Tag Archives: Conferences

Who Are You Bringing to Shanghai?

I am writing this post for several reasons and several people all at once. Just so we don’t get too discombobulated right from the start, let’s lay out the goals:

Proposal for my administrators
Promotion for Learning 2.011
How to attend a conference as a team
Announcement of some changes at our school and my new role at school

Let’s start from the last point and end with the first.

Announcement of some changes at our school and my new role at school:

A few months ago, our school created a special IT task force to take a closer look at our current VLE, Virtual Learning Environment, to see if it is everything we want it to be. We are a 1:1 Mac school, but we understand that we are not functioning at our full potential when it comes to being a technology focused school. As a task force, we decided that perhaps a one-stop shop, closed VLE, which shall not be named, is not the best tool for what we want to be doing school wide in terms of teaching and learning and communication. This realization has led us to re-examine our vision, the roles of teachers/students, and of course the right tools to accomplish what we want. It has been exciting to work with such a great team. More importantly not only have our concerns been heard by our amazing director and administrators, but they have been instrumental in making major changes school wide.

In short, we are moving to Google docs and WordPress blogs as the main structure of our VLE. We are busy creating a solid foundation of blogs and have begun work on our school wide Google Apps network. I will write more soon about the process and what the nuts and bolts look like, but let me just say now that we are building something authentic and organic and wonderful here. We have been working as a team. Because I have a vested interest in making this a reality and because of my intensity I have taken on a bit of a leadership role in the direction we are heading. This new role is both humbling and exciting. I am proud to be able to work with our team to make a system that will help our school. Because of my past experience and knowledge I have been ask to only teach three classes next year and spend the rest of my time helping teachers learn how to function in this new environment. I have a mindful of ideas about a professional development plan, but for now we are busy building blogs and getting this machine up and running.

Which finally brings me to the point of this post. Well almost. As we start to see what our new system will look like, we are realizing that we will need a batch of teachers who are not necessarily techies, but open to the possibilities of using technology and understand the basics of a new pedagogy that is more student driven and teacher facilitated learning. We are looking for a core group of teachers who can help make our new blogging system a success.

Promotion for Learning 2.011

I have written about my experiences with Learning 2.011 here, so I will keep this intro short. I love this conference. It has been good to me. I like the people who run it. I love the people who attend and I like the way it is run. They have given me a great opportunity this year to play a bigger role behind the scenes, and I want to help teachers at my school get a taste of the power of a great conference. So here is plan:

@lissgriffin @chamada @DearLibrariAnn @jutecht

How to attend a conference as a team

Too many times Tech conferences are attended by teachers who are already involved in networks. We read each other’s blogs, share Tweets, let’s face it we are a family. We use this time to meet, tighten bonds, and reassure ourselves that we are on the right track. We go back to our schools and seldom have anything to share that we didn’t know before we left. Last year my school sent our entire tech team, a few administrators, but honestly, we didn’t feel like a team.

Proposal for my administrators

My proposal is that this year we send about six people from different divisions in the school. This team should not necessarily be teachers with tech experiences, but teachers who have shown an interest in pushing their understanding of what tech can do for learning. I want the experience for this team to be similar to my ADE experience. We will arm the team with the tools they will need to monitor, document and reflect on their learning as a group. As the new tech facilitator, I will take the leadership role to make sure that this team is armed with what they need. We will make sure all members are on Twitter and understand how to hash tag their way through a conference before we arrive. Each member will be shown how to use a blog as a journal space to reflect on their daily learning and thoughts throughout the conference. We will use Google Docs to share resources, links, and ideas for others teachers back at school.

In short, I want to take a team of learners who are willing and enthusiastic to be students again. I want to give them the tools we will be using next year, in hopes that they will be blown away by the power of what these spaces can do to connect and collect leanring. I want to introduce them to the powerful existing network of educators here in Asia, and I want them to return to school infected and passionate about what they learned, in hopes that they will take leadership roles in helping developing a functioning and collective professional development program. I have felt the magic of this conference two times and now I want to help others experience it as well.

