Reflections on The First Ontario Educator Meetup

On Monday December 29th at 6:00 pm EST, this first Ontario Educator Meetup session took place online in Adobe Connect.  The session, while definitely not without its hiccups, exceeded my expectations.  In reflecting back, I must admit that I was a little panicked when 30-45 minutes before “showtime” my voice was not being heard by the participants through the microphone and I am a little disappointed that I forgot to hit the record button when the session began.  However, the conversation was fruitful and the interaction, for the most part, was vibrant.

The topic of the conversation was “Engaging in Online Professional Learning Networks (PLN’s)” where I gave a brief talk on the subject and then we as a group spent time discussing what our own PLN’s look like.  What struck me most about the session was that 21 individuals from around the world took time out of their busy day to participate.  This is the most encouraging part for me as I didn’t expect the numbers to be that high in the very first session.  A special thanks to Doug Peterson and Sue Waters for helping to promote this for me to the members of their professional learning networks and for their support during the session.  Judging by the fact that 3 individuals sent me their regrets beforehand and expressed interest in participating in session #2, I’m encouraged that this humble attempt to connect Ontario educators with other educators from around the world will turn out to be a positive learning experience and environment for all involved.

On the topic of connecting people, one very important issue was raised.  That issue was that the 21 individuals who participated were already converted.  These individuals were already immersed in online PLN’s using Web 2.0 digital tools.  How could we help convert the unconverted?  This is a very valid concern and speaks to one participant’s point about developing critical mass.  In fact, it is this very concern that drove me to setup this space in the first place.  Many educators who are new to digital spaces often complain that they are overwhelmed by all the content or that they ‘don’t get’ tools like Twitter.  This speaks directly to the time factor and the investment necessary to engage in a PLN, especially one with a global scope.  I hope that by using a web conferencing tool such as Adobe Connect and encouraging dialogue among members of a network, this space can act as a starting point for educators willing to learn more about social networks and getting involved in a PLN but are unsure about where, how or why to focus their energies on this pursuit.

All in all, I think that the inaugural session was a success.  While do not have a recorded session to share, you can find links and other notes in my delicious account and in this blog by searching using the tag ontmeetup.  In Twitter, participants will also use the hastag #ontmeetup when referring to this conversation and this space.  Thanks to those who attended.  For thise that didn’t, I hope to encourage you to attend the next session.

7 Things YDNTKAM

All of the sudden, many in the eduTwittersphere and the edublogosphere are excited about sharing “7 Things You Don’t Need to Know About Me” and tagging 7 others to do the same.  I was tagged by Nic Mobbs and will oblige but the question is, “Do you really want to know?”

1. I studied History and Philosophy in university and actually enjoy these subjects.

2. My most inspirational teacher was Professor Arthur Haberman of York University in Toronto: http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=50713. I took two courses with him and wish I would have taken a third.

3. My favourite novel of all time is George Orwell’s 1984

4. My first gaming console was the Atari 2600 and my favourite game was Yar’s Revenge

5. I crashed my first PC (brand new!) less than one week after getting it.  I thought that all those .dll files were taking up too much space on the hard drive and deleted them all

6. My major research project for my Master’s degree focused on the challenges of using technology in teaching – go figure…

7. Most frightening moment in my life – traveled to Europe on my own (first time traveling to Europe) and after landing in London Heathrow, I thought I lost my passport…

Now, seven people to tag:

1. Doug Sadler

2. Claudia Ceraso

3. Kyle Lichtenwald

4. Toni Twiss

5. Chris Webb

6. Ben Hazzard

7. Liz Kolb

Let’s Talk: Online Educator Meetup Session 1

To all educators in Ontario, Canada: we need a place online to talk.  I’ve witnessed and experienced so many wonderful conversations happening between educators abroad but struggle to find these conversations here in my own backyard.  As a result, I’ve thought about setting up a place for Ontario educators to come together to engage in professional dialogue with local educators and other educators from around the world.  While this will likely have very humble beginnings, I’m hoping that it will grow into a place where meaningful dialogue will result.

