Elementary Voicethread Project

"Show off Your School"

That's the title I finally came up with for our end of the year Elementary Voicethread project. Around January I asked on Twitter if anyone would be willing to collaborate with an area school using Voicethread. I received a couple tweets back and said I'd be back in touch later. A few things came up and we didn't look to go much further, but Brian Wasson sent a follow up tweet about a Kindergarten class on Long Island still interested, then right before the Spring Break I found another area Kindergarten teacher, where I work, who said she'd be interested as well. I told them that we'd talk after the Spring Break. Well, that Sunday before we came back, I was in church (where I get many of these ideas) and thought, why not invite the world?

I created this wiki on Sunday afternoon and by Wednesday we had almost 40 members join our wiki after a few tweets (OK, quite a few tweets) and the project posted in CAPSpace. I left it wide open so people didn't even have to actually join the wiki, so I wonder how many others were interested?  I put up the ClustrMap a little late, mostly from US, but a couple from across the pond and on our 1st Grade page you can see a variety from Canada, the US and Australia!
We started with most teachers posting Voicethreads that they've done this year with their class which has been great to see and I hope to post to Colete Cassinelli's Voicethread4Education wiki.  However, to keep it to the "Show off Your School" theme, I moved them to this page.
Teachers could take just one picture of the front of your school (or classroom) and have all of their students comment on just that one picture if they wanted, or they could do a bunch of pictures.
What I envisioned was letting your students go around, take their own pictures (either on their own or in a group), decide which ones to put up in the one class Voicethread and then comment on those picture(s).  Post that Voicethread to our wiki and then comment on others (if they allowed comments)
We 'officially' ended on June 3rd and got quite a few in the Kindergarten-3rd grade level.  One at the Pre-K and 4th grade level, but none at 5th and 6th. 
Honestly, I was hoping to get other schools in to look at what others schools did and maybe....just maybe, connect with them at the end of the year. If that happened and they saw how easy it was, then they may look into doing it again next year. We'll see how any of that plays out.

I'm hoping to hear ideas to help improve it for next year and to bring in new teachers!

I think, sometime in late August, I may move all of these to a 'Spring 2010' page.  I will still keep them separated by grades and then start it again next year for a Kick-Off to the school year. 
Ironically, the Hinsdale teacher and Long Island teacher (Brian's lovely wife who helped their Kindergarten class set up) shared the Voicethreads they made separately.  I wonder if that would've been a better way to approach it?  Let people sign up, then pair them with another school. The whole posting to a wiki for the world to see, might've been a little scary for some? 
Then again, I like sharing them on a wiki, teach them how to create and post a digital story on the internet responsibly....for some reason that feels like it should be part of my job?!?!

Thanks to anyone who participated.  I'd love feedback.  I think they went well.  Have a great rest of the school year (or summer vaction for some of you not in New York State!).

Why can't I blog more?

I started off May with a few ideas and said, you know what, I'm going to have a goal of one blog post per month!  That's not too hard, is it?

I guess it was.

Today is June 10th and I'm finally going to finish one.  I did start one earlier blog post, but never finished it.
I've noticed with my job in professional development that I'm not busy like I was as a High School Math teacher grading papers and building assessment.  However, I'm constantly searching for and trying out good tech ideas for the classroom and trying to be, well a master of everything!  Plus, I now value good customer service and try to keep all of my teachers happy and I try to respond to any issues or questions to the best of my ability....or the ability of my Twitter network.  There are plenty of good stories to share like the Elementary Voicethread Project I tried to get started, Science Fairs in districts and other collaborations that our teachers are doing.
I do try to write some of these up for our CA BOCES website and/or monthly flyer.  It's time to start getting those thoughts on here.  I also need to get into a good habit of checking my iGoogle page daily to check on my RSS feeds.  I can leverage my online community of educators more, make my life easier and be a good role model for the teachers in our area.

Fingers crossed.

Riding the Google Wave

It's been almost a week and I survived my "Riding the Google Wave" session at NYSCATE's "Riding the Digital Wave" session out at Erie1 BOCES West Seneca location.

