Thing 11 ~ The culmination

So where do we go from here? I think the best answer to that question is on Will Richardson’s Wiki at http://10fored.wikispaces.com/ wherein he is trying to create, or rather have us collaboratively create some sense of education and its role in the future. To answer some of his questions, it might be prudent to focus on the rant of Dan Brown on his YouTube, An Open Letter to Educators found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P2PGGeTOA4. I also posted his video below. Young Mr. Brown has the right notion about where education will go without considering Richardson’s questions. We need to answer these for ourselves as individuals, and as schools, districts, and even a state and a nation. How other nations answer these will be interesting, but cultural differences may still keep their responses different from ours, just as their education systems are so different.

If we are going to really conform to standards-based education and think its the panacea for our industry, we will fail not only our students and our future, but we will become extinct. What I have learned in this class on technology for school administrators that has changed me fundamentally is that our goal in education should not be about "Grade-Level Content Expectations" or any other standards of learning for students, but that students need to learn how to question, create, produce, publish, collaborate, research, and seek to understand the world. There is no other purpose for us to consider. As we change public education, we need to move to exploring the role society should take in preparing its children to live in the next world, not in a heaven or other after life place, but in the world of Web 3.0 or Web 20.0 or 50.0. Wikis, Delicious accounts, Blogging, RSS, and all the other communication tools and learning tools we discovered during this class are wonderful new tools, but they will be replaced in the next few years.

Parents will still want to know what their children need to learn to be ready. What will we tell them? Will we still be saying kids need to know their math facts?

Where will parents turn then for better answers? If we don't make fundamental change, parents will turn away.

Check out this YouTube video! What do you think??

Thing 10 ~ A simple survey for you!

Thing 9

SlideShare is another "time-taker" for me now that I know about it. There are some wonderful presentation others have created that I can learn from. It's a bit like YouTube...Once I start exploring, I can find myself lost in the amount of good stuff there is to find. Having students sharing their presentations has limiting factors. Principally I see fair use practices being violated. Students will have to be aware of the copyright aspects, which most educators don't even understand themselves. It's hard enough to teach what you do know, let alone what you don't know well. Teachers will have to be trained in copyright and cyber ethics well enough that they can help students make good choices about sharing and viewing the works of others.

Sharing presentations between classes and schools, however, can be enhanced by using SlideShare. Students are able to upload and share their own work (no copyright issue there!) and allow others to view their work. The multimedia products can then be accessible to others so we all learn not only content but multimedia strategies and ideas for improving presentations to make them more interesting and more useful.

I need to spend a lot more time on SlideShare to get the full picture of its uses. I will be there checking out some of the awesome presentations people are sharing!! More time on-line, seemingly just fooling around...

Interesting Data!!!

Nicholas Covey - How Teens Use Media

View more presentations from European Journalism Centre.

Thing 8--Google Docs

A friend of mine is working on her doctorate in Post-Secondary Leadership at UT. She is beginning her dissertation now that her topic has been approved. There are ways Google Docs could help the two of us as we help each other with our work. She sent me a copy of her dissertation concept paper. Had we used Google Docs, we could have worked together on her paper. As we continue to work together to help each other through our separate trials with our dissertations, we can use Google Docs to share portions of our research and other work, complete our statistical information, or help each other prepare presentations that will become necessary down the road when we get closer to the end of our process.

Our UT cohort in Ed. Leadership can use Google Docs similarly. We can team up and assist each other, plod through the requirements for the rest of our program, and get feedback on our next steps, especially now that we're nearly finished having weekly meetings. I am hoping others will want to stay in touch when the current class ends. There is still along way to go and much to do. I am worried about staying motivated and staying focused. Google Docs sharing may help us with our deadlines and give us a way to help each other meet our goals.

At work, we are already using Google Docs for limited sharing of common assessments. Most members of the staff are not comfortable with Google Docs so we're sending documents via email still. It takes more time and is so much less collaborative. Google Docs will help.

I have a presentation to our Climate team in the morning and I plan to use Google Docs to share the information with them in a lab setting. Any ideas about how to do this? We will be looking at discipline referral data on a spreadsheet.

Thing 7...Delicious!

I was able to set up my Delicious account today. I had an account before, but I didn't really understand how I could use it to my advantage. I was trying to put research sites on Delicious, but that wasn't going to help me or others interested in what I was doing.

Now I am using TAGS to sort my bookmarks so people looking for sites on school climate can find them easily, as can people looking for my favorite sailing sites. This is a useful tool, one that I will use often! I used to use my mess of bookmarks lined up in a browser window. Browsers come and go, but my delicious account can stay put.

Sharing is the next step...