I am not sure if you are a teacher, tech facilitator, head of IT or administrator, but I suggest you take a close look and who you are bringing to this conference and develop a plan. Assign a leader or group of leaders and empower your attendees so they can get the most out of their days in Shanghai. Maybe we can even introduce our teams to each other before we meet in person. Create some kind of diectory of teachers and schools. I am open to any ideas.

I am sending this post to my director and principals in hopes that they will approve the group I want to lead through this conference. I suggest you do the same. Let this be the conferences where we build cracks in the echo chamber and begin to let some of the noise out, so we can start to hear new voices and create a more robust and diverse network. Let us share the amazing things we are doing not only with each other, but with those teachers at our school who are not connected but should be.

See you in Shanghai at Learning 2.o11!

Learning 2.011 Are You Coming?

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The first tech conference I ever attended was Learning 2.008. I was working in Qatar and felt very disconnected from any kind of network. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself- I am using the language of the present to talk about the past. Back in 2008, not only did I not have a network, I barely knew what one was. I had just parted ways with Kim Cofino with whom I had worked in Malaysia. Back then Kim was my only mentor in all things connected. I barely understood Twitter. I did not have a professional blog and I felt like I was working in a bit of a vacuum.

Back in Malaysia, Kim had arranged a project with Clarence Fischer, which had “succeeded” to some degree. I put succeeded in quotes because I am not sure what we had actually done, but The International Teen Life Project was my first taste of connecting with another teacher and classroom and I liked it. We experimented. We learned. We created. I remember doing a Podcast over Skype one day and feeling so…what is the word? Proud? Important? Connected? Not sure what I felt, but I knew that we were doing good work. I felt like I was on the cutting edge. I was hooked. I knew that is where I always wanted to be. I didn’t want to wait for someone to tell me what the latest thing was. I wanted to find it and use it and share it myself.

It was great to work with Clarence because I respected him tremendously. He was one of the many bloggers who Kim had recommended I read in my new RSS feed. So when Kim emailed me, informing me that there was a conference in Shanghai created by teachers for teacher, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. I paid my own way, because I wanted to meet people like Clarence.

Feels strange now, thinking back to how “star struck” I was. There I was having breakfast with Alan Levine, or talking about the echo chamber with Clarence and Brian Crosby. At the time it all felt so important and in a sense maybe it was. I remember sitting in on sessions and meeting people I had only read and respected. But the most important part for me was solidifying relationships with people i had just started to know online like Brian Lockwood and Jenny Luca among others. I still remember our dinner, just the three of us and that strange feeling of seeing someone you have only “known” online. I have had that feeling many times since and it never loses its appeal. I have written at length about the value of these relationships, so I will just say that these meals and breakout sessins with people you only know online are priceless.

The most important thing I took away from Learning 2.008 was that the only thing that separated the teachers I read about and me, was that they were writing and sharing and connected and I was not. I knew after that conference that things needed to change for me professionally. After all, I had ideas. I could write. I could be leading workshops and presenting keynotes.

Before I continue, let me say that I have no intention of becoming a globe-trotting-traveling consultant Ed-tech celebrity. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.) I am too anchored in the classroom to give it up. But I am currently, dealing with my changing role in schools. You can only rant and rave about transforming learning environments long enough before a school calls you on it. So next year, I will be working with teachers at my current school to move our school forward as a technology facilitator. I am nervou and excited, but will write about that soon. We are in the process of defining what my role will be and what it means to creating a workable vision, but I am proud to say that I am playing an intrical part in our transformation.

So why am I telling you all this? What’s the point? The point is that in just three short years a lot has changed for me. But not just for me personally, but also the network, education, and conferences in general. I have taken what I learned back in 2008 and I have applied it to my career. I blog, I tweet, I share, and I build relationships. I have learned that the people I was so impressed by are just regular people like me. Yes, they are amazing educators who are doing everything they can to change education, but they are just like you and me. They are open, supportive and interested in what I (we) have to say.

This brings me to 2011 and Learning 2.011. Through a stroke of luck, hard work, or relentless self-promotion I seem to have fallen on the other side of the conference wall. I am so proud and honored to be leading the ESL cohort at this year’s conference and hopefully presenting a mini- keynote. I am stoked to be so unbelievably connected to hundreds of educators from around the world and now it is my turn to inspire.