It was a great day starting off with the keynote by Dr. Roger Firestein who started off by telling us he got his major in Creativity and Innovation here at UB!  What?  I've never even heard of that.  He kept us thinking and in particular had us form groups and "without judgement" brainstorm ideas about what we'd want our bathtub to be!  It was amazing when there were no limits what we came up with.  From NASCAR strips that you could just rip off and BAM, the tub and area around it would be clean.  To having the water do a skin scan and sending that information directly to your doctor to make sure everything is OK (thanks @rickweinberg for both of those).  I keyed in on the idea of "without judgement" since I was going to be showing Google Wave, which is still in Beta, and quite honestly, Wave's been beat up quite a bit since it's release.

In my session, well, I survived!
I must've been pretty nervous because I can't distinctly remember where people were sitting, just that it was packed.  Quite a few people said they had Google Wave invites, but we only had a few editing with us.  I fortunately could call on @tclarkeee, @jgriffith2, @theresagray and @rickweinberg as well as some others to add content and ideas.

To give the others an real time collaboration option, I set up an Etherpad to use with suffix RtGW (Riding the Google Wave).  I then realized that this one is different because it has lower case letters here!  Ooops.
The good things that I believe I did was to organize my waves into one folder (RtGW).  That gave them a blue box when they were in my inbox denoted by RtGW.  I also brought in the Public Robot (public@a.gwave.com)  otherwise no one would be able to see it OR I'd have to invite every single person.
The other robot I used was EasyPublic (easypublic@appspot.com) not sure if it did anything different, but I read that it wouldn't go away.  I guess sometimes the Public Robot does?
THEN, I tagged each of the waves #RtGW and to be safe also RtGW.  This is done at the bottom of the wave where it says Tags" and a + sign in a grey ellipse.
To be even more save, I went up to the top and numbered them 1,2,3,4.  Then, when people went to the search they could type:

with:public #RtGW (or RtGW without the #)

and get my four waves.  
For some reason the Fourth wave didn't show up and that was too bad, because I had questions about the opening keynote.  
Instead I started back over to wave #1 and deleted my content to put questions up for the keynote.  
You can see it here (If you have a Google Wave account).
I tried to show the Google Wave that JamieLynn Griffith did with her 2nd Graders and their Community project, but I was trying to rush through all of it and by that point, I'm not sure how many people were still with me.
I'm glad I took the risk, but couldn't done it a lot better.




First, in the description, sent everyone to https://www.google.com/ to sign up for an account before they got there.  I did try to send an e-mail a week before, but some didn't get it in time and didn't have time to send it in and get it back.  This would've been the biggest improvement, because I think there was so much confusion at the beginning that it was hard for people to see how they may use this.
I also should've gone slower at the beginning for those that had Google Wave accounts.  This is how you start a wave, this is your blip.  Shown ways to edit and save a little slower.  Maybe had them send waves to a small group next to them to practice...then thrown them into mine to have all of us start adding to.
Then, I could've organized gadgets better.  I had my third wave all full of gadgets to play with. I barely talked about them.
Not sure if I'd do that again.  At least not until it's out of Beta and I get to use it more.


Next, maybe something more like Google SketchUp!

The Perfect Storm?

    I tend to try to live my life staying out of the peaks and valleys.  Improve gradually.  At least I try.  Don't get too high from the highs, or too low from the lows.
    I've been on quite a high since my Educon trip and I've been trying to keep the momentum.

Maybe it was just the Perfect Storm for me?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/ / CC BY 2.0

    My beautiful wife and are are expecting our third child, there have been plenty of things on my mind lately.  I knew this trip would give me some time to 'get away' and learn.  I did travel down alone and just finding the hotel was an accomplishment for me!  *No laughing Pohanka!*

I knew some people from Twitter and from NECC last year in Washington, DC.  Thus, I had some people to talk to and hang out with (most notably the three headed braintrust of Debra Garcia, Carey Pohanka and Susan Morgan).  Right away on Thursday night we met the incredible Jenny Luca from Australia and Diane Cordell, a retired librarian from New York.  Later on, Jeff O'Hara from Edmodo fame, and his wife arrived after their flight from Chicago.  Educon was off to a great start for me.  Now, I can't list everyone that I met, however, that aspect of meeting people that I talk to through Twitter made this conference even better.  It also helped my confidence, knowing that I've already communicated with many of these people in education.

     The tour and class visits at Educon were eye opening.  At first it just seemed like controlled chaos.  
Kids were up out of their seats, working in groups, allowed to talk out loud.....and as a result, they were teaching and learning from each other.  The one room I walked in, I couldn't even find the teacher!  
     The CoreValues were displayed in every room, and the hallways decorated with student work.  Did you see the math on the 5th floor?  

