New Journalism

If you haven’t subscribed yet, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nwp_radio.rss you might have missed this episode of NWP Radio. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nwp_radio/2011/09/08/marking-a-moment-teaching-about-911 What an amazing episode this was! I felt proud to recognize the network of work that has grown around Writing Project work, and I was inspired to seek out many resources mentioned on this show. As I’ve said before, NWP Radio is state-of-the-art webcasting/podcasting. +

Elyse Eidman-Aadahl and her team do such professional and personally meaningful work, representing many National Writing Project nwp.org voices!

Marking a Moment Teaching About 9/11

September 11th 2011 marks the 10th anniversary of the devastating attack on the World Trade Center. How is this subject being surfaced taught and talked about Sep 08

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Monika Hardy, Chris Sloan and Paul Allison invite you to come learn with us! Join us at http://edtechtalk.com/live at 9 PM Eastern / 8 PM Central / 7 PM Mountain / 6 PM Eastern / World Times.

+Jodhbir Singh has been visiting visiting the Lab that +Monika Hardy facilitates. He has a passion to help change education in India where he is from. Monika writes, “We’ve been corresponding for some time now. This is our first face to face. He’s incredible and will have some good insight of what we’re doing and how it looks in person.

Also we will be learning more about a group of teachers who teach the classics using gaming. Join us to learn more from the Pericles Group. 

+Kevin Ballestrini teaches Latin and Mythology at the Norwich Free Academy in Connecticut. He has received an M.A. and B.A. in Classics from the University of Colorado and University of Connecticut respectively. In addition to experience teaching in a traditional classroom setting, in the 2010-2011 academic year Kevin deployed the first fully practomimetic introductory language course at the high school level in a section of Latin I. The experience has clearly enhanced student engagement and connection to life and culture in ancient Rome. For 2011-12, he will be expanding the offering of practomimetic courses to the second year of introductory Latin in addition to the first. As an avid technology enthusiast, he maintains his blog, Techna Virumque Cano (http://kevinbal.blogspot.com) where he discusses the intersection of technology and his teaching. He is also a regular contributor to the collaborative blog Play the Past (http://playthepast.org). Kevin is the leader of a large kinship in The Lord of the Rings Online and active in many gaming communities.

__________________________________________________________________________________

+Roger Travis is an Associate Professor of Classics in the Department of Literatures, Cultures & Languages of the University of Connecticut. He is also the Director of the Video Games and Human Values Initiative (http://vghvi.org) at UConn, an interdisciplinary online nexus for online courses and scholarly activities like fellowships, symposia, and the initiative’s Proceedings, of which he is the editor. He received his Bachelor’s degree in classics from Harvard College, and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley before arriving at UConn in 1997. He has published on Homeric epic, Greek tragedy, Greek historiography, the 19th C. British novel, HALO, and the massively-multiplayer online role-playing game He has been President of the Classical Association of New England and of the Classical Association of Connecticut. He writes the blog Living Epic (http://livingepic.org) about his discovery of the fundamental connection between ancient epic and the narrative video game, and is a founder and contributor of the collaborative blog Play the Past(http://playthepast.org). In the 2009-2010 academic year, Roger offered the first courses ever designed entirely as practomimes (seehttp://www.academicimpressions.com/news.php?i=59 for detail).

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

For this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers on http://edtechtalk.com/live Monika Hardy @monk51295

has invited some of her colleagues,

• Thomas Steele-Maley @steelemaley
• Alexander Pappas @alexpappas
• Mary Ann Rielly @MaryAnnRielly
• Amanda Judd @venueX
• Amy Lewark @fat4thought

to join Chris Sloan @csloan and me @paulallison 

to introduce why we need lab spaces to disrupt and redefine school http://labconnections.blogspot.com The goal is to facilitate self-directed learning. Here’s how Monika and others introduce their work in a in-progress book they are writing ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nmvv2V62Rtgd-O2PykEqEPClkZM23CNLi1RT6KNajtU/edit?hl=en_US ) :

Students in Loveland, CO crafted a four year plan of disruption to redefine school. We are just beginning year two. Year four has community/life as school, with the city as the floor plan. Who, what, when, where, how, and with whom you learn, per choice. The premise… nothing is for everyone. We’re redefining success per individual/community. We’re respectfully questioning everything, especially what public education deems as normal. Imagine if the 7 hours a day we currently call school would/could awaken indispensable people. It’s a quiet revolution.
There has been plenty of theory/research invested in what we are doing, and that will be ongoing. But mostly, we have had the privilege and delight to indulge in experimentation/failure/prototyping/etc. The following is our best attempt to capture the key elements learned from key failures. If you are so inclined, shuffle along with us. It’s a kick. You might just fall in love with it.
For more history of the lab, see this video set/documentation (reverse chronological order): redefineschool.tumblr.com
For current updates/info on the lab, see labconnections: http://labconnections.blogspot.com/p/about.html

It should be an exciting conversation! Please join us at edtechtalk.com/live where you’ll hear and see a *livestream* broadcast of our conversation, and be invited to chat and ask questions as well.

