Drape's Takes

Stephen Downes discusses a "great rebranding" that is apparently taking place with regard to the concept of MOOCs:

MOOCs were not designed to serve the missions of the elite colleges and universities. They were designed to undermine them, and make those missions obsolete. 

Yes there has been a great rebranding and co-option of the concept of the MOOC over the last couple of years. The near-instant response from the elites, almost unprecedented in my experience, is a recognition of the deeply subversive intent and design of the original MOOCs (which they would like very much to erase from history).

David Wiley responds:

Don’t mistake lust for fame with forethought. The current mania around MOOCs has nothing to do with strategic neutralization of a potential threat to higher education’s business model and everything to do with needing to be in the New York Times. Assuming the prior gives way too much credit where it isn’t due – twice. First, to the leadership of schools who have jumped speedily on the MOOC bandwagon. And second, to the creators of the MOOC approach who by implication have supposedly devised a method so brilliant as to be capable of destroying formal higher education (which, apparently, is to be lauded).

If you are a teacher, administrator, or technology specialist that would like to learn more about the many free, online tools that can be used to enhance your teaching, then consider yourself personally invited to join us for round 2 of Open Professional Development - Social Software in the Classroom. Round 1 was such a success that we'd love to have you learn with us and look forward to an exciting, open, and collaborative experience.

• When - Class will be held once a week (for five weeks) beginning Wednesday, January 23rd. Class sessions will be held from 4:30-7:15 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Click here to translate these times to your time zone.
• Skype - If you don't have a Skype account, you will want to create one ahead of time (free), as Robin Ellis will be moderating a Skype chatroom throughout the class. To join in, send her a quick message through Skype: robin.ellis1. We recommend you use a headset for the conversations throughout the course, using one will minimize the echoing effect you may experience.
• Class Wiki - Our class wiki (with schedule and future participant portfolios) will be available here: http://openpd.wikispaces.com/. To join in on the action, please join our class wiki.
• Attendance - For teachers not receiving in-service credit, perfect attendance is not required.
• Come One, Come All - While this class is intended to help newbies learn more about the educational uses of Web 2.0 technologies, experienced users are equally welcome (and appreciated, as the sum of our knowledge is what truly makes these new technologies so appealing).
• If you are a teacher in the Jordan School District, you may also register here to receive JSD lane change credit.

Hopefully, I'll see you soon!

Technorati Tags: openpd socialsoftware07 socialsoftware08 classroom professionaldevelopment education technology

To technology professional developers (and social software enthusiasts) worldwide:

Social Software '07 ended on such a high note that Robin Ellis and I are ready (and preparing) for rounds two and three.


One thing we'd like to change in rounds two and three is how you (and your teachers) participate. While we want the class to remain open to anyone around the world, we think it would be more effective if we could get multiple sites to participate in the teaching, as well as the learning - you know: we'll rotate teaching. With five sites, each site can teach one week.

Below are the details as they have been established. Some details can change, some can't.

Round 2 - Social Software Overview

Details That Can't Change

1. Wednesday nights, consecutive from Jan 23 to Feb 20. At my site, we will be meeting from 4:15pm to 7:15pm (Mountain Standard Time).
   
2. This class will be held on Wednesday nights, for five consecutive weeks.
3. In this class, we will be covering a wide range of social software tools and how to use them to teach (much like we did in our Social Software '07 class).

Details That Can Change

1. I must meet for 3 hours each night with the teachers in my district. We can decide as a group, however, at exactly what times we want to connect with each other (from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, for example - or shorter if preferred).
2. The curriculum can change - in fact, Robin and I would like to work with YOU to design the perfect curriculum.

Round 3 - Blogs & Wikis in the Classroom

Details That Can't Change

1. Wednesday nights, consecutive but with one jump: Feb 27, Mar 5, 19, 26, and April 2. Again, we will be meeting from 4:15pm to 7:15pm (Mountain Standard Time).

