Pearson Learning Executive Forum, September 2012

A

decade or so ago, working in a private school setting as Lower School Technology Coordinator at University School of Nashville, I forwarded the notion that any of our esteemed faculty and staff who benefited from funding to attend professional development workshops should be required to share what they learned from the experience. That suggestion was never formalized, though I did my best to hold myself to that standard here at my blog. Previous posts as far back as 2006 shared my travels in learning with the world, and the fun part is that they stand as a lasting archive. Here's the most recent addition to that body of work.

 

Thank you for attending 2012 PDL PreK-12 Executive Forum “Common Ground and Higher Expectations” in Orlando, FL. 

We hope you enjoyed the opportunity to meet educators just like you and discovered exciting ways to reach your destination and tools that will help navigate you toward your goals of higher student achievement.
 
Your input is important to us! If you have any questions or wish to discuss digital solutions available to you and your students, visit www.pearsonschool.com/digital.
 
Thank you again for attending the 2012 PDL PreK-12 Executive Forum! 
 


Chris Dragon,

President
Pearson Digital Learning

Last Wednesday I hopped aboard a Southwest Airlines flight with colleagues (also esteemed) Adrienne McNew and James Witty to soar down to Orlando, Florida at the invitation of Pearson Digital Learning to attend a two day conference they were calling an "Executive Forum." I've never thought of myself as an executive, but if we stretch the definition to one that includes one who is executing a program to offer online learning options in a public school setting for the first time in history to secondary (and eventually K-12) school students in Tennessee, well, okay.

The flight was filled with chat, as we, missing our middle Bs boarding group and ending up at the second to last row of seats in the 737, at least were able to sit together. Adrienne, self-professed aviophobic, had told us that she usually sleeps on flights, but our talk was so lively that proved to be impossible for her. This congeniality would set the stage for the rest of our trip. I came back to Nashville more than ever convinced that I am blessed to work in the company of these folks.

We hit some fairly serious turbulence about an hour out, and it was good we were laughing. I don't like that stuff either but I'm glad we had established a light tone. I think the shaking was serious enough that anyone standing might have been tossed around a bit. Luckily, everyone in the plane heeded the pilot's warning and was buckled up. Once we landed, we all laughed when the pilot heaved a dramatic heavy sigh over the intercom and exclaimed, "Yay. We made it!"

Yay. We made it!

We grabbed a cab to the hotel, and wow it was hot and humid. I had to ask the driver for more AC, which he did provide, and we got to the Renaissance Hotel Sea World safely, if a bit sweaty. As we entered the hotel we ran into Sharon Anderson from Putnam County, TN schools, a program which has been around considerably longer than ours (though we are the first recognized actual virtual School in Tennessee). Her group was on the way to a dinner Pearson-hosted for the Tennessee contingent. We retired to our respective rooms and changed clothes, then all met and snagged another cab to the hotel. We almost didn't get into the van, as the cabbie reached back from the driver's seat to open the side door from within but failed to take his car out of drive and only corrected his mistake when we yelled that his car was rolling!

We made it to Roy's Restaurant in one piece, or three, and had a wonderful dinner with lively conversation. Back at the hotel, we retired for what looked like a full day the next day.

I was up early as always and did an hour or so on the stationary bike in the wonderful Fitness Room then hit the whirlpool for a limbering up soak. I intended to plop into the pool but the water was really chilly so I deferred, headed up to my room, then down to registration. The first thing on the agenda was lunch! It was a wonderful meal, and I chalked up my second good meal of the trip. First up, a welcome by Pearson Digital President Chris Dragon, then I tweeted:

Scott Merrick ‏@scottmerrick

Listening to Lee Crockett and greatly enjoying his keynote at Orlando's Pearson Learning Executive Forum

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9:45 AM - 20 Sep 12 · Details

Lee was spectacular. A longtime PLN (Professional Learning Network) contact whom I'd never actually met, this fiery fast talking Canadian--co-author with Ian Jukes (whom I have met and interviewed for my long-running podcast "Snacks4theBrain" ((grab episode 41)) and Ted McCain of Understanding the Digital Generation) served up visions of the future including my paraphrased  take-home from his talk, "In a very short time, anyone who needs to be managed will be unemployable." View a "presentation perspective" and by all means click that link on the last slide to subscribe to Ian and Lee's "Committed Sardine" newsletter. You'll get a free e-book, "Highly Educated Useless People" when you do.

