I too, had an incredible time at the Edubloggercon and hanging out in the Blogger’s Cafe.

Seeing at this was my first NECC, and I’ve never been to a full-fledged state conference, either.

I was expecting to learn a lot at the sessions, and it appears I chose sessions that didn’t meet me where I was most in need. I found that I learned more in the context of conversation than in the sessions.

Doesn’t that mimic the blog world? Interesting, eh? We talk about this being one big huge conversation, and a chance to chat with everyone seems to parallel that.

Why am I so surprised? I’ve blogged before that I am big into the relationship idea, that learning comes out of relationship. We say that learning is social, but I think there is a delineation to be made from social to relationship.

Either or, I had a great time chatting with folks in the blogger’s cafe, having lunch with Jeff, and just spending time with amazing folks.

I’ll write more about this as time progresses and I am not waiting for a departing flight. Today starts the journey to Peru, so the next post will be from South of the Equator!

Chris

Begin notes, MY IDEAS ARE IN ALL CAPS. JEFF UTECHT AND DAVID JAKES LIVEBLOGGING AS WELL, CHECK THEIR BLOGS FOR BETTER NOTES THAN MINE!

We’re not in Kansas anymore.

The cell phone is a fundamentally different communication device. It’s a shift from being location based to being person-based.

Roughly 65% of the US owns cell phones.

Millions of Japanese use cell phones as a wallet. 35% of US cell phone users send and receive text messages.

The average American home has 26 different devices for communication.

The Internet is helping in decision making.

We are now connected in more ways to more people to more information than ever before.

Our home broadband penetration is reaching 50%.

The Internet is allowing kids to act as agents of social change.

40% of 12-14 have access to cell phones.

75% of 15-17 year-olds.

Kids prefer self-directed.

US youth lag much of the world in the use of mobile devices to connect to the Internet. ARE OUR KIDS REALLY AS CONNECTED AS WE THINK? TO SOURCES OF INFORMATION?

US students are pretty low on the rankings of use of certain new technologies.

CONNECTION BOTCHED, MISSED A BIT MESSING WITH IT

Anyone can author, publish, broadcast.

HE IS TALKING SUPER FAST SO I AM MISSING A LOT

THERE IS A NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ICON ON EACH SLIDE, NOT SURE WHY.

Kids need context to make meaning. A good learning model requires a personal touch.

WORTH NOTING THAT HE WENT TO HARVARD, NOTED FOR THEIR CONSTRUCTIVIST LEANING.

Creating new models using technology functions well, using technology with old models does not work well.

I JUST FIGURED OUT WHO HE IS. HE’S THE HEAD OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY FOR THE US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. THAT EXPLAINS THE NCLB ICON.

HE’S SAYING SOME GOOD STUFF, TOUGH TO KEEP UP. I AM SURPRISED HE REPRESENTS THE GOVERNMENT.

We don’t view our schools as a system, our different areas are silo’ed.

This is why we’re going back again to the school boards justifying funding.

We must link the “back room” to the class room.

We need integrated student data with everyday operations. Unless you can move data across systems the data you’re using becomes impossible to rely on.

We’re not after data, we’re after information.

BOY THIS MACBOOK PRO GETS HOT ON THE LAP. OUCH!

If we can understand who every child is we can target technological resources (because of their flexibility) towards them to meet them where they are.

He spoke with the presidential scholars (kid) and they spoke about the balance of technology resources and not using them. There is a time for each.

Principal support is critical.

There must be a clear rationale and not just because it was bought or you got it free.

The website for all this is www.school2-0.org

I AM LOST. I DRIFTED AND HE’S KEEPING THE PACE FAST, LOSING ME.

I GIVE UP, WAVING THE WHITE FLAG. HE’S DONE.

Reminder, my comments are in all caps but I have not been commenting much…

Dr. Dede and Mr. Dieterle (doc student) are both a Harvard and Dr. Ketelhut is at Temple University.