We go live at 9:00 PM Eastern / 8:00 Central / 7:00 Mountain / 6:00 Pacific at edtechtalk.com/live Please join us!http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Live+Webcast+-+Teachers+Teaching+Teachers+-+http%3A%2F%2Fedtechtalk.com%2Flive&iso=20110824T21&p1=179&ah=1

— 
Paul Allison, Monika Hardy, and Chris Sloan

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Are you a DIY maker-? Join us at EdTechTalk.com/live in 90 min (9 PM Eastern / 6 PM Pacific) to learn more about the NWP/Makes Project nwpmakes.posterous.com - Learn more about school gardens, technical writing, and finding room for the NWP/Makes students on Youth Voices youthvoices.net . Join +Fred Mindlin, +Christina Cantrill, +Marshall Woody, +Judy Jester and others as we talk about how the DIY movement is impacting our curriculum. Are you coming to the Maker Faire NYC? http://makerfaire.com/newyork/2011Join us at EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00 PM Eastern / 6:00 PM Pacific!

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

We’re looking to make Hangouts our place to connect this fall on Teachers Teaching Teachers. 

https://plus.google.com/_/notifications/ngemlink?path=%2F%3Fgpinv%3DoWnEn-UsdUs%3AImwUhpZyEno

Here are a couple of examples:

http://edtechtalk.com/node/4993

http://edtechtalk.com/node/4990

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Anthropology Professor, Peter Little, from Emory University will be joining us at http://edtechtalk.com/live in 2 hours (9:00 PM Eastern / 6:00 PM Pacific.) More: https://plus.google.com/113993022447291199374/posts/TgbYFYyo1hV

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

mahmouddualeh:

Reading about the crisis in the Horn of Africa and listening to Nas - Rule. I feel sad now. I knew it was terrible but it’s like, yo I can’t explain it. I am going to think of some way to help on the plane tomorrow, I wanna do something bigger and more meaningful then just simply donating. If anyone has any ideas or is doing something get at me please… 

Instead of writing a blog post or instead of adding links to my delicious account I ENGAGED with my questions, did a lot of reading, collecting, thinking… and a bit of writing. I’m composing my thoughts about the famine in the Horn of Africa.

Paul Allison  -  10:49 PM  -  Public+Lark Fleming points the way. Getting informed is an important step as well.

Lark Fleming originally shared this post:+Paul Allison ONE is calling on world leaders to do two things in the face of this emergency:Take immediate action to address the current humanitarian crisis by filling a $1 billion funding gap that will allow the U.N. and charitable organizations on the ground to run the refugee camps, stop disease outbreaks and secure routes that will ensure the safe delivery of food aid. The UN currently has only…Expand this post »

Bono and K’naan meet with Somali Minnesotans to discuss crisis in Horn of Africa

Last night, ONE cofounder Bono and Somali–born singer and poet K’naan met in Minneapolis with several Somali Minnesotans to discuss and draw attention to the growing famine in Somalia, where a food cr…  -  Comment  -  Share Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  7:15 PM  -  PublicI’ve been listening to Somalian music, and it’s hard as an outsider to tell what is Somalian and what is universal hip-hop. But this, this spoke to me as filled with local knowledge and global attitude!Somali song

youtube.com – Dedicated to the graduating class of 2009 from Benadir University who lost their lives when a suicide bomber detonated himself among crowd of people, …  -  Comment  -  Share+2 by Lina Srivastava and 1 other Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  5:07 PM  -  PublicSomalian cuisine seems to capture the richness of the regions they are connected to. Wikipedia’s “Somalian cuisine” page has descriptions of long, loving food preparation, eating, even after-meal traditions! 

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Somalian_cuisine&oldid=437612787

mysomalifood.com’s Photostreammysomalifood.com’s photostream  -  Comment  -  Share

Chris Fancher - Our ship (U.S. Navy) went into Berbera Somalia in 1983(4?). The embassy told us to not take pictures of beggars, women, or dead people. There were an inordinate amount of all three. Food was good and I, bravely, ate from street merchants.5:40 PM   Add a comment… Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  3:14 PM  -  PublicWhat is my country doing? How do I find out?Magnitude of crisis hinders Somalia relief efforts

youtube.com – Somalia’s government says it is making every effort to help refugees pouring into Mogadishu to escape the drought enveloping East Africa. The UN’s Children’s…  -  Comment  -  Share Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  1:10 PM  -  PublicTo address some the issues on the Horn of Africa, how would we construct something similar to what Michael Wesch created with his World Sim game for teaching world systems theory?http://mediatedcultures.net/worldsim.htmWorldSim Preview

youtube.com – A massive experiment in education. For more information see: http://savageminds.org/2006/04/02/a-brief-theory-of-anti-teaching/  -  Comment  -  Share+1 by Al Elliott1 share - Scott Weidig Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  12:57 PM  -  PublicI’m trying to learn as much about the “Culture of Somalia” as I’m also learning about the famine there. Thanks for the suggestion +Lark Fleming

Culture of Somalia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Culture of Somalia . Art. Architecture. Pottery · Textile. Music · Wood carving. Language. Literature · Mythology. Writing systems · Poetry. Other. Dance · Dress. Games · Cuisine. Society · History. I…  -  Comment  -  Share+1 

