Blogging changes: simplicity desired

I will stop updating this blog and continue writing on life long learning at Steve's 2 Cents. The full reasoning and explanation behind this change can be found here. I thank you for your readership and conversations. I hope you'll continue the conversation at Steve's 2 Cents. Subscribe to Steve's 2 Cents here for RSS or here Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz Life long learning doesn't end. It just evolves and adapts to the world!

K12 Online Conference - "Playing with Boundaries"

Boundaries? There are boundaries? Oh, those are opportunities! The “K12 Online Conference” is for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! The 2007 conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26 of 2007, and will include a preconference keynote during the week of October 8. The conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries.” The conference just announced their line up of speakers and presentations. The presenters by strand are: Classroom 2.0: Silvia Tolisano “Travel Through Space and Time” Drew Murphy “Step by Step- Building a Web2.0 Classroom” Chris Harbeck “Release the Hounds” Vance Stevens “Motivating Student Writers by Fostering Collaboration through Tagging and Aggregating” Wendy Wolfe “If All My Classes Did This” Konrad Glogowski “Assessment and Evaluation” Anne Davis “Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools” Dean Shareski “Design matters” Jeff Utecht “Sustained Blogging in the Classroom” New Tools: Liz Kolb “Cell Phones as Classroom Learning Tools” Frank Pirrone “Collaborative Concept Mapping - Breaking the Bounds of Location and Time… for $0.00 per Seat” Cheryl Oakes, Bob Sprankle, Alice Barr “Flat Agents of Change” Anne Davis “Learn to Blog : Blog to Learn” Jason Hando “LMS 2.0 - Engaging Learners Using More Advanced Techniques and the Odd Mash-up inside Moodle” Sharon Betts “Oodles of Googles” Kevin Jarrett and Sylvia Martinez “Second Life: K-20 Educators Exploring Virtual Worlds - Panel” Kurt Paccio and James Gates “The Electric Slide! Twenty-First Century Style” April Chamberlain “Trailfire” Professional Learning Networks: Jen Wagner, Cheryl Oakes, Vicki Davis, Sharon Peters “Webcasting for Educators: Expanding the Conversation” Brandi Caldwell “Creating PLE’s with TLC” Kevin Hodgson “The Collaborative ABC Project: Using Technology to Tell Stories” Lee Baber, Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim and Thomas Locke “Building Online Communities for Youth” Jeff Utecht “Online Professional Development” James Folkestad “Changing a System: Network Centric Learning Communities” Sharon Peters, Vincent Jansen “Building a Yardstick for PD Success: Establishing Key Performance Indicators for Web 2.0 Personal Optimized Learning Environments” Vinnie Vrotny “Expanding Horizons - Engaging the Adult Members of your Community (Teachers, Administrators, and Parents) through the Use of Personal/Professional Learning Networks” Alex Ragone and Arvind Grover “EdTechTalk: A Network of Homegrown Webcasters” Obstacles to Opportunities: Patrick Ledesma “The Technology Specialist as Teacher Leader: Strategies to Ensure Successful Technology Integration and Student Learning in Schools” Ben Wilkoff “Starting From Scratch: Framing Change for All Stakeholders” Karen Richardson “Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age” Shawn Nutting “Creating a Paradigm Shift in Technology” Lisa Durff “Pushing the Envelope or How to Integrate Web 2.0 Tools on a Shoestring” John Pearce ”Me blog? No way!!!” Sylvia Martinez “Web 2.0 Share the Adventure” Joseph Bires “Acceptable Use and the Web 2.0” Sylvia Martinez “Challenging Assumptions about Technology Professional Development” Check out the full posting on conference blog.

Diploma

Diploma Originally uploaded by shersteve Is that all you get from Harvard? No, not really. The network created by attending and completing this program is immense. Connections are important. But with all due respect, Harvard is not the only place to make connections. Do you leverage your connections?

