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2012 Global Education Conference Guide
An excellent guide with links to blackboard rooms in the guide. Download and use this as you jump from room to room and learn at the Global Ed conference.
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Flattening the Walls in Teacher Education - The Global Education Conference Network
Barbara Morganfield is hosting this important conversation - it is time to begin connecting our preservice teachers at the college level. "Through Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis’ Flat Classroom Projects (2013), many K-12 educators throughout the world are flattening classroom walls and providing extraordinary opportunities for students to connect, collaborate and learn from others around the globe. Through these projects, students use Web 2.0 technologies and incorporate 21st Century Skills, cultivating a rich understanding of culture and developing global awareness. This session aims to identify ways similar projects can be incorporated in college and university teacher education programs giving future teachers opportunities to develop the skills they will eventually be expected to teach. This session intends to examine the questions: What opportunities are available for teacher educators to flatten their classroom walls? How can teacher education faculty collaborate to develop global collaborative projects for their students? Can existing Flat Classrooms projects be redesigned to meet the needs of our future teachers? How? What are the challenges in developing global collaborative programs for teacher education students? What are the constraints that must be considered? What are the benefits? What are next steps? Join this session and participate in a lively discussion focusing on flattening classroom walls in teacher education. "
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Top Green Twitter Hashtags Every Environmentalist Should Know
Learn to find hashtags for your field. Here are many of them for enviornmental issues. "Top Eco-Inspired Hashtags Click each hashtag for their corresponding definitions on our Dictionary. #4change #aid #bp #cleantech #climate (#climatechange or #climateaction) #CSR #earthtweet #eco #EcoMonday – Dubbed as the #FollowFriday of environmentalism #energy (#cleanenergy) #environment (#econews) #foodjustice #gmo #green #greenbiz #greenjobs #organic #permaculture #plastic #recycle #renewablenergy #solar #sustainable #upcycling #urbanag #WaterWednesday #windenergy"
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"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is encouraging individuals and community groups in New York City to apply for grants that will allow citizen scientists to collect information on air and water pollution in their communities and seek solutions to environmental and public health problems. The EPA will award a total of $125,000 for five to 10 New York City projects related to air or water pollution."
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Citizen Science, Energy & Sustainability Projects | Scientific American
Some incredible citizen science projects that make a difference when there are natural disasters. Scientific American has been cataloging a lot of great projects including Volunteer Field Observer Programs for the spill in the Gulf, a Redwood Watch program to monitor redwoods, and earthquake monitoring and more. This page includes energy and sustainability project. I think every science class should have citizen science as part of their curriculum to add meaning and improve our world.
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Sci Starter is a fantastic website to find citizen science projects.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 11/13/2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Don't let anyone despise you - fulfill your PURPOSE!
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| Boeing 757 Delta Airlines with a flat tire. (Photo credit: dirkjankraan.com) |
Out of the blue, someone lights into you.
It is their job to personally correct you and deflate that overblown tire of yours... or is it?
The Christian group Newsong has an old song "The Coldwater Committee." Lest you think they don't exist... they do.
Someone saw it to be their personal job to correct me on something last week... not at work, but something relating to this blog. I was "out of line" in their opinion and they were going to "set me straight."
I'm out of line a lot. You probably are too. None of us are perfect.
However, I let this one, anonymous stranger get to me. I let it call into question everything I've worked for since December 2005 when I started this blog. Why? Some people will never be happy.
It took a teetering, somewhat hard to understand, preacher from the Sudan in my church today to straighten me out. Here is a man who sees the worst in people. He smells the stench of death and the repugnance of those who kill each other because they are a different religion. He has lived through things I cannot understand. He drives a motorcycle as a mobile messenger through With Open Eyes and is called to minister in a very hard place. He says that people make fun of his "motorbike" and say "why don't you have a car" but, quoting Paul in Timothy - he said, "do not let anyone despise you" when you are fulfilling your purpose on this earth.
Whatever your mission or purpose. If it is your CALLING it is YOUR CALLING. If you're sure of your purpose and what you're called to do -- don't let anyone deter you from that CALLING.
While I'm totally sure I'm not perfect, I'm also sure that I'm called to write this blog. So, I'm going to take this advice and not let anyone despise me. I'll learn from criticism but also know that the decision to try to please everyone else is a decision to fail. It isn't possible and never will be.
The fact that you're breathing has someone upset -- the same with me.
Remember your noble calling, teacher. Do your best. And don't let ANYONE despise you.
Now, on to work. Have a great day!