Cathy Crea - I have lots of Somali students at the community college where I teach. I believe Minnesota is home to the largest community of Somalis outside of Africa. (Must be the similarities in climate.) Do you want me to see if I can put you in contact with any of them? It will be easier once fall semester starts in late August, but I occasionally run into a few of my former students on campus over the summer.1:16 PM   

Paul Allison - That would be interesting, thanks. I’ll follow up.1:19 PM (edited 1:24 PM)  -  Edit   Add a comment… Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  12:43 PM  -  PublicAny thoughts on this service? Finding penpals in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami seems likely, but what about the Horn of Africa? Just wondering.PenPal News Demo

youtube.com – PenPal News is a web application in development that will use news as a conversation-starter to foster global connections.  -  Comment  -  Share+7 by Nethead Plurk, Jake Duncan, Christopher Cluff, Sy Bounds, Jon Jaques and 2 others1 share - Sy Bounds6 older comments from Nethead Plurk, Marlita H, Kimberly Herbert, Matt Montagne and Paul Allison

Christopher Cluff - I love it. Has anyone tried it with their class yet? Is it a pay service or supported by ads6:38 PM   Add a comment… Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  12:30 PM  -  PublicI’m not asking this lightly. Is there a game that might help me (and later my students) to learn about the “deadly cocktail” or the systems that seem to have created the increased food prices, political instability, and droughts. There’s a lot of talk about systems learning in gaming circles, what about these systems?  -  Comment  -  Share

Kenny Kenwud Kbarbz - bumping for interest in the deadly cocktail12:30 PM   

Wilson Hines - I’m trying to wrap my head around what you’re talking about? Are you talking about a social engineering game?12:33 PM   

Paul Allison - A game where I can learn how to change these systems that have led to the famine… so that I can understand how all of this works more.12:35 PM  -  Edit   

José Vega - Are there such existing game/s? … outside of G+12:37 PM (edited 12:37 PM)   

miriam dunn - I think your students would know more about that than we would, to be honest. It would be a great brainstorm, at any rate - if they did not know of such a game, what elements they would include if they were creating one.12:42 PM   

Cristina Lopez - Michael Wesch created a World Sim game for teaching world systems theory that addresses those issues. http://mediatedcultures.net/worldsim.htm1:01 PM   

Paul Allison - Thanks for the tip!1:03 PM  -  Edit   

Scott Weidig - Paul… trying to remember back when I was teaching. I did a game (non-tech) very similar to this concept with my Econ / Gov kids… Foggy brain as that was 8 years ago. I will do a bit of digging and see what I can come up with again.1:12 PM   

José Vega - +Cristina Lopez Thumbs up for the link!2:17 PM   

Paul Allison - More here:https://plus.google.com/113993022447291199374/posts/ii9b9UhPSti2:29 PM  -  Edit   

Jaime Vander Velde - How about Risk (or a modified version of it)?3:37 PM   

Paul Allison - +Jaime Vander Velde Right! What would we — or the students modify to make it fit the situations we find in Somalia?3:40 PM  -  Edit   

Jon Jaques - Have you ever seen or played “Axis & Allies”? It is a huge board game based upon WWII, which might not ultimately be so irrelevant, if you stop and think about it, because that is when nearly every current “modern” country was affected in some way, at the same time.

It kinda sounds like it might be relevant for you to study, though, because the game made extensive use of playing on each country’s strengths and weaknesses, but the outcomes are completely unpredictable, even though you play it through again and again, based upon the same initial inputs.8:43 PM   Add a comment… Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  11:47 AM  -  PublicThis is a title that seems on target. I’m learning from this now.Horn of Africa Famine: Millions at Risk in “Deadly Cocktail” of War …democracynow.orgThe United Nations has called an emergency meeting to discuss the Horn of Africa drought, which it says has already claimed tens of thousands of lives. Famine was declared in two regions of Somalia on Wednesday where 3.7 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian …Shared from Sparks  -  Comment  -  Share Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  11:08 AM  -  PublicOne source that I’m using to find out more about the Horn of Africa today is this Foreign Policy slide show, filled with links to things like the many videos and articles from CNN.

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.comOur Picks. Amy Winehouse dead at 27. Bristol: I’m not accusing Levi of rape. Terrorists behind Somalia famine? Why so many baby girl deaths in Pakistan? ‘Mini Darth Vader’ talks health car…  -  Comment  -  Share+1 

Melissa Techman - Have you tried the Telegraph and Oxfam? Also, the print version of the Economist is usually thorough on coverage of Africa - I don’t have many journalists in my circles, so not sure who is here and might be helpful.11:13 AM   

scott lo - BBC World service has offered some insightful coverage of this horrible story for past couple of weeks. Might be better to check their Africa service: http://bbc.in/o4RKrD

As the UN has recently negotiated with Islamist groups to arrange for food deliveries, UN Radio might also be worth checking out: http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/ 

Also of interest might be the July 2nd episode of Behind the News with Doug Henwood. Doug’s guest Christian Parenti offered a useful and important historical analysis of the Horn of Africa: http://bit.ly/niWPtu

Thank you for focusing our attention on this unfolding disaster.11:22 AM (edited 11:23 AM)    

