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My third and final day at BLC10 ( Building Learning Communities 2010 from November Learning ) brought yet another valuable message that will sure have an impact on my teaching: Web 2.0 tools don't make the difference, it's the user strategy that makes the difference. Class Blogs Darren Kuropatwa (see @dkuropatwa on Twitter) hosted a workshop called A Day in the Life . He talked about several ways that he allows his students to create their own academic content online that is related to his class. While he used many tools, he brought it all together to a central blog to share it with the world. The quality of the student entries on the blogs improved over the course of the year and the class got more and more visits . As a teacher, I have seen class blogs that teachers use to post their own lessons and handouts and other information, but they never let the students themselves control the content. Mr. Kuropatwa allows the students to run the class blog. This is why his worksh...

Today at BLC10 ( Building Learning Communities 2010 from November Learning ) the theme of the keynote and workshops I attended seemed to focus on providing students with an experience that blends classroom interaction with online participation. When students learn through face-to-face discussion AND online interaction, they are empowered to create and publish their own new ideas. Why We Need Classroom AND Online Interaction Dr. Michael Wesch (see @mwesch on Twitter) started the day with a keynote address that ended in a standing ovation. Those of you who are reading this post and are educators yourselves know how difficult it is to get faculty meeting full of teachers to be enthusiastic about a speaker's message.... imagine that situation multiplied by 5 or 10 or 25 (depending on the size of the faculty you work with). Dr. Wesch brought a room filled with hundreds of teachers to their feet. He showed various examples of how user participation on the Internet can lead to change an...

The theme of the Building Learning Communities 2010 conference from November Learning seems to be: TEAR DOWN THE WALLS OF YOUR CLASSROOM Four different presenters followed this same theme. Here are my reviews of their workshops throughout the day. Create and Share Video Games! Today's keynote speaker, Dr. Mitchel Resnick , demonstrated Scratch , program from MIT that allows users to create cards, posters, animations, video games, and lots more. They can then share their creations on the Scratch website and encourage others to build on, or remix , their work. Most of the work on Scratch was created by kids, like this one about a girl who hates alarm clocks . Dr. Resnick's biggest message was that taking what others create and then making something new out of it or even contributing to it causes a new kind of learning. Not only are children creative when they remix, they are collaborative. Click here for his paper on Scratch and how it fosters learning . "The Smartest Perso...

Tech Ed is a big part of many successful and inspirational teachers' classrooms. But who in American history was more successful and inspirational than George Washington? While he was not necessarily knowledgable in the technology of war, he knew how to find the diverse groups of experts he needed to educate his men. This post is about two of those Revolutionary technology expert educators. Revolutionary Tech Ex pert #1: Daniel Morgan Morgan knew how to party, but he also knew how to handle a new kind of weapon in a new style of warfare. At General Washington's request, Morgan commanded a unit of 500 elite sharpshooters. Their weapon was a long-barrelled hunting-style rifle. The innovation in the design were grooves inside the barrel that spun the shot as it exited. This American technology made Morgan's marksmen accurate at distances that doubles to range of the British musket. He took already talented frontier hunters, and made them into lethal sharpshooters that the seem...

Teaching is about passion, creativity, and caring about the well-being and happiness of your students. Through the keynote speakers and workshops available at the Blueprint for Education Excellence National Institute , this message was clear. While the Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence organization has a fantastic reputation for encouraging teachers to impart 21st Century skills alongside their content, this institute seemed to cement that mission in a real an tangible way. Each of the workshops I attended taught me something different and relevant in my classroom, and yet all of them can be used in conjunction with one another to produce something better. Here are a few examples: SMART Toolkit 2.0 Activities and Anti-Bullying Culture On Friday I attended two sessions that are seemingly unrelated. In the morning Alan Jacobson, from the Riverside Trauma Center , hosted a lecture and discussion on Cyber Bullying. In the afternoon I was fortunate enough to be a part of a session about...

Let me start this post out by saying that I love Facebook . I check and update Facebook daily. It has provided me with the opportunity to get in touch with people from high school, college, and law school that I otherwise would not have maintained relationships with due to our busy lives and families. But.... I have always been wary of keeping my personal Facebook life separate from my online professional life (like my Twitter page , my blog , my Podbean page , and email contact with parents and colleagues). The Webinar Well, I participated in a webinar yesterday that opened the door to the possiblity of using Facebook with my students in a safe, responsible, and efficient way. Click here to see my notes from the webinar . Benefits of Using Facebook With Students Why should we use Facebook to communicate with our students? Students (who must be 13 or older according to Facebook's user policy ) are already checking Facebook at least once per day. Although there are exceptions, they ...

I was looking for something fun to do with my high school classes today. After a little searching, and some help from my PLN on Twitter, I found this: Yes, that's right, you are seeing a woman harvesting spaghetti from a tree! The BBC broadcasted this story on April 1, 1957 as a joke . The kicker is that spaghetti was not a commonly consumed dish in the UK at the time. It was rare and considered a delicacy, so many had never given thought to how it is created. As a result, people all over the UK were fooled into believing that spaghetti does, in fact, grow on trees. Click here to see the short video new story that BBC aired that night. Further reading an investigation of the web page revealed some first-hand accounts of people who were fooled by the ruse. Here are two of my favorites: I remember it well, I was five at the time, and watched this with my dear old Dad. Mum was out for the night. We were taken in totally. Very pleased with ourselves that we knew how spaghetti was pro...