Tweet Up Meet Up

I hope that those of you who read this find it funnier to read than it was to live.

I got invited to the NECC Tweet Up Meet Up! How exciting! I can get to know people face to face that I currently only know online. This will be great!

I am here with a bunch of colleagues and friends and their wives. My wife couldn't make it because she is actually in a class right now. They are not twitterers (or my personal preference Twitiots) Well, we went to dinner at Matchbox, which was exceptional and reasonably priced. The 6 of us enjoyed our meal and then procedeed to vacillate over what to do next. Most folks wanted to take a bus tour of DC. I suddenly found myself wondering about whether I was going to go to the Tweet up. But my morals prevailed. I want to practice what I preach. The relationships we forge online are as real and genuine as face to face relationships. I could only find out by actually going to this tweet up!

So, being a complete stranger to DC and befuddled by the remarkable lack of large mountains to act as landmarks (Why can't everywhere be like Utah with large mountains to delineate North and South) Well, I knew I was close and on the right street but being a technophile I decided I had better put the address into my GPS. Well let me say, you know how when you are going the wrong direction down a street and you notice the distance to destination is increasing and then the lady says "Please make a u-turn now" it takes longer for that to work when you are walking so....after 15 minutes walking the wrong direction and then turning around and walking back to two doors down from Matchbox. I finally arrived at The Rocket Bar.



View Tweet Up in a larger map

Jared and I have had a regular argument about what happened next. He has argued that relationships thrive best in the environment the first took root in. Online friends work best as online friends and f2f friends work as f2f friends and never the twain shall intermingle in regular life. I say that the online relationships we cultivate are as real, rich, and meaningful as the f2f.

Not so sure, about that now :-( I went to the tweet up, I don't drink, not beer, wine, coffee, teguila, heck I don't even drink caffeinated soda pop (very often) So being in a bar was a little uncomfortable for me and I didn't recognize anyone. And no one said Hi and I found myself feeling like I was back in Junior High at a school dance. It was a very weird experience altogether.

It did turn out better later. I ended up meeting @kellyhines, @edu4u and bumping into @shareski all face to face. On another note, I now have @garystager following me. It may just be our mutual distaste for SmartBoards, but I think we are going to get along. The actual TweetUp didn't work out so well for me, but I actually think it had to do with me. I was so far out of my comfort zone being at a strange bar in a strange city that going the extra step of talking to a complete stranger was just more dissonance than this little guy could handle (ok, little is clearly a relative term I am really only little compared to the Right Whale model in the @nmnh)

Really, this first try at a TweetUp was a success in the sense that I did something new, I tried. It didn't work out the way I expected it, but I will be joining another one when it comes around!

Luncheon with Alan November

Today Alan November spoke at a luncheon we attended. Mr. November is the author of Empowering Students with Technology as well as a new book called Web Literacy for Educators. His talk was about the challenge facing educators today, and the disconnect between what is important and useful for our children and what they are taught in school. One example he gave for this was Barack Obama's Internet campaign for president, which included the use of many Web 2.0 tools and other communication modes that are blocked at many schools. Alan said that this is the first presidential campaign in which the tools that the president used to win the election could not be learned in the school system. (I'm not convinced that candidate Obama's web presence was really what made the difference in the campaign, but it certainly helped.)

Mr. November spoke about the high percentage of new college graduates who return home to live with their parents. He said that this generation of students is being labeled the "Dumbest Generation." He said that part of the problem is that our students don't have an awareness of what their peers in other countries are learning and doing at school. He said from day one he would say to students, Okay, let's find out what students in Taiwan are learning about history. He also said that the debate about 1 to 1 computer access and other movements are misguided, because they are about the quantity of technology. Instead we should focus on teaching our students to communicate and work hard while using technology if it would be appropriate to do so. Instead of focusing on what technology equipment teachers and students need, we should focus on what information we need.

Bricks and Mortar: Standing on the common ground.

The panel discussion today was about the statement

Resolved: Bricks and mortar schools are detrimental to the future of education.

In my mind two people dominated the discussion: Cheryl Lemke (@LemkeC) and Gary Stager (@garystager) What Cheryl said resonated with what actually happened. No matter how different the sides are there is always common ground. Cheryl Lemke and Gary Stager were standing firmly on that common ground. From my perspective anyway they both seemed to be clamoring for improving schools and not abandoning them. Gary Stager pointed out that bad teaching is bad teaching whether it happens face to face or in a distance learning environment. Cheryl was lauding the importance of keeping the school as a center of learning for the community. This idea of improving our local communities by strenghtening the local ties and by connecting to diverse learning opportunities is a powerful one. The student rebuttal had one of the best lines of the day. In fact 2 of them. "I get excited not just about what I am going to learn but about who I am going to learn it with" and "My school connects me to my local community"

The question Jared and I discussed was "What does this mean for adult learners" What is the role of face to face socialization for adults who have learned the socialization skills and need skill training? I go back to my old argument. We learn from people we know care about us. All learning is emotianal We need the care and concern of people to carry out the fundamental purpose of education which is to change, specifically to improve.

