Bud the Teacher

Teagan @ ten minutes
Originally uploaded by Bud the Teacher

World, meet Teagan Elizabeth Hunt. Teagan, world. Y’all’ll get acquainted soon enough.

It was a long day today, beginning early and finishing late. Teagan was born around 9:40am. Seven pounds, seven ounces. Twenty inches. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Two eyes and ears. One mouth.
More photos will, I’m sure, make it to the blog in the coming days, but I wanted to toss one up and to scrawl a couple of thoughts from the day here before they are forever forgotten.
1. Newborn Pampers smell better than almost anything.
2. Newborn babies smell better than Newborn Pampers.
3. Babies’ heads are funny-lookin’, and it’s impossible to keep a cap on them. It’s wrong to use duct tape. Very, very wrong.
4. Having a child changes everything. For always. There will never be a time when there wasn’t a Teagan. (I know — this is a thought that I had when Ani was born, too — but I wasn’t a blogger then, so I didn’t get it down. Better late than never.)
5. I like very much looking at the world through the eyes of someone who’s never seen anything like it before. There’s a sense of wonder, even in a cross-eyed newborn stare, there that I find intoxicating, invigorating, and downright neat. Ani has been really good for me in this regard. Teagan is, and will be further still, too.
6. This world and the universe it exists within will forever be full of amazement, wonder and awe. Wow.

Enough gushing — off to sleep. Thanks for indulging a proud father.

    The following announcement comes via Darren.  If you read this blog, chances are you’ve something to offer the conference, and I strongly encourage you to submit a proposal.  At the very least, prepare to spend some time with the conference — it’s a great opportunity.

    One of the best things about the conference is that it’s not too late to engage with last year’s event.  You can visit the K12 Online Conference blog for all of last year’s info and presentations as well as information on this year’s event.  I’m looking forward to it.

    Of course, now I’ve got to figure out what to offer the event via my own proposal.  Any thoughts?

Announcing the second annual "K12 Online" conference for teachers,
administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of
Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! This year’s
conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, October 15-19 and
October 22-26 of 2007, and will include a preconference keynote during
the week of October 8. This years conference theme is "Playing with
Boundaries." A call for proposals is below.

OVERVIEW:

There will be four "conference strands"– two each week. Two
presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday -
Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the
course of the two-weeks. Each presentation will be given in any of a
variety of downloadable, web based formats and released via the
conference blog (www.k12onlineconference.org) and archived for posterity.

FOUR STRANDS:

Week 1

Strand A: Classroom 2.0

Leveraging the power of free online tools in an open, collaborative and
transparent atmosphere characterizes teaching and learning in the 21st
century. Teachers and students are contributing to the growing global
knowledge commons by publishing their work online. By sharing all
stages of their learning students are beginning to appreciate the value
of life long learning that inheres in work that is in "perpetual beta."
This strand will explore how teachers and students are playing with the
boundaries between instructors, learners and classrooms. Presentations
will also explore the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools
(Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools
in their classes.

Strand B: New Tools

Focusing on free tools, what are the "nuts and bolts" of using
specific new social media and collaborative tools for learning? This
strand includes two parts. Basic training is "how to" information on
tool use in an educational setting, especially for newcomers. Advanced
training is for teachers interested in new tools for learning, looking
for advanced technology training, seeking ideas for mashing tools
together, and interested in web 2.0 assessment tools. As educators and
students of all ages push the boundaries of learning, what are the
specific steps for using new tools most effectively? Where "Classroom
2.0" presentations will focus on instructional uses and examples of web
2.0 tool use, "New Tools" presentations should focus on "nuts and
bolts" instructions for using tools. Five "basic" and five "advanced"
presentations will be included in this strand.

Week 2

Strand A: Professional Learning Networks

Research says that professional development is most effective when
it aims to create professional learning communities — places where
teachers learn and work together. Using Web 2.0 tools educators can
network with others around the globe extending traditional boundaries
of ongoing, learner centered professional development and support.
Presentations in this strand will include tips, ideas and resources on
how to orchestrate your own professional development online; concrete
examples of how the tools that support Professional Learning
Environments (PLEs) are being used; how to create a supportive,
reflective virtual learning community around school-based goals, and
trends toward teacher directed personal learning environments.