Picture taken from my cellphone *Next year, remember camera!

     This table and other math trig graphs were just down from some unit in a health class about Sex Ed that may have gotten a few days of ISS at my old schools!  The students and faculty own the building (except for the 4th floor, forgot what was in there, an architectural firm, maybe?).

     I had to take two tours, one with a larger group, then as I was trying to think about all that I saw on my first trip I went to the Library.  There I sat next to Jenny Luca and she wanted to go for a tour, so I went with here and two nice young men, Javon and Hector.  They both asked what we did and then started us off on our tour to the classrooms they thought we'd like.  For me, it was the drama room with Jeff Han showing his 100-inch touch screen tv, and then down to their Calculus class with Mr. Latimer.  They talked about becoming experts in different types of differentiation and then teaching the class!  They also explained how they work together on these projects and even though they honestly grumbled about them, you could see the pride that they had in completing them.

     The next two days were filled with the Conversations that will require more time for me to think through.  
     I will just say this.  
     It was never a main point (I don't think) in any of the Conversations I attended, however, just building relationships with students, came through in all of them.  Caring for your students like they were your own children and giving them a chance to show what they can accomplish when someone believes in them.  It's stuff we talk about at our ISS meetings every Monday morning and it was all rolled into this SLA school, and working well.  It was eye opening to say the least.

     I started by saying "The Perfect Storm" because of the timing with other things in my life, how crazy work has been this year, then having HIGH hopes for this conference.  Those high hopes were exceeded and it was great to go see a school with clear goals and a faculty working together to accomplish those goals.  Follow that up with two days of Conversations with people (who are much smarter than I), and you have a very inspirational weekend.

     I had to leave after lunch on Sunday, however, I was in Binghampton before I knew it.  
                      Why?  
     Because I was talking to myself and bouncing ideas from the weekend all over the car!  Time just flew by.  I'm still not clear on everything, but realize how much more there is to learn.  
I'll continue to write some more blog posts, and maybe after a few of these I can start making things more clear.

     Thanks for the patience in advance.  There's more to the weekend from my perspective, maybe the next blog post will be about the Conversations that I went to:  
All three Conversations that I went to on Saturday were by the SLA staff, Team Canada was my only Sunday session.
       

    

Google Wave e-mail Invite? Or was it?

I was incredibly excited to see an e-mail invite from wave-noreply yesterday.
I was out in a district, and I didn't open it up until the end of the day because I had tons of work that had to get done.
I didn't think I'd get one, and also thought it was a little odd that it was sent on Oct. 1st at 12:07am and not on Sept. 30th, but I thought, "maybe someone from Twitter invited me in".
Who cares, I got an invite!

My e-mail looked official:

I clicked on the link, but it wanted me to add the Google Chrome browser plug-in.
I did go and check and this seemed to be legit, so I did download it (Might've been my mistake right there!)
Then, when it was done and I got in, all I saw was this:
A tad bit frustrating, if you can't read the top black banner it says:
"Everything's shiny, Cap'n. Not to fret!" Unfortunately, you'll need to refresh.
Wanna tell Dr. Wave what happened?
With a submit box to go to "Dr. Wave".
Now, I felt like I got scammed and began thinking why did I use IE!

Then, I thought, why not try Firefox? NOPE. Same thing.
I went to refresh the page....for a second, it looks good.....then same black banner.
Try it on another computer - same thing.
Download Google Chrome! YES, that has to work! NOPE.
Try it on a Mac with Safari - No.
At home, on another computer - No.

I came back to work today, maybe? Maybe? NO.

If I go to My Account in Google, I see Wave listed under My Products.

I've posted to the Google Wave Forum and wasted a night trying to figure this out.

Did I do something wrong? Maybe it was the Google Chrome plugin?
Let's just say it's been a frustrating day.
Then again, I'm frustrated over a Beta product that's free.

Maybe it's trying to tell me that I have too many other things going on? I would like to try it out this weekend, though. Can anyone help?

