Blog of Brian Kuhn, containing my thoughts, comments and questions.


Alan November day today

Nov-202007
Back in November 2005 we invited Alan November to speak to us about two things (1) building schools for the future and (2) what are teachers, students, and school systems doing around the world to infuse technology into their practice and lives.  One of our school administrators "Dave", called that day the "November Awakening".  Interestingly, he was right.
 
Over the past two years, teachers and school principals have been on an innovation journey with technology experimentation, adoption, and related changes in their practice.  my43 was "born" during this period and is living up to our expectations, perhaps surpassing them, in serving to transform the learning and work in our school district.  Conversations have substantially changed from "computers" to learning, teaching, leading, and administering with a variety of technologies.
 
I believe Alan November was a key catalyst in this learning journey.  Of course, the commitment and risk taking of our leaders and educators, and the support of my team have been absolutely instrumental in making this possible.
 
Today we had 60 teachers in the morning and another 60 in the afternoon from seven of our secondary schools.  Each school had a learning team and had specific questions about how to adopt technology, to learn certain technologies (my43, blogs, wikis, virtual classrooms, skype, 21st century skills, discussion boards, etc.).  Alan in top form shared key search and interactive web techniques including:
  • altavista's "host:" option to specify a domain to search in such as "bc.ca" or "uk", or "ac.uk", etc. and taught us about using country codes to focus a search.  For example when researching about world war II, students need a balanced perspective - focus the search on Japan (jp) or United States (us) or United Kingdon (uk) resources and compare and contrast.
  • http://screencast.com to capture videocasts of lessons with audio over
  • skype for free phone calls - read conference (audio, video) calls between students in different countries

Events like this are still risky... technology can let us down.  We had some wireless connectivity issues, wireless reliability issues, very slow network performance (was it wireless, school network, PLN, a district service - my43, the Internet... very difficult to know sometimes).  It does highlight the importance of infrastructure to ensure that teachers are comfortable betting their lessons on digital powered 21st century learning and teaching.

I had quite a few conversations with teachers about the concerns...

  • not enough access - some teachers had no school supplied laptops, a few had their personal laptops
  • dependant on the technology working for the lesson to proceed - no longer are teachers having backup plans to accommodate failed technology - when the technology fails so does the lesson...  this is a serious situation
  • network performance issues came up frequently related to accessing my43, Internet resources and tools, e-mail, BCeSIS, etc.

We have really got to get our minds around how to improve our infrastructure, and fast.  One teacher was reminding me that no longer is text king - teacher lessons and student work involves rich media including audio, video, digital photos, etc.  This will escalate the need to improve our networks, access devices, storage capacity, backup options, etc.  The challenges will shift and morf so we need to try to leap ahead of this and soon.

From the level of buzz in the Heritage Woods library, I would say people were very engaged in learning, researching, challenging, questioning, discovering, etc.  They were learning together as school teams and as a large group.

Great job by Jill Reid in organizing and facilitating our day.  Great job by all the participants in diving in and being risk takers!  Thanks to Martine Duby for supporting people with wireless access and how to use my43 for virtual classrooms.  Thanks to my team (they like to keep a low profile) for making some wireless adjustments (adding SD43Learn) and making sure the Connections tab showed up on teacher laptops...  And thanks to Heritage Woods (Doug Sheppard) for hosting.

All in all, a great day!

Brian

 
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Tuesday, 20 Nov 2007 09:31 by The afternoon session was great!
It was wonderful to hear Alan November again. His webcast for the district http://online.sd43.bc.ca/staff_development/webcast.htm was one of the things that lit a fire under me and encouraged my to explore technology as a means for students to learn 'new things in new ways'. This weekend I was listening to some of his podcasts http://nlcommunities.com/podcasts/1798/blc06/default.aspx and I wrote a blog post about them: http://eduspaces.net/dtruss/weblog/216574.html Looking back at it, my reflections were somewhat sarcastic and negative... A product of feeling like things