Paul Allison - There are a lot of faces and stories to follow up on here too:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/07/21/africa.famine.voices/index.html11:24 AM  -  Edit   Add a comment… Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  10:32 AM  -  PublicIs there a list of G+ writers who are talking about the Horn of Africa?  -  Comment  -  Share

Lark Fleming - Why don’t you start a blog? And start writing and then ask other people to write, then you can also link stories….then maybe you can do a reading in about 6 months to raise awareness.10:39 AM   

Barry B - I am in agreement with Lark on this one +Paul Allison . I plan on following this one for sure.10:40 AM   

Lark Fleming - That’s so easy and you’re in NY so you already have that going for you in regards to publicity. Living in LA or NY put you ahead of the game, never realized that, but now I do.10:42 AM   

Paul Allison - I wonder how we can get people on teachersteachingteachers.org this week and in the fall to talk about the people and culture and famine in Somalia. I suppose a place for me to start (also) is to learn more about Somalia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia10:56 AM  -  Edit   

Lark Fleming - You can also check this out: 
http://www.africaaccessreview.org/aar/index.html
http://www.africaaccessreview.org/aar/Database.aspx
Iman the supermodel is also Somali, though I don’t know how that might help. It’s fun info.11:02 AM   Add a comment… Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  10:10 AM  -  PublicThe Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd “commended Kenya for her role in facilitating humanitarian operations for the famine stricken people of Somalia…. Mr. Rudd attributed the ongoing unpredictable weather pattern to global climate change that has also affected Australia with extreme weather conditions experiencing floods and droughts.”

The people in Somalia seem to be caught between “insecurity” brought about by “the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab” and global climate change.]

I wonder what I can do to build appropriate support from the U.S. government there. Or are we already doing the right moves there?

Kenya Broadcasting Corporation: - KBC News

KBC, The leading broadcaster in Kenya, Offeres a variety of sites including, news, sport, weather, community, education, and lifestyle sites. TV and Radio programme schedules, online Radio News and ea…  -  Comment  -  Share Paul Allison  

Paul Allison  -  9:40 AM (edited 9:44 AM)  -  PublicI’m wondering how I can silence the noise and focus on what is happening in the Horn of Africa today, this week.

Key Messages about the Famine in the Horn of Africa.

This is page 28 in a detailed report that I’m reading today from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network and Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit. 

Press Release: http://www.fews.net/docs/Publications/FSNAU_FEWSNET_200711press%20release_final.pdf…Expand this post »

http://www.fews.net/docs/Publications/FSNAU_FEWSNET_200711press%20release_final.pdf  -  Comment  -  Share+1 

Matthew Bridgewater - This story needs more media attention. Although I guess the Amy Winehouse and Oslo Shooting stories are pretty important.9:48 AM   

Paul Allison - I’m not even interested in the story about what’s important or not. Just want to learn more about what is happening in the Horn of Africa, and what part of the “massive multisectoral response” I can be part of.9:53 AM  -  Edit   

Lark Fleming - I know what I’m going to do. I”m just going to start being part of writing actively good stories, sharing good stories, and reviewing good stories about that part of the world. The reasons that the world reacts to Japan and Norway is because the world sees them as people. The problem with Somalia, even in this description (not yours, but the press release you pulled this info off) is that the countries can’t even get identified as countries so identifying with the people as people is going to be even harder. It has to be people are starving not just famine, but also before that story it’s got to be a sort of retelling of their stories, culture, wonderful foods, because people don’t react (and they never seem to for that part of the world) if they can’t relate to you as people just like them.10:09 AM   

Paul Allison - +Lark Fleming You are really onto something there, something that we learned last year by listening to the teachers and students along the Gulf of Mexico onvoicesonthegulf.org . It’s not small turn to ask, what “stories, culture, wonderful food” are going to be lost if something isn’t done in the Horn of Africa? What are the countries and cultures, ethnic groups and groups of people that we are talking about there? Thanks for immediately broadening my inquiry so quickly!10:21 AM  -  Edit   

Lark Fleming - You are welcome. Thank you for the link of Voices on the Gulf.10:29 AM   Add a comment…

We are looking forward to our conversation about http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com on Wednesday 9:00 PM Eastern / 6:00 PM Pacific. (See link below for the times.) Chad Sansing will moderate. We want to know more about the overall goals and purposes of the Cooperative Catalyst. We want to get to know each of you and your passions a bit. We will welcome you to use Teachers Teaching Teachers this week and in the future to pose questions, provocations, and inquiries on the Cooperative Collaborative. So we’re excited!We are also trying something new. We would like to invite each of you into a Google+ Hangout. +Jeff Lebow will open this Hangout about 30 minutes before the show starts. Jeff will also broadcast our Hangout at Ustream. We also invite anybody to listen in at http://edtechtalk.com/live.