We live in an interesting time, as computers are changing what we expect out of graduates. We are now in a global, knowledge-centered society.

Panasonic challenge for education video, NEED TO FIND THAT AND MASH IT UP

What students do outside of the classroom for personal expression and entertainment looks more like 21st century work than the classroom does.

Technology is a  moving target. Looking ahead 5, 10, 15 years what will our graduates need?

We need to prepare kids not for a job but rather a series of careers, many of which do not exist.

He has an endowed share since 1967 when he used punch cards and a programming language.

He is referencing Tom Friendman’s Flat World book. Shows a picture of the book cover.

He recommends a book called the New Division of Labor by Levy and Murnane

Only two jobs will be left, the expert decision maker – mechanic after the diagnostics

Expert decision makers is the second one along with complex cmmunications.

We need to focus on a suite of 21st century skills

Problem finding before problem solving – this is because kids will be solving problems that have not existed before
Making meaning out of complexity
Comprehension by a team, not an individual

He is talking about distributed learning – orchestrated across classrooms, homes, workplaces, community settings

Three different kinds of interface important in the next ten years.

1. Desktop – accessing distant experts and archives

2. Multi-user virtual environments – will be as powerful as the desktop soon

3. Ubiquitous computing – mobile wireless devices generate augmented reality

He is describing a MUVE – virtual place with avatar (his are 30 years younger and 30 lbs thinner, joking)

Interact with digital artifacts. He is delineating this from WOW, Lineage, and other MMOG’s.

The range of users has widened in 10 years. 10 years ago it was all about middle school boys. Now there are SIMS, Star Trek, etc and the demographic of people involved has changed a lot.

People seem to like having an alternate life, and they are willing to spend lots of time and money. Engaging…

The learning processes we see is outstanding – HIS OPINION, MIND YOU

He mentioned guided learning – CONSTRUCTIVISM

Learning does not necessarily mean good things, think Grand Theft Auto, learning to kill doesn’t help in RL.

Moving onto River City MUVE. We’ve taken deep academic content and higher-order content and substituted that for the lower-end thinking but kept those things that led to higher engagement.

They sought out middle school because that’s when kids lose interest. Teachers say that prepping kids for the science fair.

He is showing tour of River City in Quicktime.

Ed Dietrle is approaching the podium.

He is a doc student advertising River City.

HE JUST READ A SLIDE TO US – ARGH

HE IS FLYING THROUGH A DISCUSSION OF STYLES – NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH GARDNER’S LEARNING STYLES

Our learning changes depending on the tools, resources, and environment in which we’re placed.

He is positing what are called neo-millenial learning styles. The characteristics are:

1. Fliency in multiple media
2. Seeking, sieving, and synthesizing experiences
3. Active learning based on experience – both real and virtual

Inside River City is Kent Brock, who plays the wise fool. He is a newspaper reporter who asks questions.

They have drawn from Understanding y Design and the interactions with Ken allow them to reflect on understanding.

Now it’s time for Diane Jass Ketelhut

Her pathway is odd. She was a classroom teacher for years, loved technology but never used it in the classroom. Most of it was reproducing what we already did well in the classroom.

Chris Dede approached her to work with them on the project.

She begins with comments from stakeholders in education. Parents report that schools are not preparing students for 21st century jobs. Teachers use the lecture format and students have no technology in science classes. There is a rapid decline from kindergarten to 12th grade in students who are interested in science careers due to recipe-driven lab experiments.

There are new pedagogies: scientific inquiry and situated learning.

Situating learning in authentic environments is the most powerful way to learn.

River City offers non-linear learning. Her daughter could never remember more than two directions at a time. Then when she was in 11th grade she had 8 IM conversations at the same time.

The students can experiment in River City. They can take samples of the water, check to see effects on water from pollution, hospital admissions, etc. They can change just one factor if they want.

Results – physical experiments are equally beneficial to virtual experiments

Good for schools with low budgets, low lab safety, and where science needs help in a school

Kids report liking asking their own questions., like being able to use tools to experiment, and they like that it’s like real life, or like being a real scientist.