Initial Thoughts about NECC2009

Before I went to NECC this year in Washington, DC, I heard that they would be changing the Conference name to ISTE. If you don't know, ISTE is the organization that runs the conference. OK, big deal, who cares? What I cared about was getting to DC!
This trip was packed with info, from poster sessions, to the workshops and a variety of other learning opportunities. The most important thing to me, though, was meeting up with people that are in my Personal/Professional Learning Network. Mostly, those are people that I follow on Twitter.
The week started out by meeting Teryl Magee on Sunday at the Blogger's Cafe', and ended Wednesday night by FINALLY meeting up with Kelly Hines.
In between these two fine ladies were many others that I've been following, not just on Twitter, but on Plurk, some live streams, and in Ning groups. I was surprised how many people came up to introduce themself to me! I think it was a compliment, but quite a few remembered me by my little Twitter avatar.

The part of this conference that surprised me the most, however, was not the passionate debate with Gary Stager (I still need to go back and listen to that - I couldn't keep up!), nor was it one particular session, it was meeting Lois Smethurst.

Who's Lois Smethurst?
Well, to be honest, I forgot her name as well (I know, big shocker there).
After Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach & Will Richardson's session, Lois came up to introduce herself. I shoke her hand, at first thinking that she had me confused with someone else. She thanked me for the Voicethread Ning group that I started. Then, she explained that she was the one who shared the Reader's Theatre Voicethread!
I've posted this Voicethread a few times because I like how her students used Voicethread to tell the story of "Stellaluna" by Janell Cannon. This sharing of ideas is exactly what Colette Cassinelli and I were talking about at the Blogger's Cafe' (another person I was very excited to meet). Being able to see and hear what other teachers are doing in their classroom is exactly what I was hoping when I started that Ning group.
I now also follow Lois on Twitter, and hope to share projects and other ideas with her, like she did with us.
Oh yeah, did I mention I asked her why she had a Koala on her lanyard?
She was from Australia, shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure that one out!
As a matter of fact, I met quite a few people from Australia, some from Canada, even some guy from Thailand!

I guess it never really put much thought into it before. This shouldn't be called NECC, this isn't a National Conference, this is an International Conference! It should be ISTE, that makes perfect sense, at least to me.

Now I need to digest all the rest from these past few days.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a great Conference, hopefully, I'll see all of you and more in Denver!

Four more peeps

Disclaimer: This is the fourth part of my five part series leading up to NECC about who I'm hoping to meet. I apologize for those I left out and for any mistakes I make (please leave a comment to correct me).

Thursday: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach & Will Richardson,
The Jon Becker and Bud the Teacher

Trying to fit in a few people here so I chose two people I’ve met and two I haven’t met yet.
The main people who have helped me in my job are my colleagues: Tim Clarke and Rick Weinberg, as well as my BOCES ISS team. However, the two people who helped jump start my learning into hyperdrive were: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson.

I’m sure everyone out there knows about both of these National presenters, so I’ll give a brief overview:
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach bio from here blog- Doctoral candidate, President of 21st Century Collaborative, LLC (21stcenturycollaborative.com) and Co-founder of Powerful Learning Practice, LLC (plpnetwork.com) with Will Richardson, and I'll throw in her incredible wiki full of resources in here as well: 21st Century Learning.

Will Richardson bio from his blog- “Learner in Chief” at Connective Learning and the author of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms now in its 2nd Edition. Will is also a national advisory board member for the George Lucas Education Foundation, he writes a quarterly column called “Web 2.0″ for District Administration magazine, and he's a regular contributor to journals such as Educational Leadership, Edutopia, English Journal and others.
Now, some of what they've done for me. My first month on my new job with CA BOCES I started the WNY-PLP group. This introduced me to powerful education leaders in our area, classroom uses for wikis, this Ning thing (I now belong to 33 groups) and also how to conduct live Elluminate sessions. This is the wiki that we worked in for the WNY-PLP group, the Ning group is private so I can’t share it. However, we had a great culminating event and my team put together a nice little Voicethread with what they did.

Where would I be without their initial push? Still moving forward, but they have both connected me to not only some great ideas, but also to great Educational leaders on Twitter, through Skype and Elluminate.

How about Jon Becker?

My main Duke Twitter fellow! Jon seems to always be on Twitter when I am. With him you also get a full range of tweets. From deep pedagogical advice and views, to well.... “@kellyhines Chapel Hill. Booooo!!!”

Gotta love it.

