K12 Online: The conference is coming

The 2nd annual K12 Online virtual conference is just about a month away. Make sure you attend, or attend the conference archive. The event is completely free. Important thinkers and dreamers and practitioners will present. Connect yourself with their visions of how our schools are evolving, how learning is changing.

Because the presentation list might overwhelm, yesterday the site began posting the workshop presenters’ teasers–short, online videos to give attendees a better idea of what their presentation will address. Four teasers are already up:

• Lisa Durff - “Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring”
• Chris Harbeck - “Release the Hounds”
• Dean Shareski - “Design Matters”
• Silvia Tolisano - “Travel Through Time and Space”

Let’s plan to demonstrate strong library presence at this one! Your attendance will help you help learners learn and help teachers teach.

Here’s the list of strands and presentations:

Classroom 2.0:

• Silvia Tolisano
  “Travel Through Space and Time”
• Drew Murphy
  “Step by Step- Building a Web2.0 Classroom”
• Chris Harbeck
  “Release the Hounds”
• Vance Stevens, Nelba Quintana, Doris Molero, Sasa Sirk, and Rita Zeinstejer
  “Motivating Student Writers by Fostering Collaboration through Tagging and Aggregating”
• Wendy Wolfe
  “If All My Classes Did This”
• Konrad Glogowski
  “Assessment and Evaluation”
• Anne Davis
  “Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools”
• Dean Shareski
  “Design matters”
• Jeff Utecht
  “Sustained Blogging in the Classroom”

New Tools:

• Liz Kolb
  “Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools”
• Frank Pirrone
  “Collaborative Concept Mapping - Breaking the Bounds of Location and Time… for $0.00 per Seat”
• Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Alice Barr
  “Flat Agents of Change”
• Anne Davis
  “Learn to Blog : Blog to Learn”
• Jason Hando
  “LMS 2.0 - Engaging Learners Using More Advanced Techniques and the Odd Mash-up inside Moodle”
• Sharon Betts
  “Oodles of Googles”
• Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez
  “Second Life: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds - Panel”
• Kurt Paccio and James Gates
  “The Electric Slide! Twenty-First Century Style”
• April Chamberlain
  “Trailfire”

Professional Learning Networks:

• Jen Wagner, Cheryl Oakes, Vicki Davis, Sharon Peters
  “Webcasting for Educators: Expanding the Conversation”
• Brandi Caldwell
  “Creating PLE’s with TLC”
• Kevin Hodgson and Bonnie Kaplan.
  “The Collaborative ABC Project: Using Technology to Tell Stories”
• Lee Baber, Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim and Thomas Locke
  “Building Online Communities for Youth”
• Jeff Utecht
  “Online Professional Development”
• James Folkestad
  “Changing a System: Network Centric Learning Communities”
• Sharon Peters, Vincent Jansen
  “Building a Yardstick for PD Success: Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Web 2.0 Personal Optimized Learning Environments”
• Vinnie Vrotny
  “Expanding Horizons - Engaging the Adult Members of your Community (Teachers, Administrators, and Parents) through the Use of Personal/Professional Learning Networks”
• Alex Ragone and Arvind Grover
  “EdTechTalk: A Network of Homegrown Webcasters”

Obstacles to Opportunities:

• Patrick Ledesma
  “The Technology Specialist as Teacher Leader: Strategies to Ensure Successful Technology Integration and Student Learning in Schools”
• Ben Wilkoff
  “Starting From Scratch: Framing Change for All Stakeholders”
• Karen Richardson
  “Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age”
• Shawn Nutting
  “Creating a Paradigm Shift in Technology”
• Lisa Durff
  “Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring”
• John Pearce
  ”Me blog? No way!!!”
• Sylvia Martinez
  “Web 2.0 Share the Adventure”
• Joseph Bires
  “Acceptable Use and the Web 2.0”
• Sylvia Martinez
  “Challenging Assumptions about Technology Professional Development”

NECC: If you missed the thrill of being there

Just in case you were not among the 18 thousand or so at NECC last week in Atlanta, enhanced podcasts are the next best thing to being there.

Apple Learning Interchange just posted 23 presentations –voice and slides–that are likely to inform and inspire. Speakers include MIT’s Mitch Resnick, NECC CEO Don Knezek’s reflections, Ian Jukes on learning environments, Doug Johnson on 21st century libraries and classrooms, and Helen Barrett on digital storytelling.

