The IDEA

Over lunch today, I had an opportunity to speak with Ryan Bretag. Ryan is an instructional technology specialist and is the mind behind one of the most innovative learning spaces I've come across. The space is called 'The IDEA' and is located within Glenbrook North High School.



If you'd like to learn more about how this learning space came to be, our conversation has been posted as this week's episode on The Clever Sheep Podcast.

An Invitation to Bleat

The map that anchors this blog, is evidence that networked learners are capable of sharing their ideas around the world. But these global connections become more real, when words, images, and audio are leveraged to bridge the geographic boundaries that separate us.

And so, to celebrate the 200th episode of the Teacher 2.0 podcast, I'm inviting you to share your voice around the world. Simply forward an audio shout-out that identifies your school, teaching assignment, city & country. I'll do my part, by tacking one or more such 'bleats' onto the closing credits of future podcasts.

Your invitation is the focus of today's podcast:



It's just an idea, and it may not take off, but I'm game to give it a shot if you are. I suspect that listeners will revel in the knowledge that authentic voices are working as educational agents of change in classrooms around the world.


Thanks to Marie-Therese Le Roux for the inspiration.

Three Milestones

This weekend was a milestone weekend. My online network led me to blast through three milestones in what has become my ongoing social learning experiment.

1] Thanks to a number of coincidental weekend retweets, my Slideshare presentation: Creative Commons: What Every Educator needs to Know, passed 3000 views in its first month online.



2] The Teacher 2.0 Podcast had episode download number 50,000!



3] My Twitter tribe surpassed the 1000 mark, the same weekend that I found followee number 500. How could I resist sending my 3000th tweet?


It's been about a year and a half since I've engaged these diverse channels in publicly sharing my personal learning, and though these numbers in some way quantify the number of folks I've been networking with, these values pale when I consider the rich learning these connections have led me to experience, both as a teacher and as a student.

Inviting All Teachers! Part 2

As a follow-up to the inaugural 'Ontario Meetup', I had the good fortune to participate in a discussion with Rob De Lorenzo about his vision for online professional development through focused discussions. Our conversation hints at the potential of synchronous conversations that will be open to participation by teachers from around the world.

With the continued evolution of web technologies, participation will be a relatively simple affair... provided you know that the discussions are taking place!



Related Links:
Ontario Meetup #1: Resources
Ontario Meetup #2: January 27, 2009
Adobe Connect
Presentation Zen Garr Reynolds
Slide:ology Nancy Duarte

Photo Credit: Rupert Ganzer A.K.A. loop_oh

Inviting All Teachers!

With the dawning of 2009, I'm going to begin embedding the Google media player to share Teacher 2.0 podcasts in this space. The episode below is a reflection on the potential for the 'yet-to-be-formally-named' Ontario Educator Meetup, which will engage Ontario teachers (and others) in discussions about how to engage a wide range of emerging technologies.

Through the instigation of Rob De Lorenzo, the inaugural meeting focused on 'personal learning networks' and drew educators from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, to an interactive meeting courtesy of Adobe Connect technology.

The next Ontario Educator Meetup is slated for January 27th at 6:00 p.m. EST. Mark your calendar if you'd like to learn more about "How Learners Can Leverage the Creative Commons in their Creative Work."



FYI, If you are a blogger interested in embedding audio on your site, I found the simple instructions at "Digital Inspiration" to be quite helpful.

I Hear Voices

The world is learning to use its collective voice like never before in communicating its thoughts, desires and opinions. This realization has become more real to me since joining my brother Todd for a conversation titled "Power to the People".

Recent news stories demonstrate how the public is bringing its influence in a more rapid fashion than has ever before been possible. After a calls to action in editorials and blogs like McLuhan's Ghost, the Green Party of Canada was able to overcome a threatened boycott, and will now take part in Canada's pre-election leaders debate.

At the same time, south of the border,
American voices are sharing their opinions of the US presidential and vice-presidential candidates thanks to the mashup work of MIBAZAAR.

I heard about my favourite voice-sharing story quite appropriately, via a radio show. The Telemegaphone project was highlighted on one of my favourite CBC podcasts, your guide to the next big thing: Spark. The Telemegaphone is a large speaker mounted to broadcast phone calls across the hills and fjords of Dale, a town in western Norway. You dial the number, and your voice is heard by the citizenry.