Details That Can Change

1. Again, the content. In this third round we wanted to focus on a few specific social software applications (like blogs and wikis), really get down and dirty with the details.
2. Again, we'd like your input in designing the curriculum.
   

Technorati Tags: socialsoftware07 socialsoftware08 education technology professionaldevelopment open

Last night's Social Software in the Classroom open professional development class went as well as I had envisioned it could go from the beginning. To say that it went perfectly would probably be an understatement:

• Recording, transmission, and connecting went flawlessly.
• We opened with the first "show & tell" session that I know of that has included teachers from across the country. The topic: Bring your favorite Firefox plugin.
• We continued with a wonderful discussion about the in-class use of various exciting, online teaching tools.
• After a brief break, we were happy to interact with our first international guest speaker. Rachel Boyd (from New Zealand) was kind enough to explain to our class about a few of the experiences she's had in using blogging as an educational tool for her students. How many guest speakers from New Zealand have you brought into your class lately? +10pts to Rachel for her willingness to share.
  
• Finally, Rachel's discussion led perfectly into a discussion about blogging. We used Blogger as our tool of choice, simply because the participants already had Google accounts and the Blogger interface is relatively easy to use.
• In total, roughly 35 teachers from around the world participated in our class.
• It's been amazing to see how far we've come in 5 short weeks, and am glad that we were able to shine in this final session.
• None of this would have been possible without educational social networking! Classroom 2.0, EduBloggerWorld, FaceBook, and especially the Twitter network (my TwitterSchool) have been able to come together to make truly great things happen.
  

Again, the entire class was extremely refreshing, and I'm confident that everyone that participating walked away from the night having learned much.


Click here to view the video and audio recorded during the class to read about how we accomplished it all.

Technorati Tags: socialsoftware07 firefox blogosphere professional_development classroom20 edubloggerworld twitter ustream camtwist

Nothing brings President Bush’s references to “the Google” (and his apparent lack of technology literacy) closer to home than my recent experiences at the NFUSSD conference in Charleston, West Virginia.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of presenting (thrice) with Margo Shirley and Kathy Ridd at the National Federation of Urban & Suburban School Districts conference. The small, annual conference attracts an elite crowd of superintendents, school board members, and other high-ranking district administrators from various school districts across the United States. I was fortunate enough to give the closing segment of a presentation detailing the experiences I and my fellow team members have had while assisting in the creation the Jordan School District Comprehensive Balanced Literacy website. Our assigned task was to describe our collaborative efforts in creating the site – but my internal agenda pushed more toward a discussion of the skills necessary to succeed in the 21st Century, and our students’ heightened need for increased collaboration, global awareness, and social & cross-cultural skills. Essentially, I framed most of my points around the framework created by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the list of skills that they have published (giving pretty much an outline of our recent Social Software in the Classroom open PD class). Entitled Soaring to New Heights in Literacy Through Technology Integration, our presentation was well received by roughly thirty-five participants.

While presenting, I was struck (and rather severely) with the realization that many (certainly not all, but many) of the participants in the conference had extremely limited technology skills. Furthermore, this realization had even greater effect as I better understood to whom I was presenting: Remember, these participants were educational leaders (superintendents and the like) of school districts throughout the country. Indeed, I was literally awestruck as I was forced to throttle back my discussion (almost to the point of that famous right-clicking lesson), in order to help several of the participants to understand.

Which has left me to question: How can we expect our students to learn things that even our leaders clearly don’t understand? Furthermore, if we require our teachers to have some level of technology proficiency, shouldn't we equally require our administrators to posess somewhere near the same level of proficiency? If our students should be learning this stuff, why shouldn't we all?