My presentation with my colleague Ken Rodoff is located here.

My one worry.  Don’t listen to this if you are planning to hear us at November Learning later this month!

My NECC highlights

Sorry about my absence. Edublogs has been down and I have been posting on my SLJ blog for the last few days. And hooray, that blog now has an RSS feed. And it seems that Edublogs is back and stable. And so I am back to being bi-bloggal.

I am just back from NECC and here is my personal meta-view of the highlights:

My favorite new tool: PrimaryAccess. This documentary “movie making” application incorporates the databases of major archives (Library of Congress, NARA, and many others) and allows you to bring in your own images as well, with lovely, optional Ken Burns effects. One side of the production screen is scripting area, the other side allows you coordinate media with the script. Users can add audio as well as text. The tool is designed to work well with online images, especially online archives. I look forward to using this one especially for making movies utilizing art and primary sources. After registering, visit the main page and follow instructions.

My favorite event: EduBloggerCon rocked! Read my post on SLJ for details. At the “unconference” we did not talk tools. We explored new visions for pedagogy. We talked leadership. We talked about how we are currently using the new applications in the classroom. The prevailing feeling: we are at the cusp of exciting change and we now need strategies to interpret that change and to share effective practice.

Along those lines, Vicki Davis and a number of us are advocating for standards relating to tagging all sorts of learning content. So much of the good stuff–the model lessons, articles, software, documents–are challenging to find because we have no consistent scheme for tagging our content.

What is amazing about the gang in the picture is their passion for improving learning and engaging learners, their creative spin, their ability to dream, their willingness to play. Many of us have been reading each other for years. But you can’t always read passion. It was different connecting in person. The level of chatter left my head spinning. My network expanded geometrically.

Thinking outside the box: A Monday night panel of amazing minds discussed the importance of unlocking creativity, the importance of networking, of inventing and dreaming of new possibilities. Futurist Andrew Zolli led a panel that advocated the value of taking risks, asking hard questions, being willing to fail,and reaching for the impossible. We need to create learning landscapes where teachers and students can try new things, sometimes impossible things, and occasionally fail. Choreographer and MacArthur grant winner Elizabeth Streb, described her wildly creative contemporary dance studio in New York. It is modeled after a garage, a space in which people feel comfortable working and messing stuff up. We need to think, look, play, imagine.

Speaking of creativity and networking: That’s what the new NETS*S are about. The project is the result of a year’s work and the consensus of participants from all 50 states and 22 countries. The new standards expect learners to move beyond how to use technology, to understandings of how to use technology to create and innovate in order to “learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital age. The six “buckets” are: creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making; digital citizenship; and technology operations and concepts. Over the next couple of years, look for revised NETS for teachers and for administrators.

I am so behind the SL curve: Since I took my little sabbatical from Second Life several months back to finish my doctoral program, much has changed. In world, major educational organizations, like ISTE, established islands. My edtech buddies moved in. They have houses and offices. I want an office too! I want to discuss professional issues there and consider how to interact with learners. Thanks to Peggy Sheehy, of Suffern Middle School, for giving me some hair and new clothes and offering to show me around again. (BTW, there’s an interesting video out there that parodies the awkwardness some of us have felt in SL.)

What I need from NECC next year: After EduBloggerCon I felt reaffirmed. I felt that we are doing good stuff at school. I know in my heart our students are more engaged when they use the new tools we introduced over the past couple of years. But at NECC, I need the next workshop. I need more intermediate and advanced workshops. I walked out of way too many introductory sessions.

What resonates: At the conclusion of EduBloggerCon, Chris Lehmann of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia left us with the question he shares with his teachers to encourage innovation: “What is the worst consequence of your best idea?”

Ning and social networking

A couple of weeks ago I discovered Ning. I started playing around as I do in every new tool I find. I created a TeacherLibrarianNetwork. But I couldn’t find any buddies around and didn’t know exactly what to do or who to play with. I posted my first forum question. I was lonely in Ning.

But . . .

Yesterday, Terry Freedman invited me and the other contributers to Coming of Age 2.0 to the Ning social network he set up to plan the project. Now I get it. I can see my new friends’ faces. The forum is alive. Folks are sharing. In fact, through this space I found Chris Smith’s (Shambles) new video resources that I will share in a separate post so folks will really notice it.

Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds. You can make it public or private and for anything - and anyone - you’d like.

This tool has real potential for use in any group work. I think it may work for classes and clubs too. And it plays nice with all the other 2.0 tools.

And, BTW, I haven’t been playing with the TeacherLibrarianWiki for some time. Please remember that our community is welcome to build this tool. (I’d love to see it adopted by graduate classes!) Please email me and I will send you a password.

Helene Blowers’ 23 Things and getting reading for Internet@Schools/CIL

I am struggling to get a new presentation ready for Internet@Schools for next week. As always, there is way too much to share.

I made some very cool discoveries as I gathered resources for the session. The coolest of which is Helene Blowers 23 Learning 2.0 Things, things all library staff members should get familiar with. Inspired by Stephen Abram’s Feb. 06 article 43 Things I (or You) might want to do this year and the website 43Things, Helene presents “23 Things (or small exercises) that you can do on the web to explore and expand your knowledge of the Internet and Web 2.0.” The goal is to motivate the library staff to learn more about emerging technologies.

Helene is the Public Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC). Her 23 things include friendly, understandable descriptions, inspiring podcasts, and a great selection of links.

I hope Helene doesn’t mind if her K12 colleagues borrow some of her inspiration! How would you plan the 23 (or so) things school library folks or teachers should get to know for next school year? Another summer project planned!

Thanks, Helene!

Gerda Weissman Klein webcast (Holocaust studies)

Gigi Lincoln, good friend, fellow cohort member, and librarian at Lakeview High School in Battle Creek Michigan wrote to share an event that will be of interest to teachers and library media people everywhere. Have your students join the blog and/or the webcast!
Gigi wrote:

Gerda Weissmann Klein will speak in Battle Creek on Monday, April 16, 2007 (two weeks from today). I gave a presentation at the Michigan Association for Media in Education this past fall about Gerda Klein’s upcoming visit to Battle Creek and the opportunity for students to participate in a blog set up at to promote reading of her memoir, All But My Life. Senior citizens from a community college lifelong learning program have even joined the student bloggers. See Battle Creek Enquirer.

We had an overwhelming response from school groups throughout the state of Michigan to attend Gerda’s morning presentation at the W.K. Kellogg Auditorium, receiving requests for more than 3400 students. Because seating is limited to 1911, adults and students have been encouraged to attend Gerda Klein’s evening presentation at 7:00 PM in the W.K. Kellogg Auditorium.

In response to the great interest on the part of students to participate in the project, Merit Network, in collaboration with Internet2, Battle Creek Public Schools, Lakeview School District, Calhoun Intermediate School District, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Klein Foundation will make an Internet/Internet2 broadcast stream of Gerda Klein’s morning presentation available free of charge to viewers in Michigan and throughout the United States. The event will be streamed LIVE over the Internet and Internet2 by Merit Network and will be available in RealMedia, Windows Media, Quicktime, and MPEG2 Multicast format. The video stream will also be archived on the Merit site.

Details are available at http://www.merit.edu/events/kleinwebcast/

PETE & C and the further adventures of D-girl

I attended our state technology conference (PETE&C) week. At one of the Sunday night receptions, I won a laptop cart–minus the laptops. Darn! Nevertheless, you can see Ken, Michael, and I got pretty attached to the cart at the party. More pics on Flickr.

I enjoyed Apple’s Dave Marra’s workshop on podcasting with GarageBand. I can’t wait to get started, but that, my friends, looks like a post-D activity. Jim Gates’ tips were cool and I added several of his ideas to my cool new tools wiki.

If you were not lucky enough to be in lovely Hershey, PA this past snowy week, a wiki, created by Bridget Belardi, captures some of the PETE&C excitement.

At the first morning keynote, Kathy Brautigam, Director of the state’s Bureau for Educational Technology, shared this video, an ad for EDS, a tech company–Building an Airplane While it’s Flying. I absolutely felt that was how I worked last week when LearnerBlogs was experiencing off and on tech issues and I was working with three classes to build research blogs.

Actually, I feel like that a lot. Not a problem when you are working with colleagues who also thrive on risk and moderate chaos (and yes, sometimes, big gains).

