Orban...

Teachers Prepared for Reform?

THE Journal comes through in the thought-provocation department again with its article entitled "Report Shows Teachers Not Adequately Prepared for Education Reform," By Scott Aronowitz.

Citing the report released in December by the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning (CFTL), the author reports that in California, despite top-down efforts to reform education into sync with the demands of 21st century living and working, though many teachers possess the skill set to function effectively, "many more are simply not up to the task."

Details are at the article, and I'm only here to point you to that, but when you go, please budget a few minutes in your busy day to scan the comments and to add your own. This is a discussion worthy of your attention and your contribution. It certainly got me on my soapbox:

"Education reform?" A buzzphrase so hackneyed it's beyond cliche. Alvin Toffler said it, echoing some of the other best minds amongst those focused on the future: "We don't need to reform the system; we need to replace the system." Is there any hope for doing so? A tad, and active administrators like Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in PA, are fighting the good fight. An essential issue that is seldom mentioned is the need for any realistic system of education to value and reward creative, scientific, literary, social, vocational, etc. learning outside of 8 to 4 schoolday instruction. Another is to flex around changing family work and play schedules, perhaps offering something like 20/7 availability of synchronous instructor time, face-to-face or online, with group meetings and their necessary experience with social skills offered the same way. Sit them in rows (or in circles--the "new rows") in classrooms from their least productive circadian hour to a time when a little more non-academic scheduling can keep them in line until their parents can pick them up and shuttle them home? No longer justified. Hope for those kinds of reform? Only a tad from a set of systems so entrenched by custom. The most destructive and inhibiting words in the English language? "We've always done it this way."

The complete report, "The Status of the Teaching Profession 2009," along with summary materials and recommendations, can be found here.

On the Mall on the 4th of July!

Okay, I'm gonna do it.Last night I was pretty sure I was gonna be a party pooper, but today, after catching up on all kinds of things all morning at the hotel, I'm downtown at Gordon Biersch with a cold brew in front of me and my laptop aperch a singularly central bar table. People on the wait list just didn't see the table, I guess, or would rather sit at a traditional table or booth. I'm a happy camper.

I'm right across the street from the Spy Museum, which I fondly recall from a trip long ago, and I'm blogging whilst awaiting my jackcheeseburger with a spinach side. This beer is very tasty. and the burger just arrived. I always order those medium, so if it comes undercooked it's at least the mid-rare I prefer instead of mooing at me. This one's a perfect mid-rare, and the sauteed spinach is lovely. Took a pass on the garlic fries, with manful self-control.

Sorry Bernajean, if you're reading this. At the edubloggers' dinner at Charlie Chiengs the other night you did a very nice rant about ppl blogging (twittering?) what they're eating. I submit this only for local color, not to mention in order to recommend this place to anyone and everyone. My wi-fi is excellent, too, hence this post.

I had a nice talk with my dear friend Kevin Jarret over Skype earlier today. Get over and read his absolutely eloquent summation of his experiences at NECC09! Yay. Now I don't have to write one!

We were talking about a couple of things related to our main work, as we're both K-4 Technology Coordinators and both under some increasing fire for developing highly public profiles as educator-advocates for virtual environments. More pertinent to this post, however, we chatted about how one thing that struck me during NECC09 this past week was how Second Life needs a SIG (Special Interest Group) of its own, separate from the Gaming and Simulations SIG. That excellent group is not where we should be. Why? It's rather complicated, so bear with me. Let's bullet point this thing, since I don't want to reorder them after I spill them out. Please pay attention: I'm quizzing you at the end!

• Second Life is not a "game." You can find any number of statements, manifestos, and flat-out angry diatribes on this topic with your Google search engine and a few careful search terms. Perhaps the most eloquent is the "Classification" segment of the Second LIfe entry at Wikipedia. To whit:

Classification

During a 2001 meeting with investors, Rosedale noticed that the participants were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative potential of Second Life. As a result, the initial objective driven, gaming focus of Second Life was shifted to a more user created, community driven experience.^[11][12]

Second Life's status as a virtual world, a computer game, or a talker, is frequently debated. Unlike a traditional computer game, Second Life does not have a designated objective, nor traditional game play mechanics or rules. As it does not have any stipulated goals it is irrelevant to talk about winning or losing in relation to Second Life. Likewise, unlike a traditional talker, Second Life contains an extensive world that can be explored and interacted with, and it can be used purely as a creative toolset if the user so chooses. However, the vast majority of users use Second Life primarily as an entertainment medium,^{[citation needed]} and for most of them the ability to interact with other users is critical to that.^{[citation needed]}