Another thing about Mr. Becker is that he replies to almost everyone, even me!
Not only has he helped remind me about upcoming Duke Basketball games, but also views from the college level and trust me, he’s not afraid to share his opinion. Here is his blog.
Almost forgot his bio from his blog- An assistant professor at the Educational Leadership Department at Virginia Commonwealth University, he teaches courses in school law and educational research methods.

I appreciate all Jon has done from sharing good Cars knowledge from his son to his college DimDim Educational meetings.
I just hope he's not that great of a golfer, not only will I meet him Face 2 Face at NECC, but it looks like he's in the group ahead of me.

And my main question for Dr. Becker at VCU and proud Duke graduate….what did you think about 2007?

Bud the Teacher

aka: Bud Hunt

Bio from Bud's blog- Bud is an instructional technologist for the St. Vrain Valley School District in northern Colorado. He is a teacher-consultant with the Colorado State University Writing Project. Bud is a co-founder of Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation and has served as an Online Community Leader for the New Jersey Cohort of Powerful Learning Practice
Lately I’ve been watching for Promethean advice and tips on Twitter, however, I've always picked up great ideas from him. I know that he was always involved in K12 Online and NotK12 Online. I'm hoping after our trip to NECC I'll have even more to add here.

It's late and you know what, this blogging thing is kind of tough for me. But, I'm glad I'm doing this again. We'll see if I can keep it up.

For Friday? I'm going to try to hit a quick intro to a bunch of people in my Learning Network on Twitter.....good night.

Chris Lehmann

Disclaimer: This is the third in my five part series about people I'm hoping to meet at NECC this year. I apologize for missing people in my PLN and if I have any incorrect information (please feel free to leave a comment and correct).

Wednesday: Chris Lehman and SLA

This one was an easy one for me to choose. Trying to write this blog post and what I’ve learned from Chris….not so easy.

Chris Lehman is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia. To me, he seems 'Scary Smart'. You can read his bio on the SLA Faculty page.
OK, I admit, I didn’t realize all of the things that they do down there at SLA, and I still can't wrap my mind around most of them. What I do know is that it must be great! My guess to why we hear so much about SLA is the positive leadership from the top.
This last January I tried to watch the live streams from Educon 2.1 while also finishing up some plumbing in the Carls bathroom. It was amazing the talent they had there.
Seriously, look at the sessions in here! Wait, I want to make sure you get this:
EDUCON 2.1

There was the original Educon wiki to check out as well.

Now, I’m preparing to go to NECC in Washington, DC in a few days, but I remember back in January, after watching some of these Mogulus streams I decided I wanted Educon 2.2 to be the National Conference I went to in 2010!

Small problem with our travel ban for the next year ….. I’ll have to work that out.

All right, enough about me. Check out Chris’ blog.
You can tell right away what a caring leader he is from reading this, and his tweets on Twitter.
I was able to squeeze into his workshop last year at NECC in San Antonio. At this workshop he talked about creating sound pedagogical practices and shared stories about how creative they've been down at SLA with his students. It was engaging and you could tell he was passionate about his work there listening to stories like his students waiting on patents to help major companies! (I forgot for what or to check on where this stands) I'm sure there are tons of other great things conquered there this year.
The one article I recently read and like to see about Chris and SLA was about Project Based Learning, which I've bookmarked and shared with other colleagues.

What about the his SLA staff on Twitter. I follow: Tim Best - Science teacher, Marcie Hull - Digital Arts and Diane Laufenberg - History. Brief descriptions are giving on the SLA Faculty and Staff page. Tim, Marcie and Zac Hall are also presenting at NECC this year. Unfortunately, at the same time as Chris and a bunch of great people on Wednesday July 1st from 10:30 - 11:30am. To me, this seems like the best hour of sessions, I think I'll go to this one, though.

Who could I compare Chris to? In my life, another principal of a Charter School, John Hawk. We both went to Fredonia State, we both majored in Secondary Ed Math (he talked me into it), however, John was that 'Type A' person and was very driven. He almost had me out in Vegas with him! Between John and his beautiful wife, not only do they run Nevada State High School, but they always seem to conquering things. Right now, I believe they're looking to open another Charter School in Reno.

My point? Many people are intelligent, however, some can’t carry it forward to others. Incredible ideas bounce around upstairs, but if you're unable to convey those ideas to others, what good is it? That is why I compared Chris to my friend John Hawk. Both are engaging. Both have that other gear (I'm still looking for neutral!) And both find a way to get others inspired and rejuvenated.