Crockett was followed by Shawn Mahoney, Vice President, School Product Design Research and Evaluation at Pearson Digital Learning, who gave us a very detailed run-down of the ongoing processes by which courseware and curriculum are developed and tweaked for optimal performance. While a bit technical (this is a very smart woman) I found myself building trust in this organization, clearly Ms. Mahoney's intention. I heard a top level Pearson representative speak at the ISTE Leadership Symposium in San Diego last year say "Our online courses aren't very good. They are the best available but we have a long way to go to make them be what online students deserve and need in order to be educated for the digital future to come." This is  a paraphrase, obviously, but I was impressed to hear such candor from a commercial source. Clearly Ms. Mahoney is leading the development of some very good stuff, even using eye-tracking results from test students to drive design for efficacy. More power to her.

Maureen Martin shared some of the early learning offerings from Pearson, including Waterford Early Learning and Success Maker. Though our elementary education work is a bit down the road, I enjoyed the opportunity to learn more.

Steve Bane closed the day with a session on Success Maker, a powerful digital literacy platform for the middle school years and Write to Learn. The intelligent individualization features of the former are fascinating, and you can read more about that here.

Free from our seats, we adjourned to the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) "Appy Hour" in the hotel lobby. My sense was that the assemblage, 52 attendees from 13 states, were pretty over-informed by that time, though we did head over to the Write to Learn station to chat with Steve, where I learned that it can be incorporated into existing courseware as an add-on tool for high schoolers. This platform has a sort of built in Artificial Intelligence which can grade essays, a development I find fascinating and intend to pursue more fully. A student can use it to submit work, then revise that work based on its commentary feedback. Cool as beans.

Dinner at Sharks Underwater Grill at SeaWorld was excellent. We walked over, eschewing the proffered van for a bit of exercise in the warm and humid evening. Once there, we found ourselves hiking deep into SeaWorld to the restaurant, where we gathered outside for champagne and chat (and sweat) by the lake prior to being marched into the long tunnel leading to the restaurant. Dinner was wonderful, and we enjoyed lively chat with Sharon and Jan, a regional Pearson rep before strolling back to the hotel to retire. I tried to read a book and awoke around 4:30 am with the open book on my chest and the bed lamp still blazing. Good enough for that. I got up and headed down to the fitness room for another bout with the bike. I have learned that a little exercise in the morning always makes my days go better, and yes, I'm addicted.

Eric Wagner woke us up big time and here's that tweet:

Scott Merrick ‏@scottmerrick

Eric Wagner wakes us up at Pearson Digital Learning's Executive Forum at Renaissance Sea World in Orlando, FL pic.twitter.com/9iADIBd7

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His talk centered around the future of the future, and much like Crockett's the day before, set us up for participating in the breakout sessions which followed with a mindset in that vein. I followed his futurist predictions with interest, especially fascinated with his focus on all things mobile. His description of how GPS and databases collecting personal interests and information would work together in the future to, for example, let you know when you are near a Home Depot where you can pick up those nails you need and, more than that, order, pay, and have the service rep meet you in the parking lot with your nails and a receipt, was engaging to say the least.

Two 45 minute breakout sessions followed, and I attended Steve Bane's on GradPoint, the "son of BrainHoney" Pearson LMS we'll be expanding our use of come Fall 2013 as we wean ourselves off of BrainHoney;  and Maureen Martin's, on Write to Learn, which remains as a focus goal for my investigation over the next few months.

Steve Bane closed things down with a Writer to Learn talk, and though we were all clearly "monkey-skunked" by then (from my late father-in-law: "As the monkey said while having relations with the skunk, 'I don't think I've had as much as I want but I'm pretty sure I've had just about as much as I can stand.'") it was informative and he's such a lively speaker that we all attended, well, attentively.

We snagged box lunches on the way out, and having already checked out of the hotel Adrienne and I camped out in the lobby for a couple hours before heading to the airport in a cab, her to head home to Nashville and me to meet my dear brother Ed and take a rental car to our late brother Bill's family home to spend a couple more days visiting our sister-in-law and our nieces, nephews, and their families. But that's another story. Thanks to Pearson Digital Learning for a great learning opportunity completely in keeping with their tagline, "Always Learning."