Showing a video of a focus group of kids. One kid said he thought it would be boring but he turned into a mad scientist. He said he can experiment without getting “whooped”.

Teachers say that RC raised student awareness of inquiry, that it was a student-centered experimental design, that they liked the development of research skills, and would teach using RC again.

The last line is from teachers who were dragged into the project as decided by an administrator. They turned out to like the project.

A quote from a 3rd grader: my school should make sure that my science teachers are good and that the computers are all working.

Chris Dede is back to the front and center.

We can generalize from this presentation, especially if you don’t teach middle school science…

Teachers feel overwhelmed in trying not to lose the kids that are outside of the mainstream.

Simple ———- Complicated

Sleeping is fundamentally easy. If you’re designing hotels, you only need a few elements.

Eating is more complicated, since people like different foods, different dining experiences. Restaurant architecture, menu, etc.

Bonding is much more complicated still, People bond with sports teams, pets, other folks, etc. This is one of the most complex ideas that we know.

We treat teaching as though it were like sleeping, but it is really like bonding.

THERE IS SOME REALLY LOUD MUSIC FROM THE NEXT BALLROOM AND IT’S DISTRACTING.

Learning technologies must be customized for needs. Students must be first engaged.

It’s never been harder for teachers to get kids engaged. Once you’ve got enagagement, you need active learning. Once you have active learning, you have to have formative diagnostic assessment, not high-stakes testing that tells you too late.

We must also teach 21st century knowledge and skills.

ABOUT TO LOSE THE BATTERY JUICE, ENDING SOON

He says we need to unlearn, it is like wellness. He should reduce stress, eat better, exercise, etc. He doesn’t do them, but does understand them. Changing adult behavior patterns is emotional and social, not just intellectual. A cohort of people works best in the unlearning process.

We need virtual communities of practice as we wrestle with new technologies. We need virtual places for adults, not like River City.

Questions and answers time:

The software is Windows-only.

BATTERY IS GONE, SHUTTING DOWN.

My comments are in ALL CAPS, but so far I haven’t put any in.

REMEMBER ALL THIS IS MADE UP. SHE IS ACTING AND HAS WRITTEN HER OWN SCRIPT.

She came out as Dr. Priscilla Normal, Ed.IDDDD and then tranformed herself into Jose Rodriguez, supposedly in 7th grade.

He calls himself J Rod, drummer for the Remote Messages, and he’s a kid who wakes up to his cell phone and then jams with his band who are all around the world.

His bass player is in Seattle and is 42 years old. Tony is in Sao Paolo Brazil and plays trumpet and is 10 years old.

A vocalist/lyricist is in Prague, la bonita Tonia.

The Remote Messages put their music out there and let folks remix their music. Showing OWL Music search.

Segue into a takingitglobal.org video from their contest that kids submitted.

She had a Keynote issue, it was automatically transitioning away from her video. She came back up as the prior student and played it off magnificently.

Now she’s back out as Angela Caldwell, a high school senior that likes video games to help her become a better surgeon. She proved her teacher wrong when she told her that video games are pointless.

School is easy, I need my own path to learning.

School gives you an assignment, you plug stuff in. 5 minute speech + PullerPint slide +chalkboard template.

If we don’t tell our stories the way we want to, who will?

Angela has a best practices club. “Dr. Norml” said they could not go online because it was too dangerous.

She wants to be a brain surgeon. Art teacher taught her there are two sides to the brain.

She put up the slide with words jumbled up but that we can still read. If you keep the first and last letter the same but jumble the middle you can still figure it out.

Why can’t we all have IEP’s? She calls it the innovative exploration plan. I get on the internet and explore the questions I have about the brain.

The paragraph is like our teachers. There are teachers that are really kickin and the crappy ones. The ones in the middle want to do something but are clueless.