Please join us

Event Time Announcer

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

If you dig Minecraft (or wonder why other teachers do) we invite you to join on on Teachers Teaching Teachers tonight (or later today). We’ve invited a few teachers recently launched  Massively Minecraft. http://socialmediaclassroom.com/host/MassivelyMinecraft/ If you have any thoughts, questions, wonderings, stories about Minecraft, we invite you to join us on Teachers Teaching Teachers at 9:00 PM tonight at http://edtechtalk.com/live
Check the time here (USA) or here (NSW Austrailia)

Dean Groom will be with us (11 AM Thursday in his part of Australia) http://deangroom.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/welcome-to-massively-minecraft/ and we hope some of his collaborators on Massively Minecraft. Also we hope that Joel Levin,The Minecraft Teacher will be joining us as well.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/04/educational-building-blocks-how-minecraft-is-being-used-in-the-classroom.ars Check out Joel’s videos on YouTube.

Also - Ed Tech Crew did gr8 interview w/ @minecraftTeachr and @deangroom http://bit.ly/l7W7sG Wnt more? Join us http://bit.ly/9e16S6 9 PM Wed NYC /11 AM Thurs Sydney #nwp

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Join us on Teachers Teaching Teachers to meet Tommy Buteau and learn more about Chad Sansing and the Cooperative Catalyst. Also we’ll invite anybody with a goal, project, or inspiration that they would like to share from ISTE11 to join in the conversation!

Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific Wednesday July 6 / World Times. Tommy recently wrote me:
 

Paul,

I read about the Youth Voices project at the Digital Is site, and I think it sounds very interesting, like something I would use with my 9th and 11th grade English classes here in Windsor, CO. So, I visited the site and signed up, but it seems like I do not have access to everything. I can only see three of the guides that you use, and the directions for most of the activities seem limited. I enjoyed the free-writing article by Peter Elbow, and I also like the 10 questions activity. I am wondering if there is a description of how teachers use this site somewhere. Thanks,
Tommy Buteau

That’s not all, a couple of days later Tommy wrote:

Have you ever used your site for cross-campus peer reviews before? I found that when students from another school did a peer review, the results were great. We used google docs for it. You can see what I did with a creative writing class at https://sites.google.com/site/101wright1/creative-writing-2010-2. Then, we did a similar process with speech podcasts at http://schoolweb.psdschools.org/frhs/LangArts/SP/Buteau/index.html. I think the key is that it was completely anonymous.
 

Thanks,

Tommy

—
Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

In case you haven’t seen this yet… Chris Lehmann’s keynote at ISTE was encouraging, challenging, thoughtful and inspiring!  His conversation with teachers from the Science Leadership Academy on Teachers Teaching Teachers might also be worth your time. Teachers Teaching Teachers 253 Chris Lehmann, Bud Hunt, Diana Laufenberg, Zac Chase, Matt VanKouwenberg, Larissa Pahomov 6.29.11

Please consider subscribing to Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

At 6:00 PM Eastern / 3:00 PM Pacific Wednesday night World Times, we will have a live Teachers Teaching Teachers event from Rembrandt’s Pub with guests from the Science Leadership Academy, including Chris Lehmann and teachers from the school, Zac Chase and Diana Laufenberg, and others.

If you are in Philadelphia for ISTE (or any other reason) you are welcome to join us in person at Rembrandt’s Pub, which is at 741 North 23rd Street, http://www.rembrandts.com/. Bring your laptop with Skype and headphones.

And, if you can’t come in person, join us in the chat room online at EdTechTalk.

NOTE EARLIER TIME: Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 6:00pm Eastern / 3:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 22:00 UTC Wednesday World Times.

Join us from

International Society for
Technology in Education®

Chris Lehmann

Closing Keynote—Chris Lehmann
Change Now: The Urgency of School Reform

Wednesday, 2:45–4:15 pm

Terrace Ballroom
(simulcast throughout PACC)

“School reform” has taken its place at the front of the national political debate. Close your 2011 conference experience by joining us for an upbeat and inspiring look at how the educational technology community can help to create more empowering, progressive and caring schools.

Lehmann is the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), an award-winning, progressive science and technology high school in Philadelphia that is pioneering the School 2.0 movement. He has received many honors including being named as one of the “30 Most Influential People in Ed Tech” by Technology & Learning magazine in June 2010. He has spoken at many conferences including TEDxNYED, and has been published in Principal Leadership magazine. Chris is the author of the edu-blog “Practical Theory” and is father to Jakob and Theo.

—
Paul Allison, Susan Ettehneim, and Chris Sloan

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

What are your personal learning networks (PLN) online? What do your students do? Do we use different or similar tools to learn online? Do you use mobiles? Do students? What do students’ PLN’s look like now? What will they look like in 1, 3, and 5 years? Samantha Adams and Meeno Rami will be two of our guests on this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers.

AND YOU!This would be a great show to invite new voices to join us to tell us how you learn online! Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific Wednesday, June 8 / World Times

Samatha Adams will join us for further conversations about the NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition, and Meeno Rami will let us know what’s happening at #engchat on Twitter on Monday evenings and beyond.

Samantha Adams
Director of Communications, NMC (www.nmc.org)
Samantha Adams came to the NMC with an extensive writing and research background in both print and digital publishing. After working with the top trade publishers in the world for a previous job digitizing content for ebooks, she fell in love with writing about emerging technologies. At the NMC, she works closely with CEO Larry Johnson to spearhead the NMC Horizon Project, which encompasses the The NMC Horizon Report series. In the recently released NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition, she was deeply involved in the research and writing of the report. As the lead writer at the NMC, Samantha also focuses on strategic communications within and outside of the NMC member community, promoting special events and publications, while managing the organization’s social media forums. In her free time, Samantha enjoys writing fiction and has recently published an anthology of short stories.