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 11/11/2012
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Global Education Conference starts Monday - get in there and start putting these on your schedule. Some great sessions. I'm only doing one this year on Monday night at 10pm where Julie and I will share the most important stories from Flat Classroom projects around the world centering around 4 aspects: the Handshake, Creative Co-Creation, Celebration, and creative "flattening" (including other types of people besides students in projects.) There are a lot of incredible sessions, so join in! "Our free, online conference starts Monday, November 12 and runs around the clock for five days. No registration is required but we do encourage you to join this network for email updates and to connect with presenters and participants. To see the conference schedule, or to attend a session or keynote, click HERE for the "Sessions and Schedule" page and follow the instructions to choose the page for your time zone. Information on using the conference software platform, Blackboard Collaborate, is also on this page. To comment on sessions or connect with the presenter or other attendees, see the discussion forum posts under GEC Accepted Proposals. If you have questions, please post them in the chat room (this shows up at the bottom of your page if you are registered and logged in) and people may respond if they are online at the time. Better yet, you can also post questions in our discussion forum."
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 11/10/2012
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E-Learning Journeys: How to attend the Global Education Conference!
My friend Julie has written a great blog post on how to attend the Gloal Education Conference. You'll want to use this as a reference.
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Global Education Conference starts Monday - get in there and start putting these on your schedule. Some great sessions. I'm only doing one this year on Monday night at 10pm where Julie and I will share the most important stories from Flat Classroom projects around the world centering around 4 aspects: the Handshake, Creative Co-Creation, Celebration, and creative "flattening" (including other types of people besides students in projects.) There are a lot of incredible sessions, so join in! "Our free, online conference starts Monday, November 12 and runs around the clock for five days. No registration is required but we do encourage you to join this network for email updates and to connect with presenters and participants. To see the conference schedule, or to attend a session or keynote, click HERE for the "Sessions and Schedule" page and follow the instructions to choose the page for your time zone. Information on using the conference software platform, Blackboard Collaborate, is also on this page. To comment on sessions or connect with the presenter or other attendees, see the discussion forum posts under GEC Accepted Proposals. If you have questions, please post them in the chat room (this shows up at the bottom of your page if you are registered and logged in) and people may respond if they are online at the time. Better yet, you can also post questions in our discussion forum."
Why not kickstart school and nonprofit building projects?
Architizer has a fantastic article about how new facilities are raising funds on Kickstarter. (Kickstarter is a funding platform for 'creative projects.')
In "How Kickstarter is Changing Architecture," they profile several instances of kickstarter being used to fund and implement needed buildings and projects:
- A "Peace and Quite Booth" in Times square"
- The Lowline project - an underground park built in Manhattan's Lower East Side (they met their goal in 8 days!)
- A New York public pool gets a new Splash House when grad students from Parsons decided they wanted to build it.
OK, let's take your mind and blow it with this one here. Two people wanted to create a special feature in a park, so they didn't take the typical route and propose to city leaders, etc. They created a Kickstarter campaign. Of course, you still have to get approval for things, but often it comes down to money, doesn't it? No one wants to be on the hook to raise more money for a dog of a project that the public doesn't support.
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| James Ramsey used Kickstarter to raise money for the Lowline Project underground park project in Manhattan. |
Now, imagine this - what if you had several potential projects at your school. You really needed some classroom space as well as a sports facility. Which do you build?
Well, why not kickstarter them? Raise the money using kickstarter or some sort of kickstarter-type program to see where the most support is. The school can match the project to raise the first X amount and it is done!
So many great projects lie dormant because the powers that be are disconnected from the moneys that be. ;-) (forgive my grammar error, but you get my point)
I think this sort of thing can transform so many things we do and it is right here in front of us. We should start using kickstarter principles in our schools or to add the enhancements that so many people need. The nice thing about kickstarter, is that different levels of support include t-shirts and other goodies, so it helps you design the campaign as part of the process - these are things that we should do anyway, but often don't.
Social media has many ideas that we can use to help cash-strapped schools. We don't have to sit on our hands and do nothing, maybe some of our projects just need a kickstart! ;-)
Oh, and if any of you are already doing this, or know of schools who are, please leave a message in the comments, I'd like to know more about successful school fundraising projects using this model and I think others would too.
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 11/10/2012
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aweekinthelife12-2 - Class Handshakes
Awesome class handshakes for A week in the life elementary project using Symbaloo. Great work! The project managers for this are Michelle McGarvey and Toni Barton. Awesome!