She’s tired of whining about the teachers behind their backs so she started the best practices club that help kids in the classroom. She read a book about best practices for teaching and learning, and then got an advisor. Mrs. Campbell is an advisor, but tells them it’s their thing. She asked them one question, come up with a list of what works.

What are the things that teachers do that help us?

The advisor said they can’t observe teachers without meeting with principal and union rep.

The “kids” made a video about what works for them. She’s showing a video from www.educationevolving.org.

Kids want to have a voice, be a part of the conversation. The principal is giving them a  faculty meeting.

She is asking us what the one or two methods that work well for us in helping to engage students.

Now she is asking the group to share those different ideas that they came up with as to how they engage their students.

I drifted off for a few minutes into my aggregator. Oops.

She’s talking about kids using the internet to help Darfur.

Another video while she quick changes.

This is a student from Kenya that made this video using MovieMaker.

She’s back who is she this time? Same outfit, flip flops, bandana, grooving to the music, native Kenyan music.

She’s used the word tight like six times already.

Her new name is Edy, pronounced Eddie.

She’s a 10th grader.

Showing her blog as the Saran Rapper. She was a kid you could see right through, and she’s an intellectual conversationalist on her blog.

She wants people to think about or feel something new because of her blog. Her blog was put into the newspaper, and her principal told her she can take it off the Internet or leave. So she dropped out.

She is showing a letter to the editor. The kid is frustrated.

Now she attends a virtual school. Virtual means something like a real thing but she calls it real. The virtual school calls her a learner. A number of more times for the word right. Now she’s motivated to learn.

She’s saying that her virtual school is not like correspondence, she’s watching movies and interacting. The reason her virtual school is real is because:

1. She learns at her own pace.

2. She asks the questions.

3. Discussions with no right answer.

4. Keep my eye on the prize. She’s got a picture of herself with cap and gown for motivation.

Another letter to the editor, says kids can read stuff online and keep moving. Kids want to learn at their own pace.

Oddly enough, she’s reading slides to us.

She says kids have better relationships because they take the time to listen. They share who they are and are more tolerant.

Instant Messaging is now the business standard.

Kids are reading online instead of books.

By creating content kids are learning content.

88% of kids who dropout cite being bored but have passing grades.

She’s back as herself. She says what we heard from kids voices really came from kids voices. She says she didn’t make it up.

END

He took the stage, MAKING BAD JOKES ABOUT HIMSELF

He is a founding partner of Z+ partners, is an explorer with National Geographic, Popular Science, American Demographics, and NPR’s marketplace.

He is also the creator of poptech.org

He says we’re all in the communications. History of communications, MORE JOKES, IN sign that says not an entrance.

Sign about caution water on road in rain. He asks why we need signs to tell us there’s water on the road when it rains.

Do not touch this sign, it has sharp edges. Also the bridge is out. MORE JOKES, FUNNY PICTURES

A gymnasium with an escalator leading up to it.

Preamble before we get into the change. This is the Innovation Imperative.

Will we deploy educational materials across mobile devices?

Will we have open source and creative commons licensed work to share?

Will we close the digital divide?

He is confident because he’s watching an exponential curve of new connectivity, new speed limits, and a concurrent curve driving the cost of that stuff down.

In the future, virtually anything that can be done by computer will be done by computer.

What in our optimal future will be left for us to do?

We are left with a world with a single priority to amplify our own creativity. That deep creativity is in all of us.

He is talking about turning off the filter that filters what we see. Dustin Hoffman and the 254 matches from Rainman.

In a world of commoditized computation we have to find out creative center.

The corporate world, organizations use cognitive styles to solve problems. Innovation is finding new sources of value in advance of new demands.

Think, look, play, imagine.

Lock good thinkers in the closet and then scream at them that we need desktop cold fusion.

Think model = 15% non-incremental 85% failure

Small groups of people – hard to come up with amazing new innovations

Look = 70% incremental, 30% failure

This is folks in the world. They discover that no one can get ketchup out of the bottle, so they invent the squeeze bottle.