NECC 09: Bricks and Mortar

We just left a panel discussion entitled: Bricks and Mortar Schools are Detrimental to the Future of Education. The conversation was an hour long debate with for and against moderated by Robert Siegel from NPR's All Things Considered. Each side made compelling arguments about the merits of online vs in person learning. In the end here's my take.

The most important thing I heard today was not about where we learn and teach, but rather how we learn and teach. Learning shouldn't be confined to a specific geographic building, but the building has a special place within our communities which facilitates communication between all people.

As someone who teaches both online and in person I feel there is no comparison with my ability to connect to my students when I am with them in the same location. Sure I can share information and provide instruction through the computer, but I can reach people and impact their lives when I am a part of the in person learning community. Does that mean this same community can't exist online - no, but my experience is there needs to be some type of in person sharing to truly identify with community at some point.

Mitchell and I have had a on going debate about the role of twitter. It exists as an online community where thoughts and ideas are shared, 140 characters at a time. I claim that it is difficult to create lasting friendships when everything exists in cyberspace. He counters that the relationships are just as meaningful as an in person relationship if you open yourself up those involved. A big part of NECC is socializing with our peers. While twitter provides us with an online socialization space, those involved at NECC with twitter had a meet and greet last night - in person. We have an innate desire to know each other and see one another face to face. Schools help facilitate this within our communities.

Online learning isn't going anywhere and I am going to be teaching more and more classes through this mode of delivery. My challenge is to figure out how I can bring the skills I possess as an in person instructor to the online world.

Multimedia Books using the CAST Book Builder

One of my favorite sessions at NECC today was "CAST Book Builder: If You Build It, They Will Read," which featured a cool, free web 2.0 book authoring tool. You can find the website at http://bookbuilder.cast.org/

Once you get a free account you can start combining text, audio, images, etc. to easily create online books. You can also use three different animated characters that you can "program" to provide guidance or feedback to your students. The characters could also be used as narrators of sorts. The site is definitely geared toward elementary school, and is easy enough for young students to use as well.

The CAST Book Builder follows the Universal Design for Learning educational framework, which encourages multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement.

NECC Day 2 For Me

Day 2 at NECC was all about the Science! I spent the morning in the poster sessions and then traveled (or is that travailed) through the vendor's area to get my Flash Drive.

The poster Sessions had some unique presentations and there were several specific projects which I link to at the bottom of this post but the overall impression I got with the science was that using technology to enhance science is about finding ways to do authentic science in your local area. Several projects had students identifying and then learning teaching about critters in the neighborhood.

After lunch I got into some BYOL sessions. Both were hosted by the producers of the shows from WGBH in Boston. I definitely like what they are up to. They have matched problem solving and engineering lessons with the PBS programs Fetch! and Design Squad. They emphasized the fact that they did all they could to make sure that the activities were low to no cost. As a former Science teacher who was always on a shoe string (as long as they were donated) budget I loved that feature about the activities. I also loved the dry humor of Dave Peth as he asked us to take our hands of our keyboards and actually do an activity. Doing activities in the session as another big plus. The Science and CTE teacher in me thrived on it. One of the activities was actually a simple version of an activity I have done in classes with students, just differently executed. Building Roller Coasters. WGBH's take on it was to use insulation, tape and a marble which was simpler than my vinyl tubing and BB's. But either way I got to use DUCT tape !!! (Yes it's duct tape unless you're talking about Duck Tape)What a great way to spend a couple of sessions!

NECC 09 Day 2

So far I've seen some really interesting sites and heard about some pretty cool gadgets. I don't know how this worked out, but I've stayed in the big ballrooms for most of the day. So, I've shared the love with about 200-300 of my best friends for every session I've been to today.

One of my favorite new websites was fur.ly. This one is a variation of tinyurl. Rather than letting you shrink a single url, this one lets you add several url's to a single address. You click on the one link and it immediately opens up tabbed browsing between to multiple url's you included. How cool is that?

I attended a cell phone presentation hoping to get some new ideas and I did. Geografitti.com was a big hit. Since I'm interested in both cell phones and gps/mapping this site is a marriage of the two tools. I can record my audio and upload it to grafitti and the site will mark my audio to a map. Another great site was textmemos.com. Here I can schedule a text message for a future time. What a great reminder to pick up the milk!

I know that I sometimes get drawn into the same old presentations, but I'm really glad I decided to check out Leslie Fisher's new gadget session. She shared a few old favorites, but mostly, new stuff. I think that tripit.com will certainly come into play next time I head out of town.

Hall Davidson is another favorite presenter at NECC. His presentation: 8 Things You Didn't Know About Video and 2 Things You Did (what a great title!) ended my day at the conference. While there were 4 things I already knew about video, there were a few things I learned. The best tool I saw that I haven't used is Quick Time Pro. For $30 this is a great editing tool. Glad I learned more about video for the classroom.

Well, my day at the conference is just about done. Let's see what we can do around the D.C. area tonight.