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I'm fascinated to look at this company, Silverchair, which is touted as one of the fastest growing companies in the world. They are doing things to transform scholarly publishing in a way that is sensitive to the user. I want to learn more about them, but for now, thought I'd mention their name as I'm reading up on the evolution of publishing. "Silverchair Information Systems develops products by partnering with scholarly publishers to transform content for a more valuable user experience on all devices. These products are then supported by a natively semantic platform and dedication to service we have worked to perfect over the last 18 years"
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The Library within Us by Brian O'Leary
I quite enjoyed the thoughts in a write up of Brian's speech on the evolution of publishing. I like that this speech has evolved as his thinking evolved (so many speakers never change their speeches and they SHOULD). If this is something you ponder, and most of us teachers and definitely librarians, curriculum directors, and administrators are watching this closely, you'll want to read and think about this speech. While not easy to read in the bold black type, it is one of those worth taking the time. ""It’s time to think about content, not as a product or a service, but a vehicle to reach an outcome. Literacy is important as a step toward informing and empowering individuals, groups and communities, but on its own it is not enough. As reading experiences become both portable and increasingly universal, we need to reshape our sense of publishing and build "the library within us": a collection of tools and resources that individuals can draw upon to connect with and change the world around us."" His most telling words "A year ago, I was optimistic that publishers and supply-chain partners would soon see their mutual need for a data-driven reconsideration of why publishing exists and the purposes it can serve. I’m no longer optimistic. Another year spent wrangling over the role of libraries, another year spent kicking the can down the road with respect to the widespread and debilitating use of DRM, another year spent fostering the idea that we really have embraced “digital”: these things and more have convinced me that the “opportunity in abundance” will not accrue to the incumbents. This became all too clear to me last summer. In January, I had made the somewhat ambitious pledge to “post something useful every day”. By June, 180 or so posts in, the optimism well had run dry. I just didn’t believe my own story any more."
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- “Value is carried by abundance, not scarcity, inverting traditional business propositions.”
- “As networks entangle all commerce, a firm’s primary focus shifts from maximizing the firm’s value to maximizing the network’s value.”
- “As innovation accelerates, abandoning the highly successful in order to escape from its eventual obsolescence becomes the most difficult and yet most essential task.”
- : “As power flows away from the center, the competitive advantage belongs to those who learn how to embrace decentralized points of control.”
- “The intelligence that matters most exists in boundless variety at the ends of a network, rather than in the mediated systems in the middle”.
- network protocols should be designed primarily as means for those ends, rather than to serve the parochial interests of intermediary operators.”
- A shift to networked publishing lowers barriers to the creation of content, but it amplifies the return for content providers who can leverage two-way communication and create, refine and evolve content products around the needs of the readers they serve.
- Some of those solutions will remain what we have come to know as books, but many more will be conceived, developed and delivered in forms and for purposes that we have yet to fully grasp.
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- “Everyone will have the web” (1992)
- “The browser will be the OS” (1995)
- “Web businesses will live in the cloud” (1999)
- “Everything will be social” (2004)
- “Software will eat the world” (2009)
Marc Andreessen and his view that “it has become economically viable to build huge companies in single domains.” I alluded to five bets that Andreessen had made in the last 20 years. At a high level, these are his bets:
- His idea reminds me of something Richard Nash asked last month at a NISO conference in Boston: “What if the book is the algorithm?”
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Friday, November 9, 2012
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock 11/09/2012
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Announcing the Global Student Leadership Forum — THINK Global School
"THINK Global School in conjunction with the Flat Classroom Project® are excited to announce the formation of a Global Student Leadership Forum. After months of planning, the forum will be launched at the upcoming Global Education Conference, when students will meet online and exchange ideas and plans for future development. What are the aims? The aim of the Forum is to to encourage students (High School – Gr 9-12) to gather in a formal capacity to discuss issues and propose future directions for the world. It is also to provide a place for students to form an online community that will support and foster active discussion and interaction with a view to sharing resources, ideas and collaborate on actions globally. Virtual classroom and community networking tools and other resources will provide opportunities for students from all parts of the world to come together as a global forum virtually (and where possible in real time). The purpose of this is to: Foster leadership skills amongst young people Provide opportunities to interact online and therefore become adept at using virtual tools for interactions and co-creation Encourage global conversations about real world topics and global issues Encourage discussion about possible solutions to global issues and foster action projects" Julie and I are very excited about this project. This is an excellent opportunity for students who are leaders or who don't have the opportunity to do a lot of flattening but would benefit from interaction with others around the world. Join in!