Snapshots from Our First Ever MNPS Virtual School 2012 September Picnic in the Park!

		Picnic in the Park! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Thanks to all who joined us for Wednesday's first ever MNPS Virtual School SeptemberPicnicInThePark! It was fun mingling and gnoshing the burgers and hot dawgs so ably grilled by Ms. McNew's able husband Matt. We are all looking forward to the October Fall Fest. Students, stay tuned!

And congrats to Sabrina Briscoe, the lucky winner of our little student raffle. Enjoy your iTunes gift card and other goodies!

Mr. M.

EdTechLeadersOnline Fall Webinars

Re-shared from ETLO's email campaign! OF course I want you to take in all of these, but October 30? Probably attendance-required!

Join us for these fall webinar events!

Increasing Student Achievement: Digital Tools in Online Learning Environments   Date: Wednesday, October 17 Time: 3:00-4:00 PM ET Presenter:  Dr. Lisa Hervey, NBCT, Research Associate at The William & Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

In this webinar, Dr. Hervey will discuss and reflect on the importance of selected standards from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) related to teaching with multimedia and online tools. She will also share several free, open-source digital tools that can support online educators in meeting these standards. The webinar will focus on four guiding questions: Authenticity: How do the selected SREB and iNACOL standards address student engagement? What does this mean for online educators? Clarity: How can digital tools be the "solution" for increased student engagement in online learning environments?   Impact: How do digital tools such as Screencast-O-Matic, Diigo, and Voki engage students? (a brief overview of each tool will provided) Opportunity: What opportunity is there to encourage educators in using these or similar tools when teaching online? To access EDC's Collaborate system: 1. Go to: http://econference.edc.org. 2. Type your name in the text box in the upper right corner of the page where you see the words "Type your name here." 3. Click the button titled "Log in as a Participant." 4. You may be prompted to download the software required for Collaborate. Pre-registration is not required. Hope to see you there!

Creating and Running a Public Online High School:  Challenges, Successes, and Lessons Learned   Date: Tuesday, October 30 Time: 4:00-5:00 PM ET Presenter: Scott Merrick, Online Learning Specialist, Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Virtual School     The challenges and successes involved in crafting, improving, and delivering an online public school are significant. MNPS Virtual School in Nashville, Tennessee, now in its second year as the first public virtual school in the state of Tennessee, has many lessons to share about both the model MNPS Virtual School is using to build a strong virtual district school and the challenges they have had to overcome along the way. Scott Merrick, an Online Learning Specialist who has worked with the school since it began in 2010, will discuss these lessons and offer a personal vision of where public virtual education is going. Scott came to the public school sector after 15 years as an educator in a private school setting and feels dedicated to making sure his currently 82,000+ student school district will continue to offer online learning options to its incredibly diverse and growing population of students.     Growing a Successful International Baccalaureate Online Program   Date: Tuesday, November 13 Time: 3:00-4:00 PM ET Presenters:  Kirsten Peterson, EdTech Leaders Online and John Willoughby, Pamoja Education     This webinar will showcase online courses designed to prepare a global collection of online teachers, site-based coordinators, and students to run a successful online International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Over the past two years, EdTech Leaders Online (ETLO) and Pamoja Education have collaborated to grow the online IB program through a collection of targeted professional development and orientation courses that focus on teacher learning communities and student engagement. Come join a dynamic discussion with ETLO and Pamoja Education leaders about how a fast-paced needs-driven online program influenced program design and facilitation. In addition to looking at example courses for IB teachers and students, we’ll have a question and answer session built around some of the more provocative “what would you do” scenarios faced by Pamoja Education and ELTO throughout the program design and facilitation.       Have you missed any of our previous webinars? The recordings are available on our website: http://www.edtechleaders.org/webinars. You can also continue discussions on the webinars and other online learning topics in the ETLO Forum.  http://moodle.etlo.org/course/view.php?id=215     Trouble viewing this message?  Click here to view in a web browser.

This message was sent to scott@scottmerrick.net from:

Barbara Treacy | EdTech Leaders Online @ EDC, 43 Foundry Avenue | Waltham, MA 02453

Busy October!