Play – 40% redefine the problem, 40% incremental – 20% failure

Imagine – N/A since it’s solving the problem that doesn’t exist

What emerges is the network model, and in the future corporations will hire the people we’re training today that are living in a networked society. Most of the folks here were not trained to think in network terms.

Diagram about social networks. Source is Valdis Krebs.

In the first generation we lived and died by Metcalfe’s law.

Now we’re in the participation equation.

Five areas that are going to shape the future. We are listening to weak signals, those are going to dominate our world tomorrow.

1. Demographic transformation. – this is hugely important but we don’t get trained in it

It took 40,000 years to go from a few people to a few billion. It’s an L curve, taking off. Today 6+ billion, by 2050 9+ billion.

Population increases in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceana and North America. Declines in England and Russia.

We became an urban society.

Three major cities in 2040 are in China and haven’t been built yet. Dubai in 15 years has changed the entire landscape.

Showing a population pyramid.Typically the highest number of babies and lowest number of old folks. Average pyramid form shrinking as you go up. More likely to die as you get older.

Middle section pays into social service at the top and education at the bottom. Right now around the world there is a new population architecture emerging.

70% of Morocco is under 30 years old.

He is talking about being Italian and making jokes.

He says that intergenerational complexities.

Comparing boomers, optimism, trust, diversity, socialization, participation

Boomers love hanging out with their friends.

Gen X’ers are alienated and don’t even like hanging out with themselves.

The millenials are all off the charts. Demographic change can change an industry. The music industry has figured out that older folks like music and have the money and don’t know how to share it online.

MTV building credibility ahead of the demand. Music industry rates music G for older folks.

As boys fall farther and farther behind we’ll have to address boys’ individual pedagogical demands.

2. Innovative by nature

We are undergoing a global change about our views on the environment.

NRA and eco-bullet.

Eco-vation, ecological innovation.

Every year people die making computer chips. Some sea sponge have a level of precision five times better to produce silicon.

Someone we educate will win the nobel prize for solving some ecological problem.

3. Learning places

He wants to acknowledge we’re all primates. We are all social animals. We share four traits, we’re strongly group oriented, hierarchy, individuation, knowledge sharing.

With six of us on a boat, one will be the captain, one the oarsman, one the complaining passenger, etc. We like hierarchy.

We also trade knowledge and innovation for status.

How do we create an environment for discovery and innovation?

We have preferred habitats.

There are places in our society where no one has to demand that we come. Instead of sending kids there, we send kids to school.

Picture of cubicles – not a place for innovation. We systematically reintroduce the natural world as a reward, closer to the window, etc.

4. Coping with choice and complexity

What is the effect of enabling technologies on our lives? Almost anything we want to buy, there is an ever-increasing array of companies is creating a surplus society.

Showing picture of aisle 7 at his grocery store, it is the bread aisle.

Lots of choices for bread, he doesn’t do well with choice.

There are 40,000 choices and we can only process roughly 160, so lots of noise.

It’s getting harder for kids to get through that maze of choice. The technology of managing choice will become more important.

When you add choices, people like a few, then it levels off, and then decreases with too many choices.

Lots of choices for jeans when he goes shopping at the Gap.

5. Redefining literacy

In the post war period when Russia launched Sputnik we created a social definition of literacy.

You are smart if you passed a certain score on a certain test. Alex Trebeck model or Albert Einstein. Either more than those around you or different than those around you.

Picture of scan tron bubble in sheet.

Today kids can bring in programmable calculator. What are we testing when kids can bring in the cloud of human knowledge.

It is inevitable that people will bring the tools with them and then we’ve changed the nature of assessment. We are learning to find, exclude, search for information. Johnny is connected to 15 other people, and who does he have working on his bench?

Shifting to a more synthetic definition of intelligence, how are we defined as smart? How will we be?

To read is to author, to be tested is to author.

Really we have nowhere near the kinds of criteria to identify what people know and should know.

Applicants are showing trustworthiness using ebay seller feedback since we lack metrics.

