Learning Labyrinth

How would you like to win an all-expense paid trip to an incredible educational technology conference?
Well — in this case you are a WINNER!

The K-12 Online Conference 2008 officially starts today. It is two-week conference that hosts four sessions per day. It features remarkable presenters with a wide variety of stimulating topics. And the best part… It is totally FREE!

You can access the sessions according to your own time schedule. Presentations will remain available for at least a year, so if you don’t have time now in the midst of Progress Reports , you can watch them later this year.

K-12 Online Conference 2008

Conference Website: http://k12onlineconference.org/

Full Conference Schedule: http://k12onlineconference.org/docs/k12online2008schedule.html

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Thing 23 – Add your reflections to the K12 Learning 2.0 Voicethread; Blog about your experiences and next steps

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The world is rapidly changing and advancing all around us. I can envision a time when we will no longer be able to determine a clear divide between the ‘world of education’ and the ‘world of technology’. We are living in an era where new technologies are emerging, and old technologies are improving, on a minute by minute basis. Today’s children and students have never known a time when they were without technology in their daily lives. Therefore, I feel it is our duty as educators to teach these digital natives, our students of today, and our leaders of tomorrow, in the modality of learning that is most conducive to their technology-enriched learning styles.

As an educator, I want to empower students to learn through the use of technology. I want them to view school as a place where they can explore their curiosities and expand their knowledge, not only through books, but through the use of technology tools that enable them to grow, share and learn with the global classroom, the global community. I strive to instill in my students a life-time love of learning. I believe the only way to accomplish this goal is to show them that education and technology are intertwined; they are not separate entities and to do that we must learn, use and model the appropriate and beneficial uses of technology tools for our students. My goal as an Instructional Technology Specialist is to empower educators to do just that, to implement and integrate the use of emerging technology and web 2.0 tools in their classrooms and with their students.

Thing 16 – Set shared goals using 43 Things

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Although I have heard talk about 43Things many times before, this was my first experience actually snooping around it. I say “snooping” because I felt like I was invading other people’s private thoughts and ideas by reading their personal diaries. I have to say I don’t think I would be comfortable publishing my goals, or in some cases my dreams and fantasies, on such a public domain. I am generally a very private person in RL in that I very rarely (if ever) discuss my true feelings, thoughts or ideas with others – even those closest to me – for fear of being not accepted or ridiculed. This all may sound absurd to some who think they know me and would immediately venture to say that I hold nothing back or that I sometimes share too much information. However, what they fail to see or realize is that everything that I haven’t held back or have divulged are not really my personal thoughts and feelings but rather facts or obvious realizations.

However, I do feel this site would be very useful and a wonderful tool for departments, teams and/or classrooms for tracking group goals.

Thing 5 – Learn about RSS and set up Google Reader

Thing 6 – Feed your reader: find & subscribe to feeds and build a reading habit

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Ok, I think I had too much fun with these “Things”. Namely because while browsing through the list of blogs I came across David Pogue’s blog, Pogue’s Posts,
within the NYTimes.com RSS feeds list. I attended the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) in November 2007 where David Pogue was brought in as a keynote speaker. He was hysterical! I had never heard of David Pogue before attending his keynote, but now, it is a name I will never forget. Anyways, David Pogue is the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times. He is also an Emmy award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News and an accomplished author of many how-to books.

After subscribing to Pogue’s Posts, I found it impossible to just scan and skim his entries. I HAD to read them all! He has a way of presenting the truth in a very real, “call it like it is”, hysterical manner. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I read many of his posts, while at the same time, experiencing many “ah ha” moments and “I completely agree” thoughts. While David often targets certain groups, like bad tech-support reps in his post Today’s Tech-Support Nightmare, I think readers (even those belonging to the targeted group) will find it hard to be offended by his articles. He recently posted an amusing article, Tech Support Gets a Reprieve While Users Take a Hit, that turned his attention to the technology USERS rather than his usual targeted group of tech support reps.