We’ll also be joined by Meenoo Rami and more of her colleagues who help make #engchat the place to be on Twitter on Mondays at 7:00 PM Eastern / 4:00 PM Pacific. Here a recent sampling:

Results for engchat

mrami2 Meenoo Rami

just bought http://www.engchat.org/ domain - new site launching soon! Thanks for your support! #engchat

59 minutes ago

JudyArzt JudyArzt

Computers in the Classroom: If I Die Young….English class assignment judyarztblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/if-i-d… #engchat

1 hour ago

mrami2 Meenoo Rami

.@caroljago: UCLA’s Ernest Morrell elected president of National Council of Teachers of English. http://tinyurl.com/3g6w9lr #engchat #nwp

1 hour ago

CoachAllam Court Allam

RT @joe_bower: Want to make a difference? Stop running away to assess and assess with your students. #engchat

2 hours ago

TheHobOrg The Hob

RT @jensc3: I’m a researcher looking for English teachers who use the #hungergames - please email me at jenscottcurwood@gmail.com #engchat

3 hours ago

maricelignacio Maricel Ignacio

I heard someone talking about bell curves the other day: “There should be hardly any A’s or B’s…” what century is this? #bced #engchat

4 hours ago

web20classroom Steven W. Anderson

From The Tempered Radical and @hutchinsonjm: Kid Lit In The Twitter Fast Lane: http://bit.ly/mcTOn5 cc: @plugusin #edchat #engchat

4 hours ago

AFTteach AFT TEACH

Waaay cool: See how the use of words has evolved by using Google Books Ngram Viewer http://bit.ly/joyTjo #edchat #engchat

6 hours ago

tkraz Tom Krawczewicz

RT @beth2point0: 5 Reasons Why E-Books Aren’t There Yet | Wired.com http://bit.ly/knz09O #edchat #engchat

7 hours ago

sccenglish SCC English

Shakespeare and the Soaps from @tesenglish - http://bit.ly/kYYv9Q #engchat

9 hours ago

sccenglish SCC English

RT @tesenglish: Entry 3 in @tesenglish ipad literature competition. Free Macbeth SoW and teaching resources: http://bit.ly/j8FVho #engchat

12 hours ago

gwynethjones The DaringLibrarian

RT @The_Librain: Teen fiction accused of being ‘rife with depravity’ gu.com/p/2ptg8/tw via @guardian Instant popularity! #TLChat #EngChat

13 hours ago

CBethM Cindy Minnich

@

#engchat archive from tonight’s discussion with @SafeSchoolsNow is up! http://bit.ly/cvPx5R

6 Jun

This would be a great show to invite new voices to join us to tell us how you learn online! Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific Wednesday, June 8 / World Times

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Do you garden with your students? Do they make things? And do they read and write about these experiences, and sometimes publish the results online?For this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers, we’ve invited (and are still inviting) National Writing Project teachers from Colorado, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, and California to come brag about the gardens they are doing with their students.

Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA , this Wednesday, June 1st  / World Times. Two of the guests we hope will be able to join us recently did a session at the National Writing Project’s Urban Sites Network meeting in Boston.

Adventures in Text Analysis: Reading and Writing a Community Garden Project
Mary Moran and Patricia Paugh,
This session investigates theories related to genre pedagogy enacted in a year-long project on community gardening in an urban neighborhood. The session will include analysis of multi-genre texts and sharing of artifacts related to purposeful writing by students who worked with an urban farming collaborative. (Patricia C. Paugh, is an Associate Professor Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Massachusetts Boston.)

We’ll also have a couple of elementary teachers who have pictures (see attached) to show us of their multiple garden projects Skyline Elementary in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Denise Ferrell and Annie Ortiz will be joining us with stories of their work with students:

We are fortunate at Skyline to have several kinds of gardens. We have a butterfly garden, an 83 ft raised bed, 5 small square raised beds, a cistern, some small dwarf fruit trees. We also have an outdoor classroom.

Fred Mindlin, Associate Director for Technology Integration at the Central California Writing Project will also be with us! Fred has been working with gardeners and digital stories and videos, and more as part of the National Writing Project’s Makes project.

Marshall Woody from the Southern Colorado Writing Project has just starting gardening with his students, and he’ll be joining us too!And more! The list keeps growing (get it?). Please plan to join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA , this Wednesday, June 1st  / World Times.

KenDint_sm.mov Watch on Posterous

See the full gallery on Posterous

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Watch Sam Allison’s Senior Recital (1 of 2) in Family  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Watch Sam Allison’s Senior Recital (2 of 2) in Family  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

One of the more inspiring threads of our collective inquiry on Teachers Teaching Teachers has been to explore how to bring gaming into our classrooms. (See some of our shows on gaming from the past 18 months.) We plan to add to that list of shows on Wednesday, May 25 at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific  World Times, and we want to invite you to join us. This week’s show began with a study group on gaming that teachers Janelle Quintans Bence and Joy Blackwell have been involved with in the North Star Writing Project (Texas). We first met Janelle in July 2007 in the National Writing Project’s Tech Matters workshops.