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

• Second Life may be a "simulation," but--at least as it is used by educators--it is much more a social networking platform that is mounted on a platform that is a simulated environment than it is a "simulation."
• Second Life educators, while they may be individually interested in gaming, are more educators than gamers. Many come into SL simply to enjoy the company of others, to benefit from the amazing sense of place that SL can provide for networking, teaching, and learning.
• The nearly 5000 members of ISTE Second Life could mostly care less about the content promoted by the membership of SIGGS, aside from Second Life. I'm not saying that content is not valuable, and educationally valid, and shared with good intentions, but the underpinnings of most of the content I saw at the wonderful SIGGS Playground are not relevant to many of the members of what I propose to be SIGSL, SIG Second Life. Shoot, there should probably be a SIGVE (one for all other Virtual Environment platforms as well. But even that's getting too broad for many of our ISTE SL members, and I truly think we need to populate the discussion with resources for SIGSL without broadening its scope.
• Second Life is free. Most of the SIGGS content, other than SL, is not. That's a huge difference that can't be overstated. While there are commercial aspects to networking, teaching, and learning in SL, an educator need not spend dollar one to benefit from it on a daily basis, if she or he so chooses.
• Back when the SIGGS was first proposed, I had put in a concurrent proposal in for a SIGVE. For a number of reasons, including my own overcommitments in various venues and on various projects, I deferred to ISTE's suggestion that we merge, and deferred leadership to the capable Greg Jones, since the broader topic suggested that his level of expertise is clearly more suited to leading that SIG. As far as I can see, none of the leadership of SIGGS has much interest in SL, aside from using it as a platform to promote their own interests. That's a good thing, and I applaud it, but I maintain that the Second Life "tribe" needs more representation in ISTE than the SIGGS can provide it. It needs its own SIG, ya'll.

Okay, my burger's done and my one beer's empty. I'm going to wrap this up and go stand in what dear pal Cathy Walker texts me is an increasingly long line at Mall security. I sincerely hope that I've not offended anyone: That's not my intention. What is my intention is to start a dialog about creating a SIGSL. Here's your solo quiz question: Anyone like to play?

The Big "T" for Teachers

Did you know the big "T" in Teachers really stands for "TIME?"

I just popped into my FriendFeed to check out my Professional tab and there was Will Richardson sharing out Rich Lambert's insightful post at his blog, Removing the ‘e’ from ‘e-learning:Integrating important new technologies more seamlessly into our teaching.

That's the way all this works, pilgrim: Because I'm connected to willrich45 in twitter, and because I pull that into FriendFeed, I get to read an inspiring post I may have missed in my overstuffed Google Reader, not to mention my bloated Netvibes! I really must get to some RSS housekeeping over the summer!

Rich's blog is a staple of mine, and this post shows why: I highly recommend you take the few minutes of time (sort of a meta-exercise) it takes to read "How do I make the time?," which has some spot-on points about how to move our students into the 21st century by exchanging blocks of classroom time doing antiquated instructional activities for new ones that are relevant, timely, and forward-thinking. READ MORE...

Evaluating Games for Learning--Education Week Live Chat

Just attended a great Education Week webinar featuring Richard Van Eck, an Associate Professor and the Graduate Director of the Instructional Design & Technology program at the University of North Dakota (UND), sharing his views on the topic of  Evaluating Games as Instructional Tools, and I have my homework cut out for me. I thought I'd share out the wealth of resources Van Eck tossed out for us right at the start of his talk. Later, as I assimilated all he had to say, as described below, I was particularly impressed by this piece of his advice:

We do have to be conscious of our audience. There is a big assumption made that all kids under 18 are a frequent game players. This is not true. Many kids do not play games, and even when they do, that does not mean they all like them equally, nor that they like the same kinds of games. Of course, the same is true of books and movies, and we don't worry about that when designing curriculum.

I'm not a huge fan of this text-only distance learning medium, since it doesn't lend itself to multi-tasking I generally need to be involved in in order to get anything done. Sitting and watching text plop into a CoverItLive screen is not my idea of a fun time. Don't get me wrong: I love the topic, really liked the presenter, and I'm a big fan of text archives. I lost--not interest--the ability to sustain my textual mode after only a few minutes, and I switched to another browser to get work done.

A cool thing happened though. When I'd finished my other online work, and in fact after a class of kids had come and gone, I went back to my EdWeek browser and the whole thing was there. I whipped out my Notepad, copied and pasted the text into a text file, then spent 90 seconds stripping the timestamps out manually. Then I opened my copy of ReadPlease Free and copy and pasted the spiffed up text into that. I'm now listening to a pretty nice podcast from the talk, all mine, all mine, mwahahahaaaaa. I'm not going to redistribute it, but here's a link to the event, with the transcript and embedded CoverItLive. What I do want to do is to give readers the links Van Eck shared out, which I hope will be useful in their own investigations into the dense topic of games and learning. What a fun mine-field of exploration!

Here's a snippet from the dialog:

Moderator: Katie Ash:  Great - let's start with a question that many of you are interested in - where to find resources for games

[Comment From Vera] 

What are some of the best resources available for games at all levels from elementary through 12th grade?

Richard Van Eck:  This is a big question, to which I can only give you a partial answer....