I have some advice for anyone considering coming to this conference. If you are new to “it” “this” whatever it is we want to call it- this world of networked educators who blog and tweet and Skype and help each other out– this conference is invaluable. Bring your passion, your ideas, your classroom and let’s find other educators who can help you bring your ideas to life. As most people will tell you, conferences are about connections, and there is no better place than this conference, especially if you are in Asia, to meet like-minded professionals that will help you build your network and connect your classroom to others in the region. But more importantly, you will find countless people who like you just want to see what everyone else is doing, share ideas, and build a support network.

If you have been to a few conferences and are starting to doubt the usefulness of conferences then I urge you to come too. Learning 2.011 is a conference with few rules and expectations. It is what we make it. So let’s get together and create an unconference about what next? Let’s talk about how we can take what we have created thus far to the next level. I don’t know about you, but the idea of chatting with the Couros brothers (Alec and George) , Kim Cofino, Jeff Utech and others about what the next ten years could look like is pretty damn exciting.

Let me close by saying that I hope to see you in Shanghai in September. Talk to your staff, share this post with your admin and get a team togther to come to Shanghai. Bring your voice, your ideas, and your excitement and let’s create another amazing conference this year.

Would love comments about positive expereinces you have had and drop me a line if you are coming below.

Thoughts from The Nam (An ADE reflection)

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The fact that I don’t like corporations comes as no surprise to anyone who has read my work or talked to me for five minutes. They’re big and scary and faceless and subversive and greedy and dictate too much of how things are done in the world for my taste. Because integrity, honesty, passion and art are so important to me I am constantly disappointment by the concept of selling out. Giving in. Joining the dark-side. I mean, is there anything worse than seeing a song you love, being used to hawk a car or a TV?

I came to the Apple Distinguished Educator’s conference with a heavy heart. Was I selling out? Was this ultimate copulation to the very corporate forces I am constantly deriding? Because while Apple is hip and shiny and sexy on the surface, their main goal is still global domination. Of this there is little doubt. So what would a corporate sponsored educational institute look like exactly? How much of my soul would I have to sell? What was in it for me? There is a running joke surrounding the ADE program, likening it to a cult or saying that once there you drink the Kool-Aide you will be never shut up it again.

This post is random scattering of thoughts and ideas of my experience over the last four days in Vietnam.

Every organization, every conference, every school, every company, every story is about the people. Who they are? Their beliefs and values, and how they work with others are critical aspects of how they function as a bigger group. And so of course, it was the people that really grabbed my attention. From the talented and inspirational speakers like Rebbeca Stokely and Joseph Linaschke, to all advisory member facilitators and sixty plus ADEs, their was a tangible sense of excitement about the future of not only technology but how these tools can be leveraged to a global shift in how our students learn. The wild card group for me was the ADE educational team from Apple. I was excepting a bunch of disconnected suits from the corporate office, but really the Apple team are a dynamic, diverse group of men and women dedicated to the success of this program.Let me throw a quick thank you to Adrian for his dedication and passion to education.

Which brings me to what I think is an important point. What is the point of the ADE program? Here is my take:

To take innovative educators from within a region, who are already using and excited by the Apple brand, connect them to each other, build a tight-knit (almost cult like) community, so that they can work more closely together, have a wider global audience in hopes that they, (we?) can build a critical mass in the institute with which we work, in order to shift the paradigm. Could the cynic argue, he always does in my mind, that Apple created this program in order to have the sales department move in right after and turn whatever schools these ADEs are working in to Mac schools? Of course. But really, I am not here to write about that. Stop it! I can here murmuring , “sell out” under your breath, but really the truth is that I would choose to go to a Mac school over a PC school with or without the ADE program. What I learned this past week was the dedication this company has shown to this program. Hold on….had another cup of Kool-Aide, but really at the level I am working in now, I am proud to be a part of it. Should it ever change or demand more of me, than of course I will reconsider. For now, I feel a part of a healthy and exciting symbiotic relationship. I feel that I have the opportunity to stay honest, keep my integrity and write openly and honestly about my role as ADE. If at any point my views and theirs should diverge than I am sure we will be happy to end the relationship, but in the mean time I am stoked and excited to have met so many other amazingly talented individuals. Many I already knew through the network, but others who are a bit new. They are doing amazing work in their schools, but needed this platform to join the global conversation.To all the new ADEs I met this week, welcome to the conversation. Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts. This is where the remainder of our work together will be done.