When I see all that Chris has accomplished (at such a young age), it inspires me, and I’m sure others as well, to do better. To work harder. To be that positive influence.

Thank you.

Next up for Thursday! I need to fit in quite a few....not 100% sure. Could someone also add a few hours to the day so I can get this done?

US Invasion

Disclaimer: This is the second in a five part series. I hope to have all the information correct, please help out by leaving (or correcting) information. I know I'll miss some people, but will try to highlight many people in my PLN.

Tuesday: US Invasion

Originally I thought I'd make this blogpost about some of the Team Canada people that I follow on Twitter. I began thinking, however, that I'm not sure how many will be making the Southern Trek from 'O Canada' to NECC in Washington, DC. I'm sure there are quite a few I missed, please leave comments and my apologies.

After I realized from Twitter that Jeff Utecht was going to be there, I thought I'd go with these two:

Dean Shareski

and Jeff Utecht
These screen captures were done with Jing and the images came from Dean and Jeff's Twitter avatar as of June 22nd, 2009

Dean Shareski is a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada and also a sessional lecturer for the University of Regina according to his blog.
Not only have I been able to see his Qik video updates, but I've also watched a few of his workshops and student presentations on Ustream!
I did meet Dean at last year’s NECC in San Antonio. I was walking away from Liz Kolb’s cellphone presentation because there was such a line, but he convinced Rick Weinberg and myself that it would be worth the wait. Rick and I turned around and we took front row seats (on the floor), and Dean was right, it was worth the wait. Liz gave us quite a bit of great information to use cellphones in the classroom and I know Rick has done quite a bit in our area since this presentation including his NYSCATE presentation in November (with some technical difficulties!)
I also remember talking to him briefly when he was carrying the head of Darren Kuropatwa to their dinner table! We were out for a stroll on the River Walk and Dean was meeting with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Wes Fryer about the K12Online Conference. Darren was calling in via Skype. You can read about it on Sheryl’s blog post about their K12 meeting.

I don't think he's going to make it, but anther member of the EdTech Posse with Dean is Dr. Alec Couros. I’ve wanted to meet Alec not just for Courosa radio, but for all he's shared the last two years on Twitter. Like Dean he shares many Ustream workshop videos and lately I've caught some of his Qik live streaming video as well (Maybe even a dance recital or two). Alec is a professor of educational technology and media at the University of Regina and talks a great deal of creating Open Classrooms and "Harnessing the Power of Social Networking".
I try to catch as many of their workshops when streamed online as I can, or the occasional Tiny Chat! The last workshop I saw was with both of them at the TCEA Conference in Texas. Dean just blogged about here.

This screen capture was done with Jing and taken from: http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/

There are at least two other members of the EdTech Posse: Rob Wall and Rick Schweir (there are probably others). I'm not so sure if they're coming to NECC this year, but if so, I'd love to meet them as well.

OK, I've never had that much to say about Canada, eh?

Next on Deck:

Jeff Utecht lives in Bangkok, Thailand and he is currently the Technology and Learning Coordinator for the International School of Bangkok. I also know that he manages the Wikis in Education Wiki for Wetpaint. My problem is that Wetpaint is blocked by most of our districts!
I also know that Jeff is a baseball fan and a big Mariners fan from what I can gather from his tweets. I'm hoping he can join us at our NECC baseball trip that Paul R Wood is organizing. His blog The Thinking Stick was one of the first blogs that I became interested in. A little humor, some great tips and useful websites to use with teachers seemed to fill his pages.

I believe Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach showed me Jeff on Twitter. Just by responding to an occasional tweet or gathering ideas from his blog, I think Jeff helped me realize how small the world really is with technology nowadays. It is neat to hear from Jeff or Kim Cofino (@mscofino) when they are just waking up and are getting ready to start the day, while I’m getting ready to hit the sack.

Next up for Wednesday: Looking for a good Cheese Steak and a good education? You know where to go....