In his post, Readers Respond to the Debate Over Responsible Downloading, David blogs responses from his readers regarding the many shades of gray that exist in the law and in human ethics surrounding copyright-morality situations. I found the responses to the series of hypothetical questions he posed incredibly interesting. Another post I found on David’s blog referenced the Frontline documentary, Growing Up Online, that I recently blogged about and shared with the technology team at school. (You can read my blog post here.) His article, How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children?, reflects on an article he was asked to write a few years ago for a parenting magazine. He quotes his chief message for the article was this: “Sure, there are dangers. But they’re hugely overhyped by the media. The tales of pedophiles luring children out of their homes are like plane crashes: they happen extremely rarely, but when they do, they make headlines everywhere. The Internet is just another facet of socialization for the new generation; as always, common sense and a level head are the best safeguards.” This was not at all what the editors of the magazine where looking for, rather, they wanted another scare tactic message for parents.

Anyway, if you have never heard of David Pogue, or would like to enjoy a laugh or two sometime in your crazy-busy life, I would highly suggest checking out and subscribing to his blog feed. I have a feeling you will really enjoy reading his posts and finding them incredibly easy to relate to. J Enjoy!

Thing 1 – Task:

Write a reflective blog post based on The 7 1/2 Habits of Effective Lifelong Learners. You may write about anything related to your own experiences or beliefs about Lifelong Learning, and your thoughts about this course. The three things you were asked to consider were:

• Which habit(s) may be most challenging for you to employ as part of your K12 Learning 2.0 experience?
• Which habit(s) will be easiest, or are most resonant for you as a lifelong learner?
• Which habit do you think will be most important for you as you work through this course, and why?

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I have always enjoyed learning new things and have often pondered the idea of becoming a life-long full-time student. Not that I have any desire to write endless amounts of dissertations and/or reflection papers, but a I do possess a strong desire to learn all that I can within my life. The 7 1/2 Habits of Effective Lifelong Learners helped me reflect on this part of me as a learner and a professional.

The most challenging habit for me will be accepting responsibility for my own learning (Habit #2). In school, I was always a good student and continue to be a hard worker but I tend to get caught up with certain tasks and lose track of time very easily. I am also a self-diagnosed “perfectionist” which inevitably leads to spending too much time on a task that may not be as important as other things that need to be accomplished. Therefore, keeping up with everything that needs to be done without exact due dates will be a test. Balancing this course work along with my professional goals and responsibilities will be a challenge for me to accomplish without procrastinating or letting time “slip away” from me.

The easiest and most enjoyable habit for me will be PLAY! (Habit # 7 1/2). Almost everything I have learned about computers and technology has been the result of playing around with it. Similarly, the most powerful and engaging learning I have seen taken place in the classroom environment has been the result of playing. When we can engage in an activity of our choice or based on our interests, the level of learning taking place is substantially increased. Play is an activity designed to allow us to engage in exactly those activities. I believe that we can take-in and absorb more information/knowledge when we are given the flexibility to engage in an activity by our own means, thereby increasing our enjoyment and engagement levels. When restricted by structured or constrained parameters for an activity by another person, our interest and engagement levels decrease.

The most important habit for me will be to teach and mentor others (Habit #7). In my current role as an Instructional Technology Specialist, I am teaching, assisting and encouraging teachers to use technology in their classrooms. As much as I enjoy learning new and interesting things, I relish in teaching others about these very same ideas and tools. Sharing knowledge and teaching others to apply their knowledge is a personal passion for me. As it has been said countless times and in countless ways, a person who can teach a concept or idea has truly mastered the content themselves.

I feel this course is the perfect segue for me to lead and mentor teachers in building their educational technology knowledge base. Which in turn, will encourage them to engage in more technology enhanced lessons within their own classroom environments? The level of excitement I see from the teachers participating in this course is outstanding. Many are approaching me asking me to show them ways in which they can begin implementing the tools they have explored into their classroom environments. I feel that allowing teachers to explore or “play” with these new tools is raising their excitement, opening their eyes to what is out there and available to them, and providing them with a desire to learn more. Now, instead of me trying to push new technology tools on them, they are approaching me to help deepen their understanding and assist in applying their knowledge effectively in the classroom. I love this effect! I no longer feel like the “bully” in the schoolyard who constantly pushes others around insisting the other kids do things his way. Now I feel the new (not quite popular – yet) kid that everyone wants to know and be “seen” with. This course is exactly the kind of thing that was needed to kick-start what I feel will be a phenomenal wave of technology integration in our classrooms.