After some deliberation, consideration and negotiation, here are the details of this first session:

Who: Educators in Ontario and beyond! (although Adobe Connect licensing restrictions currently limit us to 40 individuals per session)

When: Monday December 29th 2008 at 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EST (click here for time zone information: http://snipurl.com/91wg9)

Where: Online in Adobe Connect: http://connect.tcdsb.org/ontmeetup

Agenda:

• Discussion of the vision and mission of this conversation
• Discussion of a name for the PLN
• Topic for discussion: Participating in an PLN online

Format for this first session:

• 5 minutes: introductions
• 10-15 minutes: presentation on an issue
• 20-25 minute conversation about topic resented
• 5 minute wrap-up

This totals 45 minutes and earlier I stated that this sessions would last one hour.  I’m leaving a 15 minute buffer in case we need it.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in attending or just show up on Monday (or Tuesday depending on the time zone!)  To save on bandwidth, video capabilities will be disabled but please feel free to bring along a mic to engage in voice chat.  The room will be open at 5:30 pm to allow anyone to come it, install any required browser plug-ins and to adjust audio input and output settings.

Hope to see you there!

Thoughts on Interactive Gaming

I am going to deviate from my typical topic of conversation to share some experiences, reflections and conversations I have had of late concerning the use of interactive gaming in learning.  I will begin by admitting that I am an amateur gamer and a novice when it comes to understanding the role of gaming can play in helping kids learn.  However, some recent experiences and discussions merit some consideration here.

Courtesy of Flickr user el3enawe

Back in October of 2008, my wife and I bought a Nintendo Wii.  The primary motivator for purchasing the game was to experience the new level of interactivity today’s games offer as the last gaming console that I’ve ever owned was the Atari 2600.  WOW has gaming come a long way!  In all truthfulness, while many generations of gaming consoles have passed me by, I have played many games on my computer including the Command & Conquer series and more recently, Civilizations III.  A turning point for me occurred  only 4 days ago (as of this writing), when my wife came home with Rock Band 2.  We’ve played Rock Band in the past and really enjoyed it and have waited with impatience for the new version to be released for the Wii.  Let’s just say that it didn’t take long for me to get addicted.

I’ve been thinking about the potential impact such games can have in learning and on community-building.  I had a brief conversation with @mrrobbo in Twitter recently about using the Nintendo Wii to encourage physical activity.  He mentioned that while other staff at his school are lukewarm to the idea of bring in a gaming console to encourage physical activity, he finds it to be a useful tool.  In addition, I’ve been commenting on David Warlick’s recent blog post on the issue of gaming. These two conversations and my experiences in playing Wii Sport and Rock Band 2 have gotten me excited about what is possible when interactive gaming is used in educational settings.

Courtesy of Flickr user Jake of 8bitjoystick.com

Firstly, let me say straight out that I accept that playing tennis in Wii Sports or playing the drums in Rock Band are not substitutes for the real thing.  I don’t delude myself into believing that playing a guitar in Guitar Hero actually teaches anyone how to play the guitar.  However, as Jesse Brown identifies in his recent podcast episode in CBC’s Search Engine, there really is something profound going on here.  While the purpose of Jesse’s podcast is to look at the darker side of interactive gaming, he clearly makes the point that interactive gaming is about more than just the game; it’s also about socializing and about community. This is a point that I made in response to Gary Stager’s comment to David Warlick’s blog post.  While interactive games in their current context cannot substitute for real life experiences, these games are connecting kids with songs and stories of the past.  They are using interactive games to connect with others as singing around the campfire did for past generations.  In the case of Guitar Hero or Rock Band, these games are getting kids talking about music and giving them experiences that they would likely have never had.  This really hit home for me this very evening when I saw a young lady in Future Shop who appeared to be 11 or 12 years of age begging her parents to buy her the AC/DC Rock Band Track Pack.  If it weren’t for the game, would this young lady even know who AC/DC is?  If her parents were ever fans of AC/DC, just think about all of the cross generational personal connecting this game could encourage that would have likely never happened.  When, in the past, have you ever seen kids embracing music of their parents generation?  In a strange sense, video games appear to be changing the way kids are relating to content 0f the past.  While this may be a bit of a strech, who knows, perhaps this may be a way to ensure that the stories of the past are maintained and passed on.

Gary Stager argues that this is cause for concern because games such as Guitar Hero and Rock band war connecting kids to music that is of the “lowest level of simplicity”.  While I believe he is correct about the simplicity piece, I do not agree that this is a cause for concern.  It appears that this is a new way digital tools are transforming our social relationships and the way we form community.  The only thing I find sad about all this is that it took a commerical enterprise looking to make money to figure it out.

Cell Phones in Education Part 1: Productivity

As I stated in an earlier blog post, I an beginning a new series on using cell phones in learning to go along side my iPods in Education series.  I hope through this series of blog posts to provide practical ways teachers and students can use cell phones to help kids learn as a way to challenge the standard bias that cell phones are a useless distraction in the classroom.