I'd love to see this idea reversed so that instead of this small town receiving ideas, music, and greetings from around the world; listeners around the world, could tune in to listen to commentary from small town individuals through an 'always on' Internet broadcast. This type of John Q. Public broadcasting is already happening with YouTube and Podcasting, but even simpler tools like www.earfl.com, VoiceThread and Seesmic are already making it possible for groups or random individuals to share their thoughts with their real voices.

As more and more of these applications leverage cell phone technology rather than desktop or notebook computer technology, it's easy to imagine a time when we open our cell phones to listen to geo-tagged telephone messages placed by people all around the world. Projects like Murmur and tools like GeoGraffiti are already allowing users to tap into an unseen network in order to post and/or download audio tags, historic commentary, and personal storytelling.

Who knows... Maybe one day, it will be common for educators to harvest student voices?


Photo Credit: Mirko Garufi

My 'Real' Little Brother!

I come from a family of five boys... including Todd (my identical twin); Cary (the same age as I am for one week each year); Mark (the youngest brother of my youth); and Tom (the last to join us and 16 years my junior). In the coming days, I think I'll share a few short stories, to give you some idea of what a creative gene pool I come from.

Tom's amazing conference t-shirt idea is the first sibling story that I'll share . Although he tried many times to get me to attend Podcasters Across Borders, I'm content in the knowledge that he had impact on the event. His idea to create t-shirts that can be photographed to capture details about tech-linked colleagues is brilliant, and I can't wait to see this idea become a reality at the next edu-conference I attend.

Find out more about this great 'little brother' by visiting him at one of Canada's greatest venues for independent Canadian music: Phog Lounge; or listen to his humourous and sometimes 'off-colour' ramblings along with his podcast partner by subscribing to Shane & Tom's podcast. Tom also does the occasional guest spot on CBC Radio's Spark, which is a great show even if Tom isn't involved; but I've recently discovered that the best way to see what Tom's all about, may well be to read the passionate stories he shares on Tom's Weblog.

Teaching with Video

I'm still learning new tricks... I think that that's what I've been loving most about sharing ideas online. I'm being exposed to new tools, and I'm finding ways to leverage them for learning, both for myself and for a steadily growing audience.

Today I began using a few tools that may be new to you. First I created my first first ever video podcast using ScreenFlow. The show appears below, and is a tutorial on how I use Garageband to record my audio podcast: Teacher 2.0.



The interface for ScreenFlow is even simpler than iMovie which I've used for many years, so even though the tutorial appears to have benefitted from complex video-editing, it took me only about 70 minutes to create this piece.

Once complete, I uploaded the movie (.mov) to Blip.tv, and the free online service converted the file to Flash format, and added it to my 'channel'. Thanks to the RSS feed built into blip.tv, I was able to launch a new video podcast on iTunes.

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to create in this format, but now that everything is in place, I have a home and some familiarity with a new production tool that just might motivate me to create the odd video tutorial. For now, I'll continue with the more predictable workflow, as in today's 'March Madness" podcast.

Netpodwikiblogmarking

It's a verb! You won't find the word 'Netpodwikiblogmarking' in any curriculum documents, but Teacher 2.0 will be harnessing a full range of Web 2.0 applications including networking, podcasting, collaborative wiki development, blogging, and social bookmarking. These tools are so very closely connected, that we may one day need such a multipurpose moniker.

Networked learning has never been more simple or more complex. Simple, in that those familiar with the tools, quickly come to realize that they are very user-friendly; Complex, in that there are so many choices to make in how/when/why to use any particular tool. With evolving Web 2.0 tools, educators can only truly understand their power by making productive use of them in their own personal learning.

Realizing that that these tools are tightly interconnected, and that educators have varying levels of expertise, the differentiated guide below invites you to start anyplace you like discovering the world of 'Netpodwikiblogmarking':

Option 1: It's about producing creative products. Try creating lessons in new media, then invite students to do the same. Create a podcast for your class, teaching them something by means of a self-produced audio recording. It doesn't have to be long; it doesn't have to be great. Be ready to accept criticism from your audience and invite your students to demonstrate their learning by producing their own pieces. Then make a bold step and consider posting student work online for a global audience. The same model can work for creating a webpage, a digital poster, a newsletter, an electronic portfolio... Just be sure to do it yourself first, so you can anticipate the challenges that your students will face. A great Blog to follow if you'd like to pursue novel products with e-tools is Wesley Fryer's 'Moving at the Speed of Creativity'.