 Just touching base on a few presentations I'll be doing in October. It's going to be a busy month. First, for ISTE's SIGOL, I'll be facilitating and hosting  a 59 minute session as the opening event for the bi-monthly SIGOL Webinar series "Priceless ProfDev in Less than and Hour!" I'm really looking forward to this one and I hope you can join us, as Cat Flippen (who can resist a smile at that name?) shares some great successes she's had using online tools in her high school classrooms. This one will be of great interest to all of us working in online learning environments as well as to anyone in any classroom with an internet connection, anywhere! Here's the brief description, and I'll add more details as we get closer to the event itself:

Wed., Oct. 17

3 pm Eastern

Catherine Flippen

Online Assessments, Data Collection and You -- How to assess, reinforce, and collect data without using paper to improve student success in the classroom.ll

Then, during Artclectic weekend (am I crazy?) I will take an hour out of those events to share our own ISTE SIGVE successes at ISTE 2012 in San Diego last June with attendees at Singapore's MobiLearnAsia conference. The theme is our Virtual Environments Playground's house of digital mirrors and just how we set that up so that attendees all over the planet could take part in the San Diego presentations in Second Life and on Ustream.tv. I'll be Skyped in for that one and I am hoping for a good crowd. We don't have a time yet--I may be up in the middle of the night! It's sometime during the day on Saturday, October 26 though. Stay tuned. And see the website for info about the conference.

Finally, on October 30, I've been asked to share the successes and challenges we've enjoyed and met in the development of MNPS Virtual School, the first public virtual school in the state of Tennessee and a growing viable option for students across the state. That's for the stellar organization Ed Tech Leaders Online, hosts of the annual Online Learning Institute attached to ISTE's annual conference. The session will be at 3:00pm Central time and is free. Watch their "Keys to Online Learning and Community-Building" webinar series page for details of that as we get closer.

That's it for now, as I head down to Orlando, Florida tomorrow for Pearson Learning's two day Executive Forum with two of my colleagues from Virtual School. Never boring, I must say!

Post-Interview for Channel 4

I suppose that everyone who's ever been on a television news interview does to some extent replay and revise answers in their head after the fact. I have to say that my own recall and response is working overtime though, so I am posting this morning in the wee hours in order to say what I wish I would have had time to say. Once the segment airs on Nashville's Channel 4 News, purportedly on Monday evening, I'll grab the video and embed it or link to it here, so that you will be able to laugh at my performance or congratulate me for it. Either way, it's in the past.

So, emailed at around 10:30 on Friday morning to attend a live television interview at the Martin Professional Development Center at 1:15 that afternoon, I concluded what I was working on, which was one of 23 class-specific "Performance Concerns" online reportage forms, geared to improve student support for all of our nearly 700 student course seats this semester (more on that later), I ran home in my little red Smart Car to get out of my Friday Casual Day jeans and into slacks, shirt, tie, and blazer. I let the puppy out of his kennel for a bit while I wolfed down a quick reheated gourmet burger from the fridge and a big glass of water and put the puppy back into his kennel, then ran back into town to be at Martin Center early.

There was a Microsoft event in progress in the big main meeting room so I hung out in Dr. Kecia Ray's office going over the bulleted list I had constructed from emails sent by both my Principal and my Executive Principal. Good there. I knew what to talk about. At around 1:30 our Associate Superintendent for High Schools and I were seated on the same stage the Microsoft people had just vacated, and I was introduced to the WSMV News reporter, Cara Kumari, and fitted with a lavaliere mic. Camera pointed, interview ensued. You can see the interview here when it's ready, both me and Jay Steele, our talented and dynamic ASHS (see above), which may be interlaced, depending on the editing style of the news room.

Here's the video!

Now, to what's been raging through my brain. I know I meant to highlight "our small but mighty team" at the School but the incisive Ms. Kumari's lead question, basically "How did you come to this line of work?" threw me a bit. I'm looking forward to hearing whether or not my response sounded like "I built it," which in part I did but I'm not remotely suggesting that any of it was anything short of a team effort. I believe I said "That's what we are doing." I hope so, because the level of service and support our team of only five provide is nothing short of amazing. Then add the 23 adjunct teachers--a number that, like the number of students we will serve, will continue to grow--then you begin to see the scope and its potential to serve our 82,000+ student school district and the state beyond.