An endnote: Bias, Blindness, and the Futures we choose.

Every society, every individual has within it an image of the future.

50 years ago we drew a George Jetson style future.

Early 19th century thought we’d all wear balloon hats.

Why do we always get it wrong? Our ideas of the future, that is.

In 1977 there were only 4 members of the Professional International Association of Elvis Impersonators, now over 4,000, if continues at this rate in 2050 one in three people on earth will impersonate Elvis.

Two risks that confront us as a species.

Hussein, bin Laden, bad dudes. Real danger to all of us.

Global warming, glaciers melting.

Chance of risk from bad dudes 1 in 28,000,000 but chance of risk from environment is 1 in 6 and we spend little money on it but we spend one trillion dollars on the bad dudes.

We don’t like it when an individual confronts us with a risk.

The personal trumps the impersonal.

The tangible trumps the intangible.

The present trumps the past and future.

Desirability trumps responsibility.

We must bake those four items into the standards by which we hold ourselves accountable,

END

Her 10-month old has me missing my baby! Sniff sniff…

At least I know Steve is missing Lefty, so we can commiserate together. I called last night and spoke to my wife, she put me on speaker phone and I talked to baby, she responded to my voice with loud utterances of “da” “da”, over and over again. That put a hurtin on the old heart, you know.

Anyway, check out what they served me as the first course of breakfast this morning. Sorry for the photo quality, it’s a phone pic.

Yup Yup.

Fresh canteloupe, strawberries, grapes, coffee, orange juice, grape currants, and this was just the first course!

The second course brought scrambled eggs, smoked sausage, biscuits, and grits.

Have I mentioned how much I am liking this B&B?

A later post will have pictures of the entire house (slide show) as posted with Beverly’s permission. I am going to start looking for a good B&B for San Antonio next year! Who’s in with me?

Someone said that learning does not stop after a term/semester/year ends, so why do we grade/schedule that way. Someone (maybe same person) said we need to stop using gradebooks as a weapon against kids.

David Jakes popped up and began to ask why the physical makeup of school is done the way it is. Why is it always the 6×5 grid (hypothetically) and why not more flexible.

Chris just said that we needed to open the walls up and become more transparent, admit things will go wrong, and then take care of teachers when they do. Nice.

Not too many notes from this one, I was working on catching up, but some great conversation

I truly am a man who seeks after relationship with others, so the idea that a personal connection is the key to kids telling better stories really resonates with me.

I will follow up with more thoughts, but this is where my learning is right now.

Thanks, David.

Creating a competitve student voice with david jakes

Perhaps we need a channel where there is less noise than youtube

we are missing a venue where kids can post something and it is taken seriously

four areas of digital storytelling 2.0

1. new tools

joyce mentioned voicethread.com
ispot, jumpcut online video editing

He feels like we’re headed towards browserware and away from desktop-based software.

2. new media

3. new networks

4. new message

brian crosby mentions that teachertube needs a section where students can post student work and then students could comment on it

www.nextvista.org

when you see the ny times with video obituaries, with youtube asking for kids to ask questions of political candidates

joyce valenza is saying that we’re fed up with student presentations created in powerpoint because they don’t look like presentation zen

one of her kids said that the slides need to be for the audience not for the presenter

david was talking about the fox news channel in chicago allowing folks to respond after a process of verification

I WONDER IF THIS IS EVEN NECESSARY. IF WE TEACH OUR KIDS HOW TO ARTICULATE THEIR THOUGHTS ACCURATELY AND TEACH THEM HOW TO THINK THROUGH THESE PROCESSES, THEY WILL LEARN THE NEEDED TECHNOLOGY EITHER JUST-IN-TIME OR BEFOREHAND BASED ON PASSION

slightly heated debate about fair use and the fairy use video

david is asking what the messages are that kids can create, what do kids need to speak on

when we ask kids to tell a story, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way we’d like

the bottom line is what kind of meaning the students make from this environment

are they using the videos to get at the meanings in their lives