Deep in the heart of Texas

Disclaimer: This will be the first in a five part series. I hope to have all the information correct, please help out by leaving (or correcting) information. I know I'll miss some people, but will try to highlight many people in my PLN.
Monday: Deep in the heart of Texas
I thought I’d start off the week with my golf foursome!
First of all, I owe them, they have NO IDEA what they’re in for on Monday! Thank goodness I’ll get a round in this Thursday with friends, because the other 2 times I’ve played this year have been ugly!
Paul R. Wood

Let's begin with @paulrwood. I think I started following him after some tweets by Brian Smith. The proud Texan has been a very valuable part of my network since I started on Twitter. I saw Paul last year in San Antonio, but never introduced myself to him. Paul is the Director of Tech at Bishup Dunne High School in Texas.
When I first started playing with Ustream, I streamed Christmas morning (2007) and Paul was one of the visitors (my parents couldn’t believe someone from Texas took time out to watch the Carls Grandkids!). Since then, he’s added a great deal to my learning and probably the main person I’d like to meet face-to-face this year. I also hear he’s an amazing golfer!

Scott S. Floyd and Christine Voigt

@WOScholar and @clvoigt have both been great resources and I was able to connect to them through Paul’s influence on Twitter. Just two weeks ago I was able to watch the Area 7 TCEA Conference to be held in White Oak ISD put on by Scott and his crew at White Oak. Christine is the Instructional Tech Specialist at Bishup Dunne High School and has been another great addition.
And I must admit, I’m shaking that this crew will beat me in golf…..I’ve packed the foot wedge.

Photo courtesy of Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/3626583372/

Next up for Tuesday: Looking for others outside the country, eh?

What do you want to get out of NECC 2009?

I was thinking of this about a month ago, but never put aside the time to start these blog posts.

"What do I want to get out of NECC 2009?"

Screen capture using JingProject from: http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/

After being quite overwhelmed last year in San Antonio (I made it to quite a few workshops, but stayed pretty quiet) I'm hoping to meet more of my network. Even though I visited the Edublogger Cafe, I didn't introduce myself to many of the people I knew on Twitter and/or Plurk.

This year, my main goal is to make face-to-face connections with people that I communicate with on an almost daily basis. Hopefully, that will happen and I can thank all of them for their help, and the support they've given me this last year.

** However, all I've really planned (so far) are the golf and baseball outings**

By the way, I can't wait to see Camden Yards!

I'd like to know what others are looking forward to at NECC this year?
Is it to meet specific people? Seeing a certain speaker? Maybe it's the Vendors!

My plan is to try and blog the next 5 days about the people I'm hoping to meet this year. This could be difficult for me, since I've really let this blog sit over these last few months. Shhhhhh.

First up for Monday, here's a small hint.

Picture found using Google Images from http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/010481.html

Not the picture....here's the hint:

"The stars are bright...."

Twitter shout out

Working with teachers the last Wednesday before the break, we went over any of their SMART software questions, then in the afternoon started to look at other Web 2.0 tools that they could use.

• Global Collaborations - Looked at a few Ning groups and at CAPSpace which I've used to connect a few techers.


• File storage - They were all over the place, so we talked about Box.net and our BOCES storage, then I just shared my delicious links.


• iPod help with iTunes and also using their voicerecorder.


• Jing Project to get screen captures- Which I love and used for the screen captures below, plus, a host of other ideas. and websites.

The most interesting part for me was when I mentioned to these teachers that I was using Twitter to answer most of their questions. Quite a few had heard of it, and I tried to explain it......tried being the key word!

Then, I asked my Twitter network to say hello (which I've seen many times, but rarely done). Below was the results and they were floored....plus, thinking I was even geekier than before!

Thanks to everyone for helping show how I learn and the power of having a network.

Welcome to the Tweets of March #gr8t

Welcome to the tweets of March

Here's an idea that has picked up speed lately on Twitter.
During the month of March use the hashmark (#gr8t) to retweet (RT) your favorite tweet of the day.
Here's the wiki to explain: http://gr8tweets.wikispaces.com/about

There have been quite a few blogs about it:

• Laura Deisley's post "What's tickled you lately?"


• Darren Kuropatwa's blog post "Great Tweets #gr8t"


• Clint Lalonde's blog post "gr8t Tweet"


• Allanah King's blog post "Tweet of the Day #gr8t"

Plenty of others, but those are a few who will explain it better than I.

Follow the TweetBird on Twitter or seach Twitter for #gr8t tag.

Maybe I should've titled this "Please share the Tweets of March"

... the tweets are coming, the tweets are coming.