Strand B: Obstacles to Opportunities

Boundaries formalized by education in the “industrial age”
shouldn’t hinder educators as they seek to reform and transform their
classroom practice. Playing with boundaries in the areas of copyright,
digital discipline and ethics (e.g. cyberbullying), collaborating
globally (e.g. cultural differences, synchronous communication),
resistance to change (e.g. administration, teachers, students), school
culture (e.g. high stakes testing), time (e.g. in curriculum, teacher
day), lack of access to tools/computers, filtering, parental/district
concerns for online safety, control (e.g. teacher control of student
behavior/learning), solutions for IT collaboration and more –
unearthing opportunities from the obstacles rooted in those boundaries
– is the focus of presentations in this strand.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS:

This call encourages all, experienced and novice, to submit proposals to present at this conference via this link.
Take this opportunity to share your successes, strategies, and tips in
“playing with boundaries” in one of the four strands as described
above.

Deadline for proposal submissions is June 18, 2007. You will be contacted no later than June 30, 2007 regarding your status.

Presentations may be delivered in any web-based medium that is
downloadable (including but not limited to podcasts, screencasts, slide
shows) and is due one week prior to the date it is published.

Please note that all presentations will be licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

As you draft your proposal, you may wish to consider the presentation topics listed below which were suggested in the comments on the K-12 Online Conference Blog:

 

• » special needs education
• » Creative Commons
• » Second Life
• » podcasting
• » iPods
• » video games in education
• » specific ideas, tips, mini lessons centered on pedagogical use of web 2.0 tools
• » overcoming institutional inertia and resistance
• » aligning Web 2.0 and other projects to national standards
• » getting your message across
• » how web 2.0 can assist those with disabilities
• » ePortfolios
• » classroom 2.0 activities at the elementary level
• » creating video for TeacherTube and YouTube
• » google docs
• » teacher/peer collaboration

KEYNOTES:

The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote
by a well known educator who is distinguished and knowledgeable in the
context of their strand. Keynoters will be announced shortly.

CONVENERS:

This year’s conveners are:

Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at
Daniel Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known
internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools
meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice and for
"child safe" blogging practices. He has more than 20 years experience
in both formal and informal education and 13 years experience in team
building and leadership training. Darren has been facilitating
workshops for educators in groups of 4 to 300 for the last 10 years.
Darren’s professional blog is called A Difference (http://adifference.blogspot.com). He will convene Classroom 2.0.

Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach, a 20-year educator, has been a classroom
teacher, charter school principal, district administrator, and digital
learning consultant. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty member
teaching graduate and undergraduate preservice teachers at The College
of William and Mary (Virginia, USA), where she is also completing her
doctorate in educational planning, policy and leadership. In addition,
Sheryl is co-leading a statewide 21st Century Skills initiative in the
state of Alabama, funded by a major grant from the Microsoft Partners
in Learning program. Sheryl blogs at (http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/). She will convene Preconference Discussions and Personal Learning Networks.

Wesley Fryer is an educator, author, digital storyteller and
change agent. With respect to school change, he describes himself as a
"catalyst for creative educational engagement." His blog, “Moving at
the Speed of Creativity” was selected as the 2006 “Best Learning Theory
Blog” by eSchoolnews and Discovery Education. He is the Director of
Education Advocacy (PK-20) for AT&T in the state of Oklahoma. Wes
blogs at (http://www.speedofcreativity.org). Wes will convene New Tools.

Lani Ritter Hall currently contracts as an instructional
designer for online professional development for Ohio teachers and
online student courses with eTech Ohio. She is a National Board
Certified Teacher who served in many capacities during her 35 years as
a classroom and resource teacher in Ohio and Canada. Lani blogs at (http://possibilitiesabound.blogspot.com). Lani will convene Obstacles to Opportunities.

QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions about any part of this, email one of us:

• » Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com
• » Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net
• » Lani Ritter Hall: lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net
• » Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

Please duplicate this post and distribute it far and wide across the
blogosphere. Feel free to republish it on your own blog (actually, we’d
really like people to do that ) or link back to this post
(published simultaneously on all our blogs).

