NECC

Just returned from NECC in San Diego, Calif. Woo Hoo! Learned lots. My favorite session was Will Richardson's which I have blogged about below. However, John Norton and I blogged the event from Calif. and can be read at our blog created for that purpose called "NECCing in San Diego"
Take a minute to check out all the pics and posts from the sessions we attended.

Web of Connections
Went to see my blogging friend Will Richardson speak. I knew him from working with him on Skype and Elluminate, so I figured I was going to be moved by what he said-—but what I didn't expect was the power and authority with which he spoke. His passion was evident. I can honestly say I would be willing to follow him into battle—(and I do not follow easily). It was obvious from what he shared that he has vision, context, experience, commitment, and, most important to me, creativity. His style is commanding. As I watched the audience, they caught the vision. Many were on the edge of their seats.

Will asked the audience members to raise their hands if they were blogging his session, and the number of hands showing really revealed the wild growth of the blogging phenonmenon since I last attended NECC three years ago, when finding a blogger was a unique experience.

In fact, the whole focus of NECC seemed to revolve around Web 2.0, which was a very cool thing. Even the US Dept. of Education is on board with their newly unveiled idea of School 2.0. US ED was talking blogging and podcasts—incredible.

Will points out what we are all doing is not so much about technology anymore-- because the technology is more seamless now due to the ease of use and application. What we are doing now is all about imagination.

He began with "One Red Paperclip",  a story about how Kyle MacDonald traded one red paperclip for a house. He started with one red paperclip on July 12, 2005 and 14 trades later, on July 12, 2006, he will trade with the Town of Kipling (Saskatchewan) for a house located at 503 Main Street.

Next he shared a Mashup from Anime Music Videos that had been published to the Internet as another example of what folks are doing and how so much of what is happening is about imagination.Will asks, " What can we do with these tools now that we have the power to publish ideas so easily?"

There are a billion folks connected to the Web and we'll have another billion by 2015. One trillion places you can click. The emerging reality is the read/write Web. Where we do not just consume content but we create content and share it with the a wide audience as well. It is really changing the way we communicate with the world. This is not about just technology—this is about the history of the world and the way we relate to one another. In relation to the changing world, Will shares that there are 1.2 million posts each day. He pointed everyone to Technorati as a way to track the blogosphere. It is about linking the types of things that isolated folks couldn't gather around before. An example he gave was a Flickr group that communicates and shares pics about vegefetti (graffiti on plants). His point: anyone around the world can now connect around whatever interests them. As he speaks, I made a mental note of how thankful I am to be living in a time such as this.

He describes blogs as published conversation and that the power is that they are interactive. We are truly in the era of collaboration. We are uploaders. We upload ideas and content. Our Web today is a very active and participatory Web. He points to Creative Commons and how we can take more control over our content. And then he challenges the audience to consider what it means when everyone can be a journalist and comment and record for public view about the things happening in our lives. He stresses how what is happening is a powerful shift and for us as educators it is imparative that we understand what these changes are and how it should impact our thinking about what is happening in our classrooms.

Will then shared a podcast by Matthew Bischoff  who is/was one of the first podcasters in the US. He started as a 13 year old podcasting from his bedroom-- another example of the powerful shift. Even Will's 8-yr old daughter Tess's Flickr cookbook has been hit over 1000 times—and she is teaching and sharing! He also shared Darren Kuropatwa's students work.

Student content is going far beyond our classroom walls. It is literally going around the world. It is changing how we learn. Leveraging technology is really all about what can we do with it.

How can teachers be enhanced as professionals by using these tools? We can't continue to see our classrooms as being contained in a building of brick and mortar. We must truly see our classroom as global. Will shares a time travel story about teachers frozen in a glacier and how if it unfroze they could step back into teaching, because not much has changed. To stretch our thinking he shared MIT's Open Courseware as a way to ask-- "Just where is our classroom?"

I love this...Teachers typically encourage students to "do their own work" and yet now with these tools we encourage them to work together! Using Web 2.0 tools, the collaborative creation of content is incredible. Our world is becoming more aligned together with the idea that we all should get together and be creating together. Our classrooms simply aren't limited any longer.

Take a look at this... http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/South_African_Curriculum --Wiki books is hosting this... imagine! Books that are being created collaboratively! As teachers we can pull from this source and add our lessons. What if teachers worked together to create these kinds of things?

Rip Mix and Learn!

The Web is changing teaching. Teachers need to be connected. Will has learned more as a blogger than any way he has ever tried to learn before in his life. The connected learning has been transformative in his life. We can learn anything, anywhere, anytime! He reminds us that learning is a social activity.

The Web is changing curriculum. Kids are publishing their homework rather than handing it in... Students become teachers. The classroom becomes a learning environment where everyone learns.
The curriculum doesn't have to just be text anymore! It can be so much more creative. We have to be willing to step aside and rethink the ways we are teaching is we want to remain relevant.

Will also challenged all teachers to create a My Space account. We need to help students understand what being a responsible part of a community means. How can we do that if we aren't there in the community? If we are afraid and block it, will we teach kids discernment? He tells us to teach My Space and help them to know how to navigate with purpose. There are endless opportunities to teach our kids about being safe and sensible by using My Space.

Will delivered the message—the message we all need to hear. I liked him before I saw him (and I met him in person for the first time at NECC), but now I feel connected. He is truly a like-minded colleague, one who understands that we are doing this for the children's sake.