3...2...1...LEGO!

I spent most of my Saturday up at Houghton College for the FLL (First Lego League) Competition. This is put on by our CABOCES Student Programs and I was asked to be a referee...I know, keep the snickering down. I really enjoyed it (even though I had to bring my own whistle....Crandall!).

Sorry- cell phone pic

These 5th-8th graders were really getting into it and had some neat ideas to complete the "missions" that they had to choose from. My only exposure to Lego Robotics was what Jessie Perison showed at last summers' High School New Face. Because of Jessie, I knew about the NXT software and how you put the 'block' into your own lego designed machine to make it move. He mentioned the different sensors and all, but it was amazing to see in a competition format.

The day flew by, and I was amazed at the great sportmanship displayed by everyone. The students are empowered to do all of the talking during the competition. Then, after they complete their mission we explained all of the points they earned(great suggestion from my wonderful partner, Mary Morris). The students listened intently to make sure we all agreed, then they ran off to make changes to their program that would help them earn more points for the next round.

I can't wait to do it again next year. I wish all of our school luck, and especially to these three moving onto the next round in Rochester, NY on Sunday, December 6th:

Fillmore

Randolph (led by Jessie Perison)

Allegany-Limestone

I truly enjoyed watching these young individuals excited and working together as a team to problem solve and collaborate. It made me wonder about other programs that students could get into and I thought about Google Sketchup right away. How about students designing 3-D buildings from their area and sending them to Google Earth? Could you have a similar Google Sketchup competition where they design a few buildings, then have a timed competition? Dr. Mike Doyle and I talked about this awhile ago when talking about Fab Labs and the power of Google Sketchup. Just a thought, I'm sure there are plenty of competitions for Google Sketchup out there.

Anyways, great day, I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

I know I did.

First trial with Google Wave

OK, now that the black banner is gone, I can actually use Google Wave (if I can find someone with an account!). I had one wave with @jenwagner and it was tough for me to keep up. There were only 2 of us! Maybe I'm getting old. I did go to bed at 8:30 last night.
It will take quite a bit for me to get used to. Plus, I think we both noticed a lag on our computers when we tried to go to email and on Twitter.
I did think about kids, though, and for them it would be engaging as things change instantly.
It will take some getting used to for me, but I like it and am excited to have a chance to get in and kick the tires a little.

Anyways, I added blog-wave@appspot.com as a Contact in Google Wave and want to see if I can post this to my blog. Well, the first thing I learned is that Bloggy isn't working, so I couldn't post this to my blog from Google Wave. We had to go to Cut and Paste!

I also added Tweety (I remember thinking they were going to call it Twave), but can't seem to refresh and get live updates. I did post a tweet from it to Twitter however. To add Tweety, add tweety-wave@appspot.com to your Contacts.

Of course, I found all of this on the Google Wave Forum and in particular, at this thread.

We'll see where this leads, as I build up contacts (hopefully, some of my invites will go through) it will be interesting. It seems pretty confusing right now and I know I'm only scratching the surface, but in a year, could it be second nature?

We'll see.

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?

Promethean Focus Group

I've been asked to help an area district next year with their Promethean Focus Group of teachers. There will be 20 teachers that will be getting a Promethean Board, and they'll have access to the ActivVote & ActivExpression voting devices, as well as ActiViews for the Science teachers- sometime down the road.

Photo taken from Promethean World and taken using Jing

My goal from the Superintendent is to lead them through this year with two summer kickoff dates (Aug. 12-13th) and then follow up sessions about every six weeks. The only stipulations he put on me was that I need to show them sound educational usages for these Boards, and that this style of group needs to be reproducible for next year (for a new group of teachers).
Initially, I thought to start up a Ning group, so I created one to use. Then, I thought since CA BOCES hosts Moodle for all of our teachers, couldn't I help promote that more?

Wait, just keep it simple.

I don't know how much technology these teacher really use in their classes already.
Keep it simple.
I'll do my best to help them learn the ActivInspire software and give them time to find resources that they can use on Promethean Planet or other sites online.
I'll use this Wikispace to put up an agenda and to give them a chance to not only get information, but to add content to as well.

The great Tech guy there walked me through the training rooms and showed me where some of the teacher rooms are in the building (these will be for breakout sessions since we'll all be in a lab w/ one ActivBoard). We talked about making sure we were on the same page with what the district's capabilities are, and also checked some of the sites their teachers have access to.
For instance, Google Earth and Adobe Connect.
I'm actually hoping to have someone come in on the 2nd day to talk a little about how they use Promethean through Adobe Connect (we'll see).

I'm looking for any other suggestions to show the
"Power of the Promethean Interactive Whiteboard"!

I've heard all summer about how IWB's just make the teacher more of the focus, but my hope is that it can make classes more student-centered? I hope to have students create their own content for a lesson (maybe upload it into their own wiki) and share that with the others in the class, maybe even around the world. Is that asking too much?
Maybe we'll get to Global Collaborations after school starts!?!?

Baby steps to start out.


I'm already asked for plenty of help, especially on Twitter and have gotten advice from @budtheteacher @activeducator ,http://twitter.com/activtweets and a host of others.




What do you think?

Photo taken from Promethean World and taken using Jing

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?