And now for the D-update: To continue with the old analogy, I’d say I am at about 2 centimeters right now. In two weeks (this has been a long gestation), I should have a sharable draft.  I’ll let you hold it if you like!

The bad news: my committee is too swamped and I cannot get my paper read, revised, and filed by spring graduation. The good news: I should be able to defend on May 7th and I may be able to enjoy a real summer break. Please send all your positive “D vibes” towards the Philly burbs!

A tale of two conferences–and lots of other random radical thoughts

This past week, I’ve been in Seattle attending back-to-back library conferences—ALISE and ALA. I presented a workshop on K-12 information-seeking behavior with a wonderful panel—Marcia Mardis, Anne Perrault, and Dave Lankes, and I learned from all of them. At ALA I attended the first of our committee meetings to rewrite the national guidelines for school library programs.

The differences between these two conferences were stark to me. I am still green in the world of “the academy.” I am not used to the idea of attending workshops and keynotes where presenters read their research papers rather than express thoughts and reactions. Those who ask questions following those session often begin their questions with “according to my research . . .” rather than, “could you help me understand?” (Note: this was not the case for all the sessions, but it was for many. Interestingly, presenters who had some K12 experience seemed to present in more energetic ways.)

But I longed for informal dialog, passion and energy regarding research I truly did find fascinating. Though I often violate all the rules of making a presentation, I cannot separate passion and energy from my own talks. I connect by telling stories.

A particular highlight between the conferences was Why Teens Heart MySpace. Danah Boyd’s research involves the power of social networking for young people. “If you’re not on MySpace you don’t exist,” notes one of the teens Boyd quoted. Teens want to hang out with friends, to goof around, to do nothing, to learn about what is going on around them “from the unexpected reactions of strangers.” Boyd shared the types of communities teens are building on MySpace and young people’s motivations for building those communities.

She asks, “Where did we learn the road rules?” As a teen, I suspect that I learned the rules hanging around the Seaview movie theater, or around the SUBO at Brooklyn College on Friday nights. Like in online landscapes, that’s where my friends discovered where we fit, how to fit in, what to adjust if we wanted to connect or disconnect in social space. Teens (and the rest of us) long to be in unregulated environments, away from those who impose pressures on them. Several of chatted about this concept of a “third place,” perhaps like Cheers, where you can be yourself without serious consequence. MySpace creates small worlds based on relationships and the potential for relationships. Friendships, romances, break-ups are public. Your Top 8 is an important way to gauge “superficial” acceptance. Taking someone off your Top 8 is serious relationship business.

Marketers also live in MySpace. In my never-ending quest to be a small window on my learners’ desktops, I’ll revisit my own MySpace page and see how I might use it to market library services.

During our first meeting the committee to rewrite the national guidelines for school library programs, enjoyed a wonderful brainstorming session negotiating the practical and the visionary and discussing new potentials and tools. At an open meeting to discuss the second draft of the new learning standards, we reached a fairly easy consensus about creating a document with friendlier language and acknowledged the major work that committee invested in moving us ahead.

Scholastic’s launch of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, was so entertaining!  I am looking forward to reading this format blasting–picture book, graphic novel, mystery, film. I had an interesting dinner conversation about history. Would the founding fathers be bloggers?

I woke up one morning with a new motto and I seriously considered changing the title of this blog. Likely, I won’t shift, but what do you think about the notion of “leading from the center”? For me this means striving to lead the learning for administrators, teachers, and students. It also means leading from the center of the school– the library media or information center.

Notes on the SLJ Summit

We could have used another day.  I am so 1.0 when it comes to writing projects.  I wanted to create a manifesto, a call to arms, a rallying cry.  I wanted it to be pretty and grammatically elegant.

But here’s what happens when you put 46 leaders–who each may own a different vision–into one room.  You share ideas (and sometimes agendas).  You negotiate personalities as well as content.  At tables, you make friends and develop allegiances. 

And then, somewhere, way towards the end, you get a pretty good–not yet elegant–kind of document.  That’s the way our aptly named ”Information Rich” panel worked and I am most grateful for the experience and for the guidance of my fellow panelists–Barbara, Alice, Terri, Lisa, and Sara.  I am eager to have the work we started continue through the wiki.  It will be a way to ensure that those ideas that did not make our final flip chart–many of them of the outside-the-box variety–will continue to live.  Please help continue to grow these ideas on our notes page.