Global Connections

Picture above is from: http://www.classroom20.com/groups/group/list?page=14

Here's the deal, I belong to all of these networks to create Global Connections with area teachers and since NECC 2008 down in San Antonio it has been a main goal of mine.

I belong to CAPSPACE and get daily e-mails for projects that have been created. Now, I need to try to get that info to teachers in our area. I have been able to establish one French Connection because of a very flexible teacher in a district I work at. They were able to connect with a Pennsylvannia school on a wiki and have met via DL.

After that connection, I tried to establish another one with a French class in Toronto, but times didn't work out for a DL connection there. They were able to use a Twitter connection to collaborate with another school.

There are plenty of elementary projects out there like: Flat Stanley - seems at least one a week, weather in your area, and some using Voicethreads with students.

I want to make teachers aware that it is very easy to take a project that you will be doing and just post it out there to see what you can get. This is one thing I'll try to work with.

I also want people to know there are plenty of other ways to connect, there are plenty of Ning groups: Classroom 2.0 and Flat Classroom,

plus other sites like ePals, Global School Net, Taking it Global ...

You know what, just go here's a better list from Donna Farren and Lauren Skolny and they NYSCATE workshop "Learning without Borders".

What are some of the Global Connections others have made out there? Looking for some motivation!

Social Networking decision

The animation above is made from: http://www.loogix.com/
All of the photos are screen captures from: http://jingproject.com/

Still trying to figure out all this stuff about personal learning networks, professional learning networks and which I use where. I blur most of it together, but the social networks I use are Twitter, Delicious, Ning, Plurk and Facebook. Probably in that order.

I was first introduced to Twitter at my first Technology Conference in 2007: NYSCATE by Will Richardson, who also Ustreamed the session - another Web 2.0 tool I've used quite a bit. Then, I started to get into many other Social Networks including, MySpace, many Ning Groups, Facebook, Delicious, Diigo, Pownce (now gone), identi.ca, Twine, many Wiki sites, Twice, Teachers Connecting, Plurk......too many to mention and most with weird spellings of names!?!?

Delicious for me is a staple! Bookmark all your websites online so that you can access them anywhere and you can share them with others. The Gateway drug into Social Networking and where I tend to start when trying to explain Social Networking to teachers.

Twitter is again my favorite microblogging site. It's power is well documented a few times a week on CNN it seems. My most powerful network is there. I often still lurk around and listen in, often I ask questions and occasionally I try to add to my network.

Plurk was the one site I thought would replace Twitter for me. Your posts are contained in one thread so you can easily look back and see what others have added to anything you posted or responded to. My network is stronger on Twitter and I've had a hard time (probably finding time) to balance both. I still try to go onto Plurk, but have drastically dropped my usage in there.

Then comes Facebook. I still have no good reason why I don't use this more. Even my wife is on Facebook! And making friends with my co-workers and friends. As I posted on Facebook from George Costanza, "My worlds are colliding!". I think this is the one network I use for mostly personal use. It is amazing how many friends and/or people I barely knew growing up and going through college that I've connected with. With the pure numbers I really can't figure out why I don't use FB more? Maybe just because I want to improve at my job I stick with more professional networks, even though on all of those I do post about the recent bug going through the Carls house or what great new thing the kids have done.

That reminds me, I'm also a member of LinkedIn.

The battle I've seen is Twitter vs Plurk and even though a few months ago I was ready to write my "Dear John" letter to Twitter, I think for me Twitter gets me the info I need and the steady responses. I like the setup of Plurk more (even though I still think the timeline goes backwards), but Twitter is how I start my day. I find out what is new in the educational world and find great links, plus I usually get answers to questions I post.

The downside to Twitter, it does take a bit of time to build that network. @lizbdavis just posted this weekend 7 Twitter tips for new Twits tweeting to Twitter. If you followed all of that, then you are more of an expert than I.

Oh wait, then I got a tweet from @zmanrdz about the Top 10 tips for using Twitter and what is this? A Wetpaint wiki about using Twitter in the classroom!

What social networks work best for you?

Me?

Delicious and Twitter, then Ning Groups like the Voicethread for Educators Ning Group I've created, SMARTBoard Revolution Ning Group which just passed 1000 members and then Classroom 2.0. There are other Global Collaboration Groups I visit from time to time as well as long as groups for conferences like NYSCATE and NECC.