Advent VII

Mother, This Advent You gave us your final lesson. A lesson that began On the day each of us Came into life. A lesson in how to live, A lesson in The will to live. A lesson that Ended with Your passing. You will be remembered. Your lesson will be followed, As we continue to live, Continue to prepare For His coming This Advent. In memoriam Rita Sherlock 11/26/1983

Review: The Power of Play - David Elkind

The Power of Play by David Elkind is an insightful book. We all recognize that our children are the future. How do we help them learn well? David writes: "Learning is most effective when it involves play, love, and work. ... Children are not naturally motivated to learn from formal instruction. This motivation comes first and foremost from the ways in which literacy, math, music, and sports are introduced. Formal instruction is work. Parents and teachers are most effective if they build on children's love of stories, contrasts, rhythm and rhyme, unexpected facts, and humor. If we introduce literacy and numeracy with the use of these techniques, we build on children's spontaneous motivation and learning interesting and fun. At the same time, we also win the child's respect and affection and thus make the instruction a matter of play and love as well as work." Can we also apply these best practices on how they learn to how we learn? Aren't we still kids in some ways? In many ways, yes. I think if we look at how we learned best, we will recognize the same combination of play, love and work present at those key learning moments. If these components were there, then in order to continue to learn, we should try and replicate the same combination of play, love and work in all our learning situations. I would suggest that this combination of play, love, and work is what is behind the efforts of Sandra Dickenson and selearninggames is what is driving the efforts of the Joyful Jubilant Learning group is what is motivating the folks to create PodCamps There maybe other examples. These come to mind from activities I have been involved in. I recommend this book to all those wanting to know more and especially to those who appreciate understanding how to learn. For parents in particular, David closes the book with suggestions on how to beat the system. You can create opportunities to play the "Dumb books Caper", the case of the missing use, how to break the report card code, and tips on how to utilize the neighborhood tutor. These tips are worth working your way through the book. They will be fully appreciated (and balanced with play, love, and work) by the time you get to the end. Trying to get ahead of the "game" by going directly to the end defeats the purpose as you'll have missed the all important framing. I have written a series of posts around other quotations from this book. The series is collected here.

The Power of Play - Quote Series

The following posts were centered on quotes from The Power of Play, David Elkind, Ph.D. play, love, work iconic literacy the diamond test skill mastery and innovative play cooperation, competition The full book review playful approach ordinality forts and boxes sharing passions sharing experiences

Lessons from the Icicles

Icicles Originally uploaded by shersteve. The front porch railing has new ornaments this morning. The melting snow on the roof dripped over the edge and fell to the railing below gradually, drop by drop, forming this series of icicles. If the melting was allowed to continue (the roof is south facing) with the air temperature stil hovering around the freezing mark, these icicles would continue to grow downward and then outward. If left long enough, they could fill in the gap between the ballisters, creating a frozen window. Alas, this may not happen today. The south facing may heat up too much to allow this phenomenom. I admire Natures persistence. It will drip, and form, and continue to do so as long as the conditions allow. It will not give up because it will be too warm today or if it were to realize the action would be futile. Are you as persistent in your learning? It only takes a little effort each day to be open to learning.

Stretching into new areas

The trees are leafless. Normal for this time of year in New England. Fascinating all the same. Look at them closely! The tips are thin. Work back down toward the branches. As you do so the branches get thicker. As you work your way down the branches to the trunk, the thickness increases. Below ground, the roots spread out in a pattern something like what we can see above ground. How do you reach out to learn something new? Do you send forth a thin query? Or do you jump in whole lock, stock, and barrel?

Life-Long Computer Skills

Jakob Nielsen writing in his weekly AlertBox has a timely post this week suggesting the life-long learning concepts that should be taught in schools. There is some value in teaching kids skills they can apply immediately, while they're still in school, but there's more value in teaching them deeper concepts that will benefit them forever, regardless of changes in specific applications. Teaching life-long computer skills in our schools offers further benefit in that it gives students insights that they're unlikely to pick up on their own. In contrast, as software gets steadily easier to use, anyone will be able to figure out how to draw a pie chart. People will learn how to use features on their own, when they need them -- and thus have the motivation to hunt for them. It's the conceptual things that get endlessly deferred without the impetus of formal education. What skills does Jakob suggest? Good ones, that adults can use as well. Skills like: Search strategies, information credibility, and information overload. There are more. I encourage you to click through and read his full AlertBox. If you are interested, I would also encourage you to subscribe to the AlertBox to directly receive Jakob's weekly insights.