To further illustrate, it may be helpful if I elaborate on the kinds of things that left me scratching my head:

• Roughly thirty-five leaders in education viewed our presentation.
• Many of the participants had, at least, heard of Wikipedia – most, however, had a negative impression of it. I attempted to dispel such wiki-disbelief using David Warlick’s Pluto example. “Go ahead, look up Pluto in Encyclopedia Britannica – you’ll see that it’s still a planet.”
• Few of the participants actually knew what blogs were. While all had heard of them, few knew how they worked, or how they could be used educationally.
• Not one of the participants had heard of Google Docs. Thirty-five participants, no Google Docs. I guess this makes me so upset because I consider Google Docs to be such a paradigm shift in the way we think about creating, editing, and storing documents.
• Only two of the participants had heard of Second Life. “Yeah, I heard about that guy that had his own virtual family. His wife divorced him and it ruined his life.” I then proceeded to teach them about the Best Practices in Education Conference that was held entirely in Second Life. Did they know of any other way to hold a highly interactive educational conference, with participants coming from countries all around the world, for even a tenth of the price? Of course not.
• Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to discuss social networks – a natural next-step in any discussion of social software. I’m afraid it would have taken ten minutes alone to dismiss the “evil MySpace” preconceptions – and unfortunately, I only had 15 minutes to leave my mark.
• Some of the participants had very limited skills, as evidenced by the kinds of questions they asked:
  
  How do I go back to the page I was just viewing? - Try clicking on the browser's BACK button.
  
  How do I see the things that are at the bottom of the page? - Try the scroll bar on the right, experience the magic.
  
  
• I finished our presentation with Pay Attention. I’m pretty sure that it was the first time that any of our district’s board members or our superintendent had seen it. Shhhhhh. This technology integration stuff is top secret. I am happy to report, however, that Pay Attention was received very well - not well enough to immediately change our district’s “No Cell Phone in the Classroom” policy, but I certainly made a lot of head-way.

In conclusion (sorry Jim – this was a long one), presenting at NFUSSD was an eye-opening experience – both for the things I have learned and because of the people I have taught. I guess the only thing I regret is that I don’t bring home the same kind of pay check as those I was able to teach. : )

Technorati Tags: nfussd07 payattention didyouknow... administrators technology education socialsoftware07

I’m very impressed with an article that Steve Hargadon (et. al) has recently written for School Library Journal (as well as a related article in eSchool News). It’s so refreshing to see educators promoting the use of Social Networks – for education’s sake. Says Steve:

While MySpace has given social networks somewhat of a bum rap among grown-ups, Classroom 2.0 is an example of how these groups can function as a virtual watering hole, a professional development tool, and a place where it’s not uncool to say you want to be someone’s friend.

Having participated heavily in several social networks for educators during the last six months, I’m absolutely amazed at (1) how much I’ve learned from participating in such networks (see my last post, for example) and (2) how much I depend on my network now that I’m hooked. An example of how much I'm hooked is clearly evident in our attempts to provide a globally attended professional development session.

Simply put, if it weren't for my TwitterSchool, EduBloggerWorld, and Classroom 2.0, our "global classroom" would be non-existent.


As of today, there have been roughly twenty-five teachers from all around the globe participate in our class. Needless to say, our class discussions have been very enlightening. In thinking aloud and in discussing the future with my co-teacher Robin Ellis, we've come up with a few ideas that we think would work well in future open professional developments sessions.

• Next round (beginning in January), let's hold another 5-week class, one night a week.
  
• Ideally, 5 sites would participate - each site takes a turn teaching and we rotate through the sites.
• We all work together to build a unified curriculum for the class.

What are your thoughts? Is this something you (or your teachers) would like to participate in?

Image Source - 1

Technorati Tags: socialsoftware07 professional_development education technology

Last night's open Social Software in the Classroom session went extremely well. In fact, the stark contrast between last night's class and the class that "tanked" a week ago makes it hard to believe that the two classes are even related.

After twenty or so minutes of initial connection issues (our Ustream audio/video feed didn't work), we were able to have a wonderful discussion about social software and our students. Naturally, I used social software (the new Google Presentations) to facilitate the discussion. We finished our class reviewing some of the wiki basics we had covered in our first session, closing by discussing a few advanced wiki concepts (including wiki Templates and embedding RSS into a wiki page).