Brian and Rocco did a fabulous job organizing this huge event.  Gail Dickinson was brilliant pulling things together and assuring everyone got heard and was able to share their most critical messages at the closing session. 

For me the big regret was not being able to contribute to my biggest passion these days–learning activities in School Library 2.0. 

For me the highlight of the conference was Joan Frye Williams’ breakfast talk.  Her words regarding change, and the notion that pigs can really fly, validated my own relentless optimism for our profession and the thrilling challenges of exploring new landscapes and establishing street cred with learners. 

Some of Joan’s thoughts that will continue to resonate for me:

Technology is pass-fail.  We either get it or we don’t and our students are assessing this one.  Reading the manual is not the most effective way to learn.  As Joan’s niece advises, the only way to go is to “practice dude.”  In this world, you just about get good at something and the new version comes in and you’re stupid again. It is hard to be a novice over and over and over again.

Library as idea factory.  Can our libraries be: book art studios, media production facilities, technology showcases, place to crunch scientific data?

We need to consider furnishing for different learning styles.  None of the teens I serve love our two lonely carrels.  They want to see each other, even when they are working by themselves.  Joan notes, “the way to feel good in a space is to take my buds with me, not to line up separately against the walls.” We need to build spaces that emphasize the pleasure of learning.

We must abandon our attachment to library language. Don’t call bibliographies, bibliographies—call them Easter eggs and cheat codes.  (I chatted with Barb Stripling about that one and I can see some ethical issues using that phrase.)  Nevertheless, here’s one of my favorite Joanisms: “You are the level keeper in game world SchoolQuest.”

Our students want to get started on their own—can there be a successful experience without the adult present? Confessing she doesn’t know what she is doing, asking a dumb question, is not what the middle school student wants to do today. It works the other way.  When they have 2 or 3 successes under their belts, students will turn around and ask.

And so we must simplify our “way finders” so that students can do the basic stuff without asking for directions.

Strategies for simplifying wayfinding:

• Reduce clutter–Offer situational directions—hints that are not about us, but about them!  Naming things using our names, is not the first line of defense for a user to find success
• Use natural language
• Use prepacked tips, shortcuts, FAQs

Here’s one that hit me particularly, as one who loves information in excess. Information is how librarians express love.  But our sense of enoughness is different from what enoughness means to the general population.  Students need fewer, clearer choices to start. 

While some (mostly public) librarians measure some of their effectiveness by the number of directional questions answered, the real goals is to reduce the number of directional questions we answer.

Joan quotes Roy Tennant, who noted: “Librarians enjoy searching, everyone else enjoys finding.”

We need to better merchandize our collections.  For instance, the spine is not best side of book to market.  We need to facilitate serendipity, to help people trip over things not assigned to them. 

Carnegie Library Pittsburgh worked on understanding users by storyboarding the library experience.  This led to them arranging their collection in information neighborhood or areas or gathering materials in broad areas of frequent interest.

Perhaps we should practice a type of “bookend service”—get me started, check my work when I’d done

Instead of “ask me,” perhaps our signage should more properly reflect the results we can produce.  What about “homework insurance” instead?

When traveling with her niece on a college tour, Joan was impressed by one student who went beyond the scripted library trip and advised, “Get in with these people early and they will make sure you ace your class.”  That’s what this place is about.  We should consider what students are thinking and they are thinking, “How does this integrate with the rest of my life.”

We are now part of an open infosystem, though we may have been trained in an era of information scarcity.  Information used to be not easy to find, expensive, hard to get to. The current situation is one of information ubiquity.  We make a huge mistake when we make a firewall line between approved library information and the other data students find.  We lost that battle—information gathering has left the building.  We can no longer say, “Don’t go there—come here instead.” Learning happens nights and weekends when we’re not looking.  It is not accurate to expect that it will all take place in an area we will control.

Perhaps we should label our services: “extreme googling.”  Perhaps we should offer the option of a library toolbar.  Perhaps we should extend our outreach to external forums, and the social networks students visit.   We need to put the hay down where the goats can get it.  How many of us have an entry for our libraries in Wikipedia?

We should frame our instruction in the form of podcast tips and shortcuts—little nuggets that are indexed, pushed, shared, repurposed. Content students and teachers are developing.  Joan believes a 5-minute podcast on popular topic would be very popular.  And we should NOT call these things “lessons.”  Call them podcasts.   Make them available on iTunes.  Use the channels young people care about.