I think I responded to the question "What makes MNPS Virtual School different from a commercial service, the one now under investigation by the State of Tennessee for poor performance at a premium cost to taxpayers?" (I paraphrase) pretty well. I explained that, essentially, "We are a Public School, and we are not constrained by the necessity to earn a profit. Sure, we must function economically, but our decisions are not made with that constraint. Every decision we make is with what is best for the student in mind." I did also get to share a bit about Discussion Based Assessments, one of my interview goals. What's up with my hair? At one point Dr. Ray came in the back door and made a "tame that hair" gesture from the door. I laugh now.

Here is what I had planned to contribute to the interview, shared here to expunge from my self-flagellating brain the need to share it. Maybe I'll sleep better tonight!

• We have added new face to face meetings, Orienations, Midmester Review, and Final Exam Review, which we will hold at our beautiful new Student Center at Cohn, formerly the Cohn Adult Learning Center. We will also stream these sessions and make them available in recorded form for review and for those not able to attend.
• We have an intense focus on Student Support, hence the aforementioned Performance Concerns project, so that students who are failing to work at pace can receive both counseling and encouragement, or intervention if necessary, from their in-school Counselors or from our very capable Counselor, Ms. Adrienne McNew.
• We provide online tutoring 24/7 primarily for our Math Students, via a wonderful service called Grade Results, and at no cost to our students who need it.
• We are firing up weekly Enhanced Math Workshops for students who need in-person, one-on-one help
• Attendance is Performance. I had worked out in my drive to Martin Center a whole explanation of how we are held to the same standards as any school, and that we have recently created detailed policies concerning how lack of performance in online coursework equates to failure to attend school and that these have been approved by our school board. If you think about that, in a brick and mortar school a student can come every day, sit in the back not working, and be marked present. That cannot happen in our school because we do not require our students to occupy a seat. The only indication we have that a student is "here" is by a detailed access to login records and the work he or she submits. That, to me, is value added. I had also hoped to highlight the benefits of everything being digitally available and of course the option for students to redo work toward mastery. 
• I am so proud of my team I could weep now just thinking about them. They are the hardest working other 4 people I know.

NewsChannel5 is on Our Story!

On Wednesday a news team dropped into our school and the resulting story, aired last night right at 6:30 on the local news, is one that makes us proud. Please share as you will: NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather

Calling ALL Connected Educators!

I've been off-grid(s) lately as my first work, my MNPS Virtual School, is getting off the ground with doubled enrollment over last year and new policies and procedures gearing up for continued incremental exponential growth, but I do intend to be there for

A Connected Educators Hour Inworld

August 21, 2012 Connected Hour with SIGVE

In celebration of Connected Educator’s Month, SIGVE is hosting a Connected hour with some of the most innovative educators around.  On August 21 at 9PM EST a tour covering 6 virtual destinations will begin atSIGVE headquarters on Second Life.  The tour will also be broadcast live and viewable on Youtube.  Tours will provide information regarding ongoing connected activities for educators.  Questions will be taken throughout the tour both in-world and on the stream.

Our own Gridjumper says it better than I could. READ all the amazing details, which include a new and innovative mashup event delivery system which will allow all educators to participate, whether they are avatar ready or not!

International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference

Guest post by Alice Kreuger, Virtual Ability, LLC:

You are cordially invited to attend sessions at Virtual Ability's International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference to be held in Second Life at The Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island Friday August 3 and Saturday August 4.