    The district just north south of where I live and just south north of where I work is going to begin offering e-mail accounts to many of its students if a vote goes well at a board meeting tomorrow night.  That’s not a super big deal.  What is is the reason why they’re considering it:

The district’s Technology Advisory committee members recommended the accounts so that students in middle and high schools could “communicate and collaborate locally and globally, and participate in and contribute to learning communities through e-mail,” according to a report detailing the e-mail account plan.

Under the plan, students could create school-related online journals and blogs, design Web pages, work on projects in teacher-created Internet spaces and produce podcasts.

    Pretty cool, huh? 

    Turns out my first ever scholarly publication, an article on book clubs and preservice teachers that I co-wrote with my friend and teacher Cindy, is available for free online for a short time.  She taught me to write for journals; I’m teaching her to blog.  I think I came out ahead in the deal.

    In this podcast, I begin by trying to explain a trend I’m noticing in my own blogging practice.  Then I move into a discussion of being "in the zone" in a creative sense, emphasizing my work with the CSUWP’s Advanced Institute on Technology and Teacher Inquiry, and wrap up with some thoughts, and not very articulate ones at that, on how I’d like to see more ways for blogs to represent or honor visual text.  Oddly enough, I was listening to this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers and I heard Paul Allison mentioning his desire to see blogs with more visual and audio components.  Here’s to synchronicity. 

The Show Notes

• My "internal filter" post - Full of reassuring comments.
• Kevin’s Meandering Mind
• CSUWP’s Advanced Institute Mother Blog (check the sidebar for our active bloggers)
• Sandra’s BookArts blog
• Natalie’s blog

    Ben shares a frustrating experience he’s having with a collaborative partnership torn asunder by parental concerns in a different state.  Lots to think about here, amidst the perceived parental overreaction, but I’m particularly interested in the comments from students on their collaborative wiki about the issue.  They’re frustrated — but are communicating, too, the value of their learning via wiki.  One comment in particular struck me as very astute:

Seriously, I never even got a chance to talk to them, and   
do you know why? Because I was working and learning and writing! What
does that tell you! That tells you that by them not being on here they
are being deprived of something they could have learned from. I just
hope whoever the parent is that called that attorney something
knows how much they have affected.  And that they have deprived an entire class of kids of some of the learning they needed!

Another student is a bit more practical about the situation:

.  .  .  we can still use wikimail and make our own wikispace.

    Hmm.  After school wiki work?

Ben concludes his post with several excellent questions for moving forward:

The question I kept thinking about after reading this e-mail is,
“Who failed?” Was it the teacher who didn’t set up enough rules and
guidelines for the students that were written down? Was it the parent
who failed to work with the teacher and understand the nature of the
collaboration? Or, was it the students who couldn’t grasp the public
nature of the internet?

Because of one or a combination of these factors, these students are
being shut out of an avenue for self expression and learning. What can
we do so that this doesn’t happen to us?

    Head on over to his place and share your thoughts.

    Kevin’s poetry — and frankly, his ability to consistently crank out such creatively elegant stuff — impresses me.  Here’s my favorite bit of his most recent poem:

So here I am, now, turning her into a poem
and then pushing her out the door of my mind on a raft of words
into your ear, dear reader, dear listener,
hoping only that she finds anchor in some friendly port
on the other side of the world.

Good poems make me want to try to write good poems.  And that’s how it’s supposed to be.

    Does it happen to anyone else who’s been blogging for a time that no post makes it through one’s own self-filter, either out of concern for relevancy or job security or just plain fear?
    Or is it just me?

    I’m working with a teacher that would like to take his students online for a short time.   Quick.  And there’s a rule in place that he cannot expose his students’ e-mails to public scrutiny, presumably because the IT folks in his area don’t want students to be left open to strangers contacting them.  I’ll argue that point another day. 
    Most tools require a student have an e-mail to create an account for a blog.  But not all.  And those that do also don’t necessarily expose that e-mail to the world.  If you were me, what would you recommend?
    Seems like Blogger’s an option, as is Elgg.  So, too, is Moodle.  For that matter, what tools actually display an e-mail right up front?  Or don’t require one at all?  (I know Elgg’s a candidate here, too.)  Does Wordpress MU require all users to have an e-mail address, or can the administrator set folks up without?
    Your suggestions?