My favorite part of this week was the professional development I saw. We were seldom asked to listen or watch. We were asked to do, to create, to reflect, to share. It made me feel like a student and I loved it. It taught me how to work with others and listen. It taught me that you might learn more if it is not done your way, that another person can add to your ideas and together you can sculpt shared ideas. I really hope to incorporate some of the activities and general ethos of the instiute to in-service days at my school for next year.

And of course it reaffirmed my belief that learning is done in process and cannot be assessed by product. The very experience of creation is important not the creation itself. We all know this, but we often need to be reminded of failure and mediocre products, so we can ease the pressure we put in students. The conversations I had with members of my group during our day on the river, or the emotions I felt while talking with locals being pushed off their land and from their homes in the name of globalization and progress, is impossible to document or assess in a four-minute video. I was left thinking of how much learning from our students is lost or forgotten in the search of a grade. There must be so much they are learning that we never see, because we are asking for such specific proof. This experience made me appreciate the role of reflections and student blogs as places of more holistic learning. A sort of expansive landscape, where if done right students as well as teachers can really design a more accurate picture of learning, one that does not require a rubric or standards, but when experienced as a whole over time reflects the journey of its creator. Much more on this soon.

This institute also gave me a chance to really look at my own current landscape and take inventory. Who am I? Am I spread to thin? What are my values? What do I want to promote and share? Am I on the right track? What does my name mean to others? Does any of it matter? Stay tuned for updates. I am working on re-worked, consolidated brand. I still hate that word. Maybe when I can articulate it, it will have a new name.

In the meantime, I am proud and excited by the work I did, the thoughts I had and the people I met. It is always a shocking experience to be thrown into such a crucible. I am sure the effects will be long lasting. I am looking forward to continuing the conversations we had this past week with everyone who was there, as well as all of you who were not. Not sure if I answered any of the questions I had going in, but I don’t feel like a sell-out and that is good. I feel like I am leading a fast moving train headed to great places. Come on! What are you waiting for. Get on. We have work to do.
Of course I would appreciate all my critical thinking, trouble making friends to tell me I am wrong about all of this, because there is nothing more dangerous to growth and learning as complacency

21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong

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Now is as good of a time as any to round up any wandering ideas from the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong. Since I returned my colleagues and administrators have been asking,

How was it? What did you learn?

I have not been in the Ed-tech game long enough to become completely jaded, but I have been around long enough to understand that sometimes conferences can feel more depressing than inspiring. I try not to become weighed down by my cynicism, but it seems that every conference leaves more underwhelmed than the last. Don’t get me wrong the organizers did a good job of organizing the sessions, keynotes, and getting people together but I cannot think of anything that really blew me away. In the age of Professional Learning Networks what can we learn from conference that we cannot learn from our Twitter and RSS feeds?

What is the purpose of a conference in the age of online learning? I feel I should have an answer if I ever want to get approval from my school to attend another conference. I have to go with the cliché response I heard everyone say throughout the conference:

The best part of this conference is meeting my existing network face to face.

I couldn’t agree more. It was so exciting to eat dinner with people I had only known online. At every conference there are a group of people who do not blog or use Twitter who end up looking on amazed that their peers could be so connected. There is always the confused question, “How do you guys know each other again? Really? You have never met. ”

A network is only as strong as it’s connections and these face-to-face meetings really help create authentic communities. I loved chatting with Robert about the great work he and Gary are doing at their school with WordPress and Scratch. It was a pleasure to share ideas with Dana and Stacey, or to meet Tim for the first time after the many RT’s. Suddenly Ben was more than an avatar, but a living breathing person who helped my session not fall apart. He is headed to Jakarta next month to visit Hugo and I hope we can meet up again, maybe with Rod who I already know in Jakarta. I finally met Colin, but couldn’t pin him down for an actual meal. And of course I started conversations with Neil, John, Jason, Justin, Greg (already started a great chat on his blog), Jamie, Gary, Philip, Lynn, and Makky. So what did I learn from this conference? I learned that there are people across the region who are doing great work and they are ready to connect and learn. I may have crossed paths with these people eventually, but a conference is like a crucible to strengthen relationships quickly. It is because of this human connection that I go to conferences. We meet. We chat. We eat. We connect. As for the sessions…