In beginning this discussion, I want to focus on using a cell phone in a way that’s possible despite what make or model of cell phone one is using.  That is to use a cell phone  for personal productivity.  All cell phones made within the last decade or so have a built-in calendars with personal reminders, calculator, and the ability to write notes.  While more recent smartphones bring productivity to a who new level,  not everyone has, or can afford, the luxury of having a smartphone.  Therefore, we’ll begin by focusing on tools that all of today’s cell phones have.

When I taught grades 7 and 8, we always encouraged students to keep a calendar and an agenda in order to keep a record of what is taking place in the class/school, what is due when and as a way to learn organization skills.  We would provide students with paper agendas at a significant cost but kept running into the probelm of students not using their agendas.  This may have been due  to the fact that it is not always convenient or practical to walk around with ones school agenda everywhere one went and the agenda is really useless if one doesn’t constantly look at it.  Paper agendas are static devices that don’t actively work with individuals to remember to get things done.  Cell phones, however, are different.  Kids keep their phones with them all the time and keeping an agenda within their phone’s calendar is not asking kids to change their habits too much as they already use their phones for many other things other than for voice communication.  However, the most important benefit in my eyes is the ability to allow kids to set reminders when things are due.  This common feature has the powerful ability communicate back to students in a way that is impossible with a paper agenda.

Then there are the calculators built into cell phones.  Why do we encourage students, especially those in elementary, to spend money on purchasing a calculator when they already have them built in to their phones?  Some phones, albeit expensive smartphones, even have scientific calculators built-in or the ability to easily and freely install one.  I remember the days when I was in school and teachers would go around collecting those wrist watches that kids use to have with a calculator built in.  While I understand the necessity of learning the times tables, when will we allow students to move beyond just learning and memorizing simple computation and begin encouraging students to use simple computation?  If a student is using computation to accomplish a complex task, then why shouldn’t students be allowed to use the calculator on their phone?  Do we walk up to adults in the grocery store who are using their cell phone calculators to calculate and compare costs of items and question their mental math abilities? Do scientists working at NASA work on their calculations using mental math and long division on paper?  If adults in the workplace use devices for calculations and we are preparing students for life in the real world as an adult, why do we push older stdents to work without those tools that can help them succeed?

In addition, to be able to take notes on a cell phones is very powerful.  While on any sort of excursion, students can record their observation right from a device that they carry with them and easily collect those digital notes and make them accessible on a computer.  For adults who question the practicality of writing using a cell phone number/key pad, remember that students are constantly communicating with friends via SMS on those same keys.  Just because the teacher may not be comfortable recording observations on a cell phone, that doesn’t mean students cannot do it comfortably.  Many cell phones that kids are carrying around have bluetooth and cameras as well.  Using these devices, students can take photographs of observations on a field trip or science experiment, and collaborate with other students by sharing their content (photographs and notes) by sending them to group partners via bluetooth.

These tools are very useful for all students and especially those who need their instruction differentiated due to issues with fine motor skills or other needs.  Today’s phones contain productivity tools that help adults stay organized and more productive.  We should be encouraging students to make full use of the devices they already carry for the same reason.

Reflections on the 2008 RCAC Symposium

I was fortunate enough to attend another education technology conference in 2008 and this conference was the Western RCAC symposium held in London, Ontario on December 11th.  This is the third conference that I attended this year but the first where I was not presenting.  This afforded me the opportunity to focus on the messages provided by the presenters in why technology integration is crucial in today’s classroom.

Overall, I felt that the conference was a positive experience.  I know that I grumbled when I reflected on my experience at this year’s ECOO conference in an earlier post, but I can honestly say that I feel rejuvenated after hearing the speakers at RCAC.  The two keynotes of the day were David Warlick and Amber MacArthur.  Let me discuss each keynote speaker separately.

David Warlick

I was very impressed by the quality of David’s presentation and the quality of his delivery.  Here are some of the ideas David presented that resonated with me:

• Teachers need to be master learners
• Teachers need to focus on learners: teaching the learners they are and not the learners we want them to be
• Just because using technology may not suit a teacher’s learning style, that shouldn’t automatically exclude students from using it as technology may suit a student’s learning style
• When we buy a new TV, we are shopping for the creative experiences presented by visual artists – kids are doing the same thing when they are shopping for video games
• In the past, information was a product to be bought and sold.  In the 21st century, information is a raw material to be exploited and used in the creative process.
• Countries that we in North America may see as less developed as we are have better technology infrastructure than us – Mexico to bring broadband to every house by 2012, Macedonia is a completely wireless country, etc.
• Video games are changing the nature of learning but this industry will also drive an increased need in story writers, artists, musicians, etc – we should not shortchange the arts in our funding and in our instructional focus
• Considerations for Future Learning: (1) Networked Learners (2) New Information Landscape (3) Unpredictable Future
• It’s not Lifelong Learning, It’s a Learning Lifestyle