Janelle and her colleagues in Texas are filled with questions as they plan to bring gaming into their classrooms this fall. She sent me some of them. What better way to jump back into gaming than with a bunch of questions — the kind of questions teachers often ask when they consider adding games to their classes.

Here are the questions we’ve been brainstorming in our study group on gaming:

1. How did you all begin including gaming curriculum in your classrooms?
2. What are some of your biggest successes? Challenges?
3. How much game playing goes on in your classroom? Do students only play in social action games? What does that conversation look like? What norms are set prior to this?
4. I’m thinking about using the games students play on a regular basis as media for students to deconstruct and analyze in terms of influencing identity. Should I be playing all these games to get a better idea? Or will observing the students play suffice? What does a teacher do if he or she is not good at playing those video games?
5. Designing games really requires deep content knowledge. How much experience with game design did you have prior to letting the students explore that avenue?
6. Could you tell us about Scratch? What are the benefits of this program as compared to Game Star Mechanic?
7. What kind of evaluation do you use around gaming? 
8. Is it all informal discourse based assessment, or do you do something more formal? 
9. Has your game playing been limited to computer games or have you also used standalone consuls? 
10. How much time did you have to dedicate to help students understand how to utilize the game design tool before they began designing? Do you feel that this time has been detrimental to fulfilling your ability to satisfy state standards?

Joining us to help us to explore these questions will be Samantha Adams, the Director of Communications, at the New Media Consortium (NMC). d Samantha is one of the writers of of the recently released Horizon Report: 2011 K12 Edition, which has a section on gaming:

Game-based learning has gained considerable traction since 2003, when James Gee began to describe the impact of game play on cognitive development. Since then, research and interest in the potential of gaming on learning has exploded, as has the diversity of games themselves, with the emergence of serious games as a genre, the proliferation of gaming platforms, and the evolution of games on mobile devices. Developers and researchers are working in every area of game-based learning, including games that are goal-oriented; social game environments; non-digital games that are easy to construct and play; games developed expressly for education; and commercial games that lend themselves to refining team and group skills. Role-playing, collaborative problem solving, and other forms of simulated experiences are recognized for having broad applicability across a wide range of disciplines.

As the lead writer at the NMC, Samantha Adams was deeply involved in the research and writing of the report. We can’t wait to see what she has to say about gaming and the other items in the report: Cloud Computing, Mobiles, Open Content, Learning Analytics, Personal Learning Environments.

Given the questions coming form the North Star Writing Project’s study group on gaming, we thought it would be a good idea to also invite Chad Sansing, from the Central Virginia Writing Project. This June,  ISTE’s Unplugged, Chad plans to “take a closer look at student writing and multi-media compositions created in response to game-based learning on Digital Is, the National Writing Project’s new media archive and initiative.“And that’s not all! Fortunately, we were smart enough to ask Chad who else he thought we might invite. Thanks to his connections, Janelle and her colleagues will get to hear about gaming from these three educators as well:

• Joel Levin, a computer teacher at Manhattan’s Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School. Joel decided to start using the game Minecraft to teach an entire unit to his first- and second-grade students recently. (See an with Joel, “Educational building blocks: how Minecraft is used in classrooms,” by Andrew Webster | Published about a month ago in ars technica.)
• Melanie McBride, who wrote back to Chad and my invitation with these insights:

  Thanks for contacting me - flattered though I’m probably going to be too far out for this :) my ideas are crazy and I should be kept away from the airwaves.

  I’d recommend my partner, children’s author and elementary teacher, Liam O’Donnell over myself for this - he’s currently using Minecraft with a spec ed class and taking an interesting approach (I’m biased of course). In addition to his experience as a teacher, he’s been writing and advocating for games based learning for a very long time. As well he’s written extensively about reluctant readers, boys and learning and many of his graphic novels are aimed at those readers - high action, lower vocab.http://liamodonnell.com As for myself: I’m currently on a leave of absence from high school teaching to write my book and research *situated* informal learning (the out of school
  kind) of gaming and virtual worlds. While I still locate myself peripherally to the games based learning in schools/education, I quite intentionally chose to focus on “informal” and “situated” learning contexts rather than school examples.  We’re studying Minecraft for use with early childhood educators (post secondary) with small children. http://edgelab.ryerson.ca/2011/05/19/tinkering-with-minecraft-learning-from-the-edge/
  

• We invited Liam O’Donnell as well. Liam sent along this link:
  

  “Here’s a post about my first week using Minecraft with my kids. It’ll give you a sense of my teaching style and philosophy. http://liamodonnell.com/feedingchange/2011/05/messy-learning-with-minecraft/”
  

  For me, it was the perfect vehicle to build the literacy skills of seven grade 5 and 6 students who come to me for reading and writing support three days a week. For these students, motivation to read and write is a big challenge. Previously, we had done a writing unit around their Nintendo DSi’s, specifically Pokemon, where they had drawn maps of the game areas, profiled their favourite Pokemon and written strategy guides for specific Pokemon fights.  I knew they loved video games and after screening a few Minecraft videos on youtube, they were totally eager to play.
  