Technologically speaking, we ended up using YugmaSkype to connect teacher participants from around the world (teachers from various locations across the United States, a few from Australia, and one from Argentina). For the record, YugmaSkype was flawless (although my Skype quit out on us a few times - possibly from so many connections) and I anticipate using it again in the future.

Thanks again to all those that participated - our discussion was one of the best I've ever had in a Professional Development session. I hope to see you again next week (due up: Google Tools).

Image Source - 1

Technorati Tags: socialsoftware07 education technology yugma skype ustream

The technology demons were out in full force last night in our first "open" professional development session (Social Software in the Classroom). Indeed, the glitches were many. Nevertheless, the session did end on a high note as we engaged in a wonderful conversation about our need as teachers to include a higher level of social software in our classes.

Here's a list of the troubles we encountered (in chronological order):

• Turns out our district's firewall won't currently allow people to view Quicktime video streams emanating from within the district. Ouch - especially since this was how we planned to share screens.
• Twenty minutes later, enter YugmaSkype - For some strange reason, we weren't able to add all of the participants to the screen broadcast, even though we were connected through Skype. Weird.
• Twenty minutes later (and loads of audio feedback) I set up a Ustream broadcast.
• A minute or two later Sue Waters comes to the rescue, "Do you want to use an Elluminate room?" Did we ever!
• Except for one of the teachers at my site. Fifteen minutes later, we were still dealing with her $%@#! USB headset and it's incompatibility with Elluminate. Yuck.

Finally, we were able to hold a pretty decent discussion about Karl Fisch's video, changes in our world, and changes in our students. The participants were extremely patient (for which I am grateful), and those that went the distance left happy with how things turned out.

That said, I still want to thank those that made this, my first attempt at an open professional development session, an effort that I'd like to attempt once more:

• Ken Pruitt
• Dave Tarwater
• Sue Waters
• Gabriella Sellart
• Lisa Parisi
• Lisa Durff

Thanks for the efforts, guys. We'll chalk our efforts up to "a learning experience" and try it again next time. And since Robin and I hashed things out for over two hours today, I think next Wednesday's session will yield much better results.

Image Source - 1

Technorati Tags: socialsoftware07 professional_development education technology skype elluminate

Well, here we go. I just finished setting up the video/audio stream with our district tech gurus (yeah, even smarter than I am) and holy crap: I'm starting to think that this thing is actually going to work.

Here are the details for this Wednesday's "open professional development session" entitled Social Software in the Classroom:

• Class will be held once a week (for five weeks) beginning Wednesday, September 19.
• Class will be held from 4:30-7:15 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Click here to translate these times to your time zone.
• If you don't have a Skype account, you will want to create one ahead of time (free), as Robin Ellis will be moderating a Skype chatroom throughout the class. To join in, send her a quick message through Skype: robin.ellis1
• Our class wiki (with schedule and future participant portfolios) will be available here: http://socialsoftware07.wikispaces.com/
• A quicktime audio/video stream will be available here: rtsp://163.248.25.133/socialsoftware07.sdp. Because we will be using Quicktime to stream, you will want to ensure that your Quicktime software is up to date ahead of time. Visit this site to get the latest version (free).

If you are a teacher, administrator, or technology specialist that would like to learn more about the many free, online tools that can be used to enhance your teaching, then consider yourself personally invited to join us. We'd love to have you and look forward to an exciting, open, and collaborative experience.

Update:

• To join in on the action, please join the wiki we'll be using for the class.
• For teachers not receiving in-service credit, perfect attendance is not required.
• While this class is intended to help newbies learn more about the educational uses of Web 2.0 technologies, experienced users are equally welcome (and appreciated, as the sum of our knowledge is what truly makes these new technologies so appealing).

Technorati Tags: socialsoftware07 education technology wikis quicktime skype professional_development