Day 3 started on a cooler note. Although it’s still quite warm, there was rain in the air last night and temperatures dropped with cloud cover remaining. It made for a pleasant stroll to the shuttle pickup point. On the drive, I had the chance to share some stories about computer PD with some technology coordinators. Lots of the same demands are placed on them as me so it’s nice to meet kindred souls.
It’s sad, but it took until the third day that I actually got my map out and found my first conference room so I got to do directly there. I’ve wanted to hear Mitchell Resnick from MIT for quite some time. The session was entitled “Grassroots Creativity: Helping Everyone Become a Creative Thinker”. We spent some time talking about the history of innovation that has come from the MIT labs from the very first Logo to software logo, etc. It brought back some interesting memories and it also put the development of this genre into perspective. The philosophy of imagine-create-play-share-reflect-imagine was evident in the delivery. In his mind, the only two things that are working in education are kindergarten and grad school. Everything else needs fixing.
Mitchell demonstrated some of the results from Lego workshops and talked about the inspiration and creativity shown by students when given access to the hardware and software.
Then, we saw the latest revision of Scratch. http://scratch.mit.edu As with the previous endeavours, the focus is on creativity and problem solving. MIT has extended the concept with the development of a sharing, networking site for Scratch projects. Students are encouraged to upload their projects, download others and help out with development, comment on other works, improve and share back. This is a wonderfully new concept in the area of programming. There is support with Scratch Education for Teachers and on the horizon, hooks into Second Life. That should prove to be exciting.
Over the break, I met up with Robert Martellaci from Mind Share Learning and he took me into the Press Lounge with a couple of his classmates from Pepperdine University. We had a really nice chat about the state of the world and they were very interested in our implementation of SMART Boards as part of our portable initiative when so many others are bolting them to the wall. I gave our philosophy of trying to make resources available when necessary and the ability of teachers to rearrange their classrooms as they need. Some of the things that go away when you’re working with a fixed solution. I also found out where the best coffee and free food is. The Press is treated nicely indeed.
By the time I left, my first choice for next session was full as was the second. Thinking I would head to the posters, I happened to drop into a session just for a look but stayed for the duration. “GIS, Google Maps, and More for Literacy Projects”. The emphasis was the engagement that students get when they visualize where stories take place through Google Earth instead of just on paper. Interesting. Google has scanned some of the books that have been digitized and plotted every location that it recognizes in the text. This is placed in a mashup that you can view in conjunction with the book to understand the location of the settings. Very cool. Some of the books that were mentioned where “Around the world in 80 Days”, “9/11 Commission Report”, “War and Peace”, “Travels of Marco Polo”, and “Make Way for Ducklings”. I can’t wait to have some time to follow up on this. It was very engaging. Jerome Burg who was the genius behind Google Lit Trips was in the audience to talk shortly about this project. Really, really interesting presentation which concluded with an impromptu Powerpoint lesson. You had to be there!
The Poster sessions again beckoned where I definitely saw the Best in Show for me. I’ll blog about it separately after I play with it a bit.
I decided to go to another Hall Davidson presentation. I was intrigued by the descriptor about how to edit things on an iPod. Hall was in rare form. We learned how to turn off the menus on an iPod, do Chroma Key with Windows Movie Maker, put a floating image into Google Earth, and how to embed live audio into WordPress and Typepad blogs. The highlight was Hall trying something new and that was to place a live Qik feed into an instance of Google Earth. He gave a call to his friend Steve Dembo who started broadcasting and sure enough it worked! Software to check out is MogoPop and Panda Maker.
Back to the poster session to see if I got it right. I did and am even more excited now!
My final session of the conference was with Steve Dembo talking about internet safety. We talked about the need for filtering although nobody was really happy. In the US, if you get money for internet, it must be filtered. Steve, while pointing out that he wasn’t a lawyer, showed us what was required to be blocked. Child Pornography, Obscenity, and anything that is harmful to minors. Nobody would argue over this list but often it goes so much further. We looked at some Acceptable Use Policies and talked about what it is that education needs to do. How can we teach students about all of the internet when it’s filtered? If we’re not doing it, they are learning at home with no master plan. That’s not necessarily effective. We talked about the value of http://berecruited.com and the importance of an appropriate online image for students. Steve even gave an example of a school district that makes a review of one’s Facebook, MySpace, etc., part of the curriculum so that students get into a good college or hired for a new job. They are also encouraged to “Google themselves” to see what they have left on the internet or what others have said about them. There are lots of implications that students don’t necessarily realize. How will they learn?
Finally, the keynote to close the event. Idit Harel Caperton talked about “The Transformational Power of Social Media Technology in Learning”. During her presentation, she injected her viewpoints of constructivism in a Web 2.0 world with Web 3.0 on the horizon. She took us through 3 decades of thinking, covered in 3 days at the conference and concluded with 3 wishes for the future. Twitter served as a back channel for the presentation and it was alive throughout. If you Summize “NECC”, you’ll see what was going on. The session was also broadcast live from ISTE Island on Second Life.
The three wishes for the future?
- Become a signal now for the future
- Cultivate the constructivist “Wisdom of One”
- Honour the “Eternal Beta”
And then it was over. On the way out, I finally got a chance to talk with Tim. In a place so big and with so many people and actually in both a convention centre and a hotel, you just never meet up sometimes.
I have a lot of work ahead of me with all kinds of notes of things to check out and try. A very rich three days.
Tags: NECC, Professional Development