I am embarrassed that it is 2011 and we are still trying to convince teachers and administrators who run schools to use technology in their classrooms, as if we still have a choice. I cannot even begin to imagine the frustration of the educators who have been involved with the use of technology for longer than me. How do you sit through, or worse present another Keynote explaining that learning is changing and that the internet and our connections to it can be a powerful learning too? I find it embarrassing that we are still stumbling about wondering how or why to use laptops in classrooms, that we still have beginner sessions on blogs, or that we need to be inspired to teach differently.

Do we really need to have the discussion telling teachers that it is the pedagogy and not the tools? Do we really need to tell them not to be afraid and move toward a more student-based approach? Do we really need to warn them that soon they will be irrelevant? I am ready for that threat to simply be a goodbye. Sorry, sir but our school simply will not hire teachers who are not connected and familiar with terms like PLN, blogs, Twitter, and connected learning, perhaps you can find a job at a school where technology is not considered a valuable teaching approach. What’s that? You don’t know what any of that means but you are curious and want to learn. Come on in.

I understand the need to look closely at the various issues surrounding technology and the use of laptops in schools, but there is also something to be said about simply moving forward and taking the training wheels off to see what will happen. I am tired of going to conferences and backtracking to the beginning. I am tired of slowing down the pace of my learning to bring others up to speed. I want to move forward. I want to sit in rooms with teachers who are working at the edge of possibility and connect our learning, our skills, our students, our schools. I want to cloister myself with a group of teachers who are pushing the boundaries and doing amazing work in their classrooms despite their school policies not because of them. Where are the sessions for us? Where are the times that connected teachers can move forward instead of looking back?

Woah! That train of thought went down a few dark tunnels. Let’s turn things around a bit and drive into the light. Yes it is true that many teachers, administrators and schools are terrified to move forward and are mired in fear and paralysis, but there are pockets of teachers worldwide who seem to get it. We often work in isolation at our schools, pushing the envelope, and forcing our schools to look more closely at the use of technology. The ironic part is that we are already connected. Through conversations on our blogs, twitter, connected classrooms, skype and other tools we are constantly learning from each other. We do not really need conferences because we are teaching in an environment that resembles an ongoing global conference.

Some final thoughts to share with your administrators:

Schools who are truly invested in the use of technology and a successful 1:1 program achieve buy in from students, teachers and parents. They recruit and train teachers who are open to teaching in student driven environments and help them understand not just the skills necessary to teach using technology, but also help them achieve a firm understanding behind the philosophy of this new pedagogy through the use of an effective and well-staffed technology integration team. They make learning fun and exciting for everyone and they do not accept teachers who are not willing to learn. They offer training, support and time for all teachers to learn new ways of teaching.
Time and training is vital. If you want your staff to do amazing things you have to hire the right people and give them an opportunity to play, experiment and grow. You must give them time to play, experiment and grow. You must give them money to play, experiment and grow. You must give them room to play, experiment and grow.
If you want your school to move forward you must take off the training wheels and move forward. You cannot wait for everyone to get it. You must set up expectations, hire the right people to get the staff moving forward and hold people accountable.
If you want your school to move forward you cannot continue to appease the members of your staff who don’t get it. You cannot steer your professional development to the members of staff who are the furthest behind and most resistant to change. If you need to convince your teachers to use technology you have hired the wrong teachers, or it is time to ask those people to move on.
If you want your school to move forward, you as an administrator must get it. You must be involved in the conversations and foster them in your school. You need to ask your staff questions about how technology is changing their teaching and if they do not have an answer you need to ask why. You must create an environment that fosters passion about learning in your teachers. You can no longer accept “I am too busy”, or “they expect so much of me.” You must demand your teachers question their pedagogy and share their thoughts. You must train your staff to share their learning with each other and the parent community. You must give your staff support and time to learn. You must lead the way and model the behavior.
If you want your school to move forward you must turn your teachers into learners.