It should be a very interesting show! We think Janelle and Joy should get some questions answered, and maybe be inspired to ask a few new ones. Maybe you will be too!

Please join us tomorrow, Wednesday, May 25 at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific / World Times. —
Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, and Chris Sloan

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

On this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers, we’re having some of our current and former students on to talk about the high school-college transition. Please plan to join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesday, May 18. World Times.

We’ll also be joined by a couple of National Writing Project teachers who have been involved with the “Framework for Success in Post-secondary Writing” that came out a few months ago. These frameworks include this amazing list that we’ll explore on this week webcast:

Habits of Mind

The Framework identifies eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing—ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and will support students’ success in a variety of fields and disciplines:

• Curiosity: the desire to know more about the world.
• Openness: the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
• Engagement: a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
• Creativity: the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
• Persistence: the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
• Responsibility: the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
• Flexibility: the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
• Metacognition: the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

Our guests will include:

• Lennie Irvin (who just completed his PhD), Co-Director of the San Antonio Writing Project will be joining us once again. In addition to working with the above frameworks, for the past four summers, Lennie has facilitated an open institute, Crossing2College where they’ve been asking:

What is College Readiness in Writing? and How Do We Get There?

Every year, we have far too many students like Ian. They aren’t the AP kids (though they might be), and they aren’t the students who fail our classes. They do OK, even sometimes receiving excellent grades in our high school classrooms. But when they get to college, they place into Developmental English classes, or worse (like Ian) they crash and burn and drop out of college. They fall off the bridge between high school and college. This site is devoted to local efforts to help more students graduating from high school place directly into college level writing classes, and importantly—do well in freshman composition. It is meant both as a resource and a professional community of practice dedicated to doing more to prepare our students for college and for helping these students do well once they are in college, for “college readiness” and “student success” in college are really two sides of the same coin.

• Kirsten Jamsen whose affiliations include being the co-director of the Minnesota Writing Project. Kirsten presented on the “Frameworks for Success in Postsecondary Writing” at the National Writing Project’s Annual Meeting in November, where she discussed the statement’s purpose, and recounted the process of composing it. We’ll ask her do some of that again. We’ll also use some of her questions from that session to guide our discussion on Wednesday evening: “What is your response to the statement? How might you use it to promote effective writing instruction at your school? How could this statement help you design thoughtful professional development?”
• David Pulling whose students at Louisiana State University, Eunice, have been posting on Voices on the Gulf this year. David is the Director of Continuing Education at LSU Eunice, and will share his insights into what it takes to be a successful college writer as well. David is also an active member of the The National Writing Project of Acadiana.
  

Please plan to join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesday, May 18. World Times.

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Please join us on Teachers Teaching Teachers http://edtechtalk.com/live on Wednesday 9:00 PM Eastern / 6:00 PM Pacific, USA / 10:00 AM Japan Standard Time (Thursday). We’ll be joined once again by Kim Cofino who will give us a general update, two months (almost) after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. She’ll also describe a project she started, “quakestories.” 

Another teacher from Japan and self-described “change agent” Eric Bossieux will be with us as well, and a colleague of Paul’s at East-West School for International Studies, a Japanese teacher who has just returned from a trip to Japan will be joining us as well. Martha, a student from East-West will be with us too. Please join us!

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Talk gaming with us on Teachers Teaching Teachers tomorrow (Wednesday) at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times Barry Joseph and Juan Rubio from Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program will be with us on this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Juan told us that he “will talk about developing a geo location based game using mobile technology to explore local history and global issues with middle school students from the Bronx.” Also we try to find out more about an “upcoming project Let’s Talk Sustainability a Second Life talk show to be produced and developed by youth this summer.”Also David Gagnog, who will have just finished an ARIS Global Game Jam, will be with us!

It’s getting exciting!We hope you can join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »

Teachers are learners at heart.  We’ve got full time jobs, rooms full of hormonally-driven teens, stacks of papers to grade – yet we still find time to write and to learn ourselves.  On this Wednesday’s Teachers Teaching Teachers, we’ll hear from two inspirational teachers, Donovan Hohn and Alice Barr. Join them at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesday, April 13th, World Times.

Donovan Hohn’s writing has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, and The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 2. A former New York City English teacher, he is now the features editor of GQ. He lives in New York with his wife and sons. You may have heard his interview with Terry Gross on NPR on March 29, 2011, where he talked about his experiences writing his first book, Moby Duck.

Alice Barr, our colleague at Seedlings, is the Instructional Technology Coordinator at Yarmouth High School, Yarmouth, Maine, a Google Certified Teacher and Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Maine. She mentors faculty and students on 1:1 laptop integration and is network administrator and webmaster. People ask her all the time what’s available this summer and she wanted to share her own upcoming courses so she launched and twittered a Summer 2011 PD Opportunities page that has already become an amazing shared resource as we begin to think about upcoming opportunities to learn something new or share what we have learned. Add your plans at http://alicebarr.blogspot.com/p/summer-2011-professional-development.html Join the conversation at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesday, April 13th, World Times.

Posted via email from New Journalism | Comment »