Richard Van Eck:  I have several sites that are a good place to start for K-12 and education in general:

K-12 Games Resources
http://www.gamesparentsteachers.com/
http://www.socialimpactgames.com/
http://www.lostgarden.com/
http://www.pixelearning.com/
https://registration.kelloggcreek.com/pp3/Teachers/default.asp
http://www.kindersite.org/digital.htm
http://online.haileybury.vic.edu.au/sites/edrington/computerclub/index.html
http://www.funkidsgames.com/
http://gamesthatwork.com/
http://brainmeld.org/
http://www.learningplace.com.au/deliver/content.asp?pid=24029
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/
http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/
http://www.phunland.com/wiki/Home
http://www.gameeducationnetwork.com/
http://www.assistivegaming.com/

Moderator: Katie Ash:  Excellent!

Richard Van Eck:  Here are also some organizations that can point you toward some good research and other resources:

Organizations & Research
http://www.digra.org/
http://isaga.pm.it-chiba.ac.jp/events.htm
http://www.nasaga.org/index.htm
http://www.sgseurope.com/
http://www.sagsaga.org/index.php?newlang=eng&name=EZCMS&page_id=14
http://www.game-research.com/
http://www.game-culture.com/
http://www.ludology.org/
http://www.cs.ndsu.nodak.edu/research/
http://www.seriousgamessummit.com/home.html
http://www.womeningamesinternational.org/
http://www.gamesforchange.org/toolkit
http://igda.org/
http://gamestudies.org/0802

Richard Van Eck:  And finally here are some of my favorite sites for games and related technology for educational purposes:

Games & Tools
http://www.food-force.com/index.php/game/
http://www.simschool.org/
http://www.sawbladesoftware.com/
http://www.machinima.com/article.php?article=428
http://www2.kumc.edu/netlearning/SLEDUCAUSESW2005/SLPresentationOutline.htm
http://secondlife.com/education
http://www.wizardits.com/Londoner/
http://www.unicef.org/voy/explore/rights/explore_3142.html
http://web.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/restaurant/
http://www.metrac.org/
http://www.redistrictinggame.com/
http://www.metaplace.com/
http://www.stottlerhenke.com/products/index.htm
(see Simbionic and Task Tutor Toolkit)
http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/
http://www.projectwhitecard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30
http://wwwic.ndsu.edu/faculty.htm
http://vcell.ndsu.edu/public.html
http://www.bavisoft.com/products.htm
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/launchball/
http://www.armadillorun.com/
http://www.atlus.com/traumacenter/
http://enterzon.com/
http://www.beyondspaceandtime.org/FCBSTWeb/web/index.html#link=
http://www.educationarcade.org/supercharged
http://iautistic.com/free-autism-games.php
http://imej.wfu.edu/articles/2005/1/02/index.asp
http://www.tiltfactor.org/layoff/

Moderator: Katie Ash:  

Wow - lots of resources.

Moderator: Katie Ash:  These links will be posted in our transcript after the chat, too, for anyone who would like to check them out afterwards.

Here's the "money-shot," the final series of sentences from Van Eck that I hope will drive you to investigate further:

One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to assume that "Playing games=learning"

While you will get many good skills by playing many games, the best use of games for learning will occur when we as educators take a careful look at different games and make our best efforts to develop meaningful lessons that employ games. That takes work and time, and in any case will only ever be a part of what we do in the classroom.

Change PIE--Proponents for Innovative Education

Professor Spot Video

Kaplan University is running a commercial that made me weep a bit when first I saw it. I'm pleased as punch that my lovely wife Lee Ann excitedly looked it up on YouTube to share it with me. "This is what you're always talking about!" she said.

She's right.

I know little about Kaplan University but I bow deeply to a commercial that says important things. Watch:



Wow.

"Why Second Life?" Presentation to the Center for Science Outreach and School for Science and Math

My presentation to colleagues at Vanderbilt Center for Science Outreach went pretty darned well!

I'll flesh this out more in a bit, and I have most of it on audio so it'll likely be our Snacks4theBrain! episode 80, but here's the slideshare, ya'll (with the caveat that I talked over the slides like a madman and had a great deal of fun doing it!).

Why Second Life Scott Merrick For VU CSO

View more presentations from Scott Merrick. (tags: virtual worlds cso)

There'll probably be a tidied up version by the time of the podcast. Several links came to mind as I was chatting the dozen or so folks up. Thanks to Ronee Francis, my new friend and colleague at the Vanderbilt Discover Archive for coming in, and thanks so so much to our driving force, Dr. Virginia Shepherd, Director of the CSO, for being there. Her cancellation of a trip to Cleveland likely had nothing to do with my little session, but it sure was good to see her there...

Oh, for grins, here's the Prezi.com version, which I worked on for hours and had to set by the wayside due to its automatic and currently apparently unfixable tendency to truncate long URLs. I have it on good authority the makers of Prezi are working on the issue and I hope to use this fun and "non-linear" presentation tool more in the near future!

Here, by the way, is the URL for the ISTE/SL beta orientation I mentioned a couple of times. If you go there to create your avatar, you land first of all at ISTE Island, a great place to start out!


Cheers!