Here is a SLurl to the event:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/53/172/23

You will find the full schedule of events here:
http://www.virtualability.org/idrac2012

Descriptions of the individual sessions are found here:
http://blog.virtualability.org

Presentations include:

    Chad Gobert from the National Service Inclusion Project and Melissa Rowan of the Job Accommodation Network will discuss how programs can document and evaluate their impacts in the community.
    Kimberly O’Haver, who oversees the Open Society Foundations’ work with youth with disabilities, will speak about international media coverage of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
    Nola Nash, Project Manager of The Learning Center, will describe the Atlantis Community, the second-oldest Independent Living Center in the US.
    Tom Boellstorff, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Coming of Age in Second Life, will discuss how communities form in Second Life®.
    Philip Rosedale, founder and chairman of Linden Lab, creators of Second Life®, will chat with Alice Krueger, President of Virtual Ability, Inc. about how the virtual world infrastructure facilitates community development.
    Kathryn Irving will discuss the history of the Massachusetts School for Idiotic Children, which is the oldest publicly-funded institution serving children with developmental disabilities.
    Preethy Samuel, Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy at Wayne State University, will speak about community interactions of families with a child with a developmental disability.
    Caren Levine, a consultant in educational media and technology, will speak about welcoming new members into a community.
    Carla Broek, a Belgian expert on online media accessibility, will speak about European disability issues under the European Union.
    Cindy Tandy of Valdosta State University and Scott Anstadt of Florida Gulf Coast University will lead a panel discussion of varied approaches to facilitating communities within Second Life®.
    Treacle Darlandes, co-owner of the "White Tiger Mentors" groups in Second Life®, will talk about learning to think about who is around us and about community inclusion.
    Richard Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Loyola Marymount University, will address the social-emotional effects of being in virtual communities on persons with disabilities.

iSocial Creates Learning Experiences for Students with Autism

Take a good look here: This is a working example of the sorts of learning I believe any student, not just those with Autism, can benefit from. Oops, I ended a sentence a preposition with. Shucks. Where was I? Oh, kudos to Dr. James Laffey and his graduate students and their young participating avatars pioneering in this sucker-slap-to-the-head spot-on implementation of virtual worlds to serve students in a manner not obtainable in any other way. The "sense of place at a distance" that I and many others (see http://sigve.iste.wikispaces.net) have been talking about for years, and, indeed, in many cases, demonstrating, has been put to use here in undeniable clarity. After viewing the video, read all about it at http://isocial.missouri.edu/iSocial/ .

But watch first:

ISTE12 Reflections--Conclusion?

I already described the Tuesday Yong Zhao keynote (a couple posts back) so maybe Tuesday will go quickly. It certainly did at the time!

I was up and exercised and to the SIG Leadership Breakfast just a few minutes late, and thankfully Andy had saved me a seat at his up front table. Kind words by Holly Jobe and Leslie Conor led to the awarding of President's Awards, certificates for service to ISTE and its mission to forward the integration of technology into education for all the right reasons. Several of my acquaintances and friends "did the paperwork" for the award, which I hope to do this year, and received the award, signed not by ISTE President Holly Jobe, but by the head guy himself, President Obama. Cool. Included in the recipients were ISTE President-Elect Kecia Ray (a dear dear friend and the reason I came to MNPS to work in the first place), SIGVE rising Lowly High Grand Poobah Bob Vojtek and his lovely and dynamic wife Rosie, and my newest Brit immigrant friend, North Carolinian Helen Crompton. I snapped this picture while the group pose was being set up:

2012 ISTE Presidential Service Award Recipients

We finished our breakfast and to our surprise were lined up to follow the lovely Sarah Chatzkel, who led us en masse down to the morning's keynote. Just a little extra recognition for volunteerism as we were sat in a prime up-front block of seats. Though I have already more than chronicled that session, and indeed embedded Yong Zhao's address itself, which if you have not yet viewed please place that rewarding task on your to-do list, in an earlier post. But I'd like to note that prior to the celebration of our Anita McAnear which led to Dr. Zhao's address, there was the most beautiful violin concert, the self-same young lady who had so pushed my lounge-lizard memory button at the President's Reception Sunday night. Watch for her--she's remarkably good, and though I don't have her name and Google is failing me (an indication that she did not receive an iota of the credit she is due) I will find out that name and update this post accordingly. Here's an iPad snapshot:

The amazingly talented entertainer at Tuesday Keynote--name on the way

After the keynote, invigorated, I did something that in many past years at ISTE/NECC conferences I simply have not had the time to do. I spent an hour plus cruising around the Exposition floor. Hundreds of vendors hawking their wares, schwag giveaways galore, plus the chance to bump in to friends, like Julie Lindsey and Vicki Davis at their book signing:

Julie and Vicki awarded me a signed copy of their book!

and Kevin Honeycut at his booth giving away (typically Kevin) creative "Bling your Nametag" glitz:

Kevin jams in his artsy booth

I also picked up a nice Dell tee-shirt while chatting with the manager of project consultants (I lost your card! Please email me! lol) and other booth workers and what I thought was a pretty cool Google plastic water bottle until the Google on it flaked off after about 10 hours of use.