Amber MacArthur

To be honest, I was a little disappointed with Amber’s keynote.  It’s not that the keynote itself wasn’t up to par.  In fact, it was a very informative presentation and well delivered.  I was disappointed mainly because she tailored her presentation for a crowd of educators.  I think that she would have done well to focus the presentation on where her forte lies – in presenting how technology is changing culture (outside of education) and how online culture is changing the world.  Educators really need to hear that message too because, ultimately, this is the world students live in and will live in.  I think that educators sometimes isolate themselves from the world and forget the relevancy that learning has for real life focusing too much on learning and disseminate information for it’s own sake.  That having been said, I really appreciated Amber’s statement that students learn using the 3 C’s – communication, collaboration, and community.

I do want to share two things that occurred during Amber’s keynote that highlight the power of online networks and both took place in Twitter.  Firstly, David Warlick was sharing in Twitter his frustration with an ATM and not being able to get money for a cab.  He joked in Twitter that he was going to have to panhandle for money to get back home.  When he was approached by a number of individuals in the audience offering to help, he stated how surprised he was that people in the audiences were actually following his tweets at that moment in Twitter.  The other occurrence took place when Amber was talking about Twitter.  Amber was discussing educators whom she found on the web who use Twitter as part of an online community and specifically mentioned @suewaters as an example.  I follow @suewaters so I decided to mention the reference to her in Twitter.  @suewaters, living in Australia (it was approximately 3 or 4 am there and around 2 pm in London, Ontario), got my tweet and was surprised at how quickly she was able to connect to the reference made to her Twitter account in such an indirect way. None of us three really know each other yet through Twitter, we able to connect to each other half way across the world instantaneously!  Two perfect examples of the power of online networks!

I also attended two breakout session that had teachers discussing what they were doing in their classrooms in integrating technology to help kids learn.  Overall, my attendance at the Western RCAC was a very worthwhile experience.

A New Series: Cell Phones in Education

When I began writing this blog a little over one year ago, the major focus of my thoughts were around using the iPod to help kids learn.  At that time, I began a series of blog posts titled “iPod in Education”.  In these posts, I try to offer practical ideas in integrating this popular mobile technology into classroom instruction to help kids learn and to help motivate students to want to learn.  I have completed 10 posts in this series to date and these continue to be my most popular posts.

While an iPod is one mobile device that can help kids learn, it is definitely not the only one.  As a result, while I will continue with the iPod series, I want to begin a new series that profiles another mobile device and offer practical ideas in using that device to help kids learn.   That device is the cell phone. I see this series as a little more problematic than the iPod series for at least two reasons.  Firstly, using cell phones in schools is a highly controversial political issue in today’s climate.  Secondly, unlike the iPod, cell phones range widely in type, form, and functionality.  However, I view these challenges as an opportunity to discuss the issues and to overcome challenges and biases.

Keep an eye out for the first post in this series.  I look forward to the discussion.

Evolution of Mobile Communication

I recently came across this 1989 cell phone commercial on YouTube:

It’s very interesting to see how much has changed since 1989 – a mere 19 years as of this writing.  In those 19 years, those massive bricks have become so slim and compact that tucking one away in ones pocket is less intrusive than tucking a wallet into ones pocket. In addition, those number keys have become smaller and high quality colour screens have filled the void.

That’s just the physical differences.  However, while the physical attributes of today’s cell phones have improved so much, the growth in functionality is mind-boggling.  From a mere voice communication device with questionable reception to high quality mini computers, today’s phones are not just for the rich adults profiled in this ad but for kids as well.  Cell phones are not longer just tools used for mobile voice communication.  Now they are devices with operating systems containing text messengers and are, email-enabled, Internet-connected, microporcessing computing machines with built in cameras, and in some cases Wi-Fi, 3G and memory slots.

It’s interesting to see how different our tools have become.  I guess when over 50% of the global population has a cell phone (with some countries in Europe having a cell phone penetration rate of over 100%), there is big economic incentives to spend more or research and development and to turn a cell phone into a truly mobile, handheld computer.

In this new reality where kids have cell phones and will be using them in their adult lives, we need to accept digital communication devices as being as necessary in tomorrow’s world as the paper and pen were in yesterday’s world.  It will be interesting to see what the next 19 years will bring…