Option 2: It's about collaboration. If you'd like to make meaningful connections with other teacher-learners, begin learning about tools that allow you to collaborate with others. Post to existing Wikis. (Yes, you can edit Wikipedia if you like!) Edit documents collaboratively with peers via Google Documents. Start your own Wiki page to support your own learning. A voice that seeks to provide avenues for sharing the voices of students and teachers alike is David Warlick's '2 Cents Worth'.

Option 3: It's about learning. Read Blogs. Comment on Blogs. Write Blogs. The topic doesn't matter (except that it has to be something you care about). What matters is that you become engaged in some kind of passionate discourse on the web. This public thinking will lead you to new resources be they people, websites or ideas. Explore your passions in the blogosphere. For a sample voice that challenges as much as it affirms, check out Gary Stager's 'Stager-to-Go'.


Option 4: It's about sharing the good stuff! You need to get yourself a social bookmarking space and to subscribe to some good 'gatherers' of resource links. The Clever Sheep maintains bookmarks at Del.icio.us. For more details, you can revisit my post about how you can use Social Bookmarking in the Classroom. In no time you'll be exposed to a plethora of rich resources. In differentiating for the advanced tool-user, I recommend you keep ahead on the learning curve by following Robin Good's Latest News.

Option 5: It's about networking. Through the activities above, you're bound to build relationships with others. Take time to follow like-minded folks via Twitter or Facebook and subscribe to a manageable collection of blogs. Take time to participate in the discussion by posting replies to posts that move you. To harness the power of your personal network, you can't do much better than tapping into Will Richardson's 'Weblogg-ed'.

Carve your niche! While I really believe that changing the chalkboard is the quickest way to impact education, there are many voices out there to be read/heard. Don't be shy about joining in the discussion; after all, it's what we ask of our students every day. What are you waiting for?

"Let's get Netpodwikiblokmarking!"

Let's Ban Chalk!

This weekend, I got to thinking about how history measures time periods. Knowing that the Three-Age System subdivided pre-history based on the material make-up of tools (the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age), I'd like to propose a system of 'ages' as a lens through which we can view classrooms in recent years.

In considering the 'tools' that have been mainstays in classrooms from the time when learning moved indoors in North America, we can frame education into three eras:

The Slate & Chalk Age (mid 1800's - present)
Characteristics: records are temporary; memory is necessary

The Paper & Pen Era (1900's to present)
Characteristics: records are semi-permanent; memory for homework is possible

The Web & Keyboard Period (2000's to present) Characteristics: records are of multimedia and may be historic; searchability makes memory less critical;

In looking for links to support these time periods, I stumbled across a wonderfully concise explanation courtesy of PBS.

In identifying the Web & Keyboard Period, I'm naming the period after the tools used to write, but the implication is that we have to consider this to be a period where students produce content in as many varied mediums as they experience. The true tools would include microphones, cameras, and other evolving input devices, well beyond the keyboard and mouse. Remember, in 2006, YOU were being named TIME's Person of the Year, not for your reading and writing, but as part of "a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before."

But many educators are still tied to both chalk/chalkboards; and paper/pen remain the preeminent classroom tool. In order to hasten the arrival of School 2.0, a time when the norm for classrooms is for the world wide web to be ever-present as the 'chalkboard', "I propose we Ban Chalk!"

While initially tongue in cheek, this proposal is one that would demand teachers change their practice. We may eventually want ban or put strict limits on paper, but I believe that the fist step is to change the blackboard. The physical space that makes up today's classroom, is reflective of rooms over 100 years ago. Changing the blackboard to a projection screen or SmartBoard, makes a dramatic statement to students and educators that the game has changed.

The day when it is 'normal' for classrooms to harness the power of global networking by using the read/write web along with a range of multimedia tools can only become a reality when the environment is reflective of the learning that takes place within the space.

The Stone age didn't end when we ran out of stone, it ended when people abandoned stone tools in favour of a better product. If teachers can teach this historic concept, surely we can live it!

"It's time to step away from the chalkboard and to step into the present!"

My "Down with Chalk!" mini-rant began on the Teacher 2.0 Podcast.

RSS: Get inside the wrapper!

If RSS is 'Really Simple Syndication" why do so few people really understand it?

If you are reading this blog because you have subscribed to an appropriate feed, then you likely won't get anything out of this post. If, on the other hand, you came across this post randomly, then you might consider taking advantage of RSS to provide yourself with 'one-stop' reading.