The best part of this experience was running into new Aussie friend Lauren Sayer just as I was calling Andy to arrange lunch. She joined us at Bub's for a long lunch (this is one of the best food/beer hangouts in San Diego, y'all) where I learned more about her exploits as a consultant/trainer in her neck of the woods, including (it must be rough) Bali and (it does sound rough) the Australian outback.

With Lauren and Andy at Bub's

After the late lunch, I made my way over to the Marriott Hotel to learn about Oba, Dr. Zhao's new learning community platform that is part Facebook, part Moodle, part Open Courseware, and geared up to be offered to teachers for free and to students for a dollar a head. You'll be hearing much more about this soon as I took that lure fully. Just stay tuned, I tell you. No links here--a fuller exposition at a later date. Suffice it to say that it looks facile, secure, and empowering. Stay tuned.

After that, I rushed back to the conference center for the second annual ISTE SIGVE EduMachinima Fest.I don't need to describe that because it's all detailed at our wiki. Congratulations to our winners, listed there, especially to the student winners, who can now claim to be international film festival awards winners! Thanks to everyone who took leadership roles to make this a wonderful event, especially Kae Novak, Chris Luchs, and Andy Wheelock onsite, Marianne Malmstrom via Skype in New York, and Tanya Smedley remotely via Second Life. 

After the Festival Andy and I headed over to the SIG Council Reception at Cafe Sevilla for tapas and collegiality, then to the Goodbye Don and Anita party (with Bob, Rosie, and Helen) where there was an open bar that led to our own early retirement in our hotel rooms. A good time was had by all. I'm just realizing that I think I shared a little about that party in my last post and for the sake of accuracy I will fix that later today by moving it over here, if in fact it does exist there, in which case it's in the wrong place and needs to be fixed. If you read that last sentence you 1) have too much time on your hands and 2) deserve an apology from me. 

Sorry. 

But I'm not sorry for the time I spent running around and learning at ISTE12 in San Diego, California. My earlier post about the Online Learning Institute details my day Wednesday, so guess what? It IS the Conclusion!!! Yay. Now to find those paper thank you notes and put a pen to them. I have so many people to thank for what may be the best conference of my career. I do want to leave you with one graphic from Dr. Chris Dede's inspiring OLI presentation. Something to chew on:

Dr. Chris Dede is on a track you need to follow. Real change?

Yes, I'm a member of the choir he is singing to, and if you join that choir, and sing in your own way, maybe we can actually make some substantial changes in the way education is carried out in our world. 

In summary, I totally enjoyed flying under the radar (after last year's awards awards awards) and just attending to things, getting my annual hugs from colleagues and friends dear to me, and then taking the train north to Ventura and spending an amazingly relaxed few days with my dear brother James and my godson Seamus and the amazing Riad, then, dear reader, coming home. Which is where you find me now, finishing up this post with an hour on the exercise bike and closing the book on ISTE12. 

Peace, and keep the faith, whatever that means for you.

Over and out.

ISTE12 Reflections, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

I'm thinking if I don't start this now I never will. Back at MNPS Virtual School the ante is raised, registration continues for the fall, and policy and procedure continue to be written and formalized. We are one less team member, for reasons I do not fully understand but must respect. On the edges of my professional life, but moving in and out of primary focus, are the development of a professional development plan for ISTE SIGOL and ongoing growth and activity in SIGVE. We also have a new puppy in the house, which is like having a new baby in many ways, and my lovely honey is starting up a business which is evermore busy.

It's never boring.

A benefit of passage of time is hopefully that my reflections will be a little less wordy. We shall see.

So, where were we? Oh, yeah, the alarm waking me up with its classic modem-dialing sound on Monday morning. Down to the hotel fitness room for a half hour of stationary biking, up, shower, and off to a busy day. No breakfast, straight to the Virtual Environments Playground by 7 a.m. (We did catch some muffins leftover from the SIGOL annual meeting.)