We should consider communicating through IMs. IM is how people communicate.  It would offer us instant street cred.  If school policies exist against messages, consider it for night and weekends.

We should not expect that students will do one thing at a time.  They have continuous partial attention.

Joan left us with the acronym:  FUSE

• Find

• Use

• Share

• Expand

We already find and use.  We must continue to seek opportunities to share and expand knowledge!

We can harness students’ interest in social networking.  It’s all about me—blogs, vlogs, wikis Students love recommender systems//collaborative filtering.  As users, they trust personal information.  It’s the student equivalent to peer-review.   (Check out http://movielens.umn.edu.)They appreciate folksonomies, their own suggested subject headings.

As we move forward:

• Listen to students

• Look for new ways to add value

• Build on existing assets

• Think big

• Plan for success

• Speak up

• Laugh a lot

• Dare to be bad at it till you master it

• Don’t forget why you are doing this

(Re)visiting November Learning

I’ve been to a number of conferences this year, but the one I will remember most, the one that offered me much of what I will bring into school next week was July’s November Learning event in Boston. 

If you weren’t able to be there, or if you were there and you’d like to refresh or relive a bit, the podcasts of the keynotes are now posted. 

Here’s what you’ll find on the site:

Alan November - Leadership: Managing the Transition

This session outlines essential skills for leadership, and offers practical guidelines and creative solutions of building accountability into the planning process. Articulating vision and mission, managing change, and aligning technology to primary goals are emphasized.  A shift in planning from technology to the quality and application of information and communication is a critical next step.

Attachments: Alan_November.mp3

Marco Torres - BLC 2006 Day 1 Keynote

Marco is a social studies teacher, media coach, and education technology director at San Fernando High School. He has received numerous honors and awards for his work helping students empower themselves through the mastery of multimedia. He serves as one of Apple’s Distinguished Educators and is an advisory board member of The George Lucas Educational Foundation.

Attachments:
Download

Andy Hargreaves - BLC 2006 Day 2 Keynote

Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. His work has been translated extensively into more than a dozen languages. Professor Hargreaves’ current research interests include the emotions of teaching and leading and the sustainability of educational change and leadership.

Attachments:
Download

Chris Dede - BLC 2006 Day 3 Keynote

Chris Dede’s fundamental interest is the expanded human capabilities for knowledge creation, sharing, and mastery that emerging technologies enable. His teaching models the use of information technology to distribute and orchestrate learning across space, time, and multiple interactive media. His research spans emerging technologies for learning, infusing technology into large-scale educational improvement initiatives, policy formulation and analysis, and leadership in educational innovation.

Attachments:
Download

Tim Tyson - The Blogging School

Historically, community dissatisfaction with school communication has remained unchanged despite Mabry’s best efforts. However, in one year, with the advent of blogging, that level of dissatisfaction has been cut in half. School and community communication is but part of this story. Blogging can also be leveraged to maximize student engagement and academic achievement as well as student collaboration with peers and professionals around the world.

Attachments: Tyson.mp3

Bob Pearlman - Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

Bob Pearlman, Director of Strategic Planning for the New Technology Foundation, will define the skills and knowledge that makes students successful in the 21^st Century and show the new schools, new school learning environments, and new project-based and rich task learning approaches that foster these skills.

Attachments: pearlman.mp3

Brian Mull - From Crisis to Community

Click here for the Enhanced Podcast version
Brian Mull, who at the time was Director of Technology for an independent school in New Orleans, Louisiana, will describe his experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina.  Specifically, Brian will describe the challenges that his school and he faced due to the storm, and how he modified his school’s communication system in preparation for what was to come.

Attachments: Brian_Mull.mp3

Bette Manchester - Leadership and the Maine Story

Leadership in a one to one learning environment is about vision and using three lenses to support the transformation of a school for the 21st Century. This workshop is about leadership in a state-wide, district and school, one to one initiative - the Maine Learning Technology Initiative.

Attachments: Manchester.mp3

Alan November & Will Richardson

We’re at the dawn of a “new” Internet, one that lets us create content just as easily as we consume it, and educators around the world are finding great ways to use the “Read/Write Web” in exciting and effective ways.

Attachments: alan_will.mp3