The best analogy that I can come up with for Really Simple Syndication, is the chocolate bar. You might be attracted to the wonderful packaging, but really, what you want, is the candy that exists inside the wrapper!

Really Simple Syndication ensures that the CONTENT can be subscribed to, while the FORM is inconsequential. In the 'old days' of 5 or 10 or more years ago, web authors used to spend lots of time customizing the form of their content. Fonts, sizes, colours, and other attributes that adapted and augmented the content ('the wrappings') if you like, are becoming secondary to the content. RSS, allows the reader to focus solely on the content. You might want to view "RSS in Plain English".

A quick and entertaining explanation of RSS is included within The Machine is Us/ing Us:



In order to access the content, you need to select and get comfortable with a 'feed-reader'. These 'aggregators' are free and widely available. I prefer Google Reader because it has the same look and feel as my G-mail account, but there are many options available.

Once you have a feed-reader, you can subscribe to all kinds of syndicated content. Just look for the orange RSS symbol in any URL, and you can copy the entire URL from your address bar, to add a subscription to your feed-reader:



Now you can subscribe to all types of content, including:

Your friends Flickr images
A colleagues bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/thecleversheep
Your favourite newspapers: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Any of a number of Blogs... like this one: http://feeds.feedburner.com/thecleversheep
or Podcasts: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ E-learningDaily

I didn't mention this in today's Teacher 2.0 Podcast, but this is just the beginning of huge changes in the way we access information! As coders are coming to realize, you can also draw RSS information into other sites and programs, resulting in a wave of new 'mash-ups' that are turning the world wide web on its ear. What are you waiting for? After all, it is "REALLY SIMPLE SYNDICATION"!

New Conversations for a New Year

Many forward thinking educators find themselves teaching with their classroom doors closed in order to avoid conflict with their colleagues who are teaching in more 'traditional' ways. If you are a teacher who would rather have the students speak, than have your own voice be heard; If you are a teacher who would rather have students work on engaging cross-curricular projects, than turn pages in textbooks; If you are a teacher who would rather provide access to a real world audience for student work, than grade and return student assignments, then there is a high probability that you are in need of opportunities to connect with like-minded educators!

The reality in the many schools I've taught in, and visited, is that teachers who strive to engage their students in engaging projects, often run the risk of being seen by their teaching collagues as 'rebels' or worse yet, teachers who lack 'discipline'. The fact that a teacher might have students up and out of their desks, speaking with other students, and demonstrating learning with tools other than pencils, pens and books, must be threatening to those who have only experienced working with compliant students sitting in rows and following the lead of the 'sage on the stage'.

Rather than engaging in meaningful collaborative learning with neighbouring teachers (whose doors might also be closed... if only to keep their students from seeing your active learners), educators on their way to becoming 'Teacher 2.0', might be better to open discussions with peers whose classrooms are undertaking similar transformations: moving from the teacher-directed model to more constructivist, project-based learning approaches. Luckily, many of these teachers have opened virtual doorways to their classrooms via the World Wide Web.

While you may or may not have your students use read/write tools like Wikis, Blogs, and Podcasts, you might well find inspiration from seeing the work of others who are leveraging these tools to engage in global conversations. I know that many of these classrooms/teachers are looking to network with other classrooms from around the world, so by all means, consider participating in the discussion!

Conversation Starters:

View some Teacher/Classroom Blogs: http://classblogmeister.com/
EduBlog Award Nominees: http://edublogawards.com/
Educational Podcast Network: http://www.epnweb.org/

A few Folks you might want to meet/read:

Wesley Fryer: http://www.speedofcreativity.org/
Will Richardson: http://weblogg-ed.com/
Bob Sprankle: http://www.bobsprankle.com/welcome/welcome.html

Teacher 2.0: The Podcast

This has been one interesting week!

With two of my brothers very much 'into' podcasting, it was only a matter of time before I got the bug. While the motivation hit me on a few consecutive 'very snowy evenings', I managed to record the first of what I hope to be a number of short conversation starters.

I've decided to post my content at libsyn.com (the liberation syndicate) and after learning a bit about hosting and linking, I've made an attempt to attach my introductory 'Teacher 2.0' podcast. You can also access the audio by clicking the title of this post. With any luck this podcast will make effective use of RSS and fingers crossed, will soon be available via iTunes.