On the way in, I had to laugh at the direct sunlight on the Smart Board display unit:

The light in that fabulous convention center lobby made the room a welcoming place to spend time. It also, unfortunately, rendered the Smart Boards useless for display--even when the sun was not directly on them. Just too many lumens washing out too few lumens. Even the much smaller and much brighter LED displays struggled, as you will see, though I deemed ours "GE" "good enough."

Another early bird old friend came through first thing, enabling me to snag my annual David Warlick "my-space-like" photo (I  laugh at the squinty eyes:):

I'm laughing at our squinting eyes and I hope Dave is too :)

Andy arrived and we got to work, moving every available chair over to the LED area, setting up my old workhorse Dell XPS with the Microsoft Lifecam to support the ustream delivery into the internetz and into Second Life. This is an important aspect of what we do each year--share our presentations with others around the globe who are not able to be at the conference physically.Gridjumper (Tanya Smedly) was our Grand Poobah in Second Life, and a new member named Bluebarker created a diner on the fly with a copy of the display object I had already placed in our Second Life headquarters, and off and on during the day attendees from Australia, the U.S., and other countries as diverse as Norway and Italy attended our sessions. I am not planning to describe each session in detail here, but here's the schedule for the day:

Gonna make you scroll there to save some webpage real estate.

And here's a snap from within Second Life, featuring me in the "mirror" and also sitting in the red shirt in SL:

The day went just marvelously, despite the tech challenges inherent in delivering our little "hall of mirrors" to the world. We ended the Playground, which in previous years has run the full three days of the conference and this year was only offered this one day, with Lucas Gillespie engaging in a lively Skype discussion from North Carolina, adding yet another mirror to our hall. His image an voice came out of the LED display from the Skype connection on an iPad, while the laptop and webcam streamed the event to ustream and into Second Life, where attendees there could also ask questions through that chat inteface. All in a day's work.

Lucas Skypes in re WOW and Minecraft

I will say that despite our frantic ongoing triage we had an excellent day, with crowds often standing room only. The only session that failed was my own, since we simply could not get the sound from SL to work in time. Not even that was a complete failure, though, as my guest co-presenter from Israel, Ilan Tochner, shared about Kitely, is innovative virtual world platform, to those in Second life while I fumbled around with cables in San Diego.

I missed much of the actual presentations, running around as I was ensuring things went well enough. I also had to peel out to attend the SIGOL annual meeting, since my election to the Professional Development Chair of that SIG this year commits me to work there as well.

That was at 8:30 across the Convention Center, and it went very well, I think. Mike Gorman, incoming SIG Chair, will be a good partner for me as we plumb the depths of our membership to develop and deliver learning experiences for our members. We'll be talking this week to map out our plan for the year.

Here's a pic from that event:

After Lucas was done, we were done, though our space continued its utility in a "Birds of a Feather" session on Minecraft. Finally, at 5:30, we had our SIG annual gathering, where Bob Vojtek was ceremoniously installed as our Lowly High Grand Poobah for 2012-13, with Kae Novak the shadowing Grand Poobah gearing toward ascension the following year. That's the way we roll. Andrew Wheelock, ascended to the throne of Lowly High Grand Poobah Emeritus, sitting along side Lisa Linn and myself throughout the ages and into posterity. I'm getting all grand here, but that kind of mysterious ceremony, made up ad hoc as we progress, is part of what makes our SIG stand out from others. It's how we roll.

Monday night snuck up on us then, and after the traditional group photo session capping off our meeting I hit the streets for a dinner with Canadian Gordon Holden at the Brew House, a local brewery. Very nice. Then off to the Google Party, an invited get-together of a thousand or so of my closest friends. Not. I was good for one beer and off "home" to bed. Yes. I am old. And the throngs of young educators enjoying the free beverages while not depresssing me did certainly put me in my place. It is a good place.

I had intended to get through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in this post, written as it has been whilst exercising on my recumbent bicycle, with the help of my new laptop rack. Watch out world--I may just be a little more productive now. And a little more exercised.

More soon as I reflect on Tuesday and Wednesday. I've already shared the best Keynote ever (Tuesday's Yong Zhao) so maybe I can even wrap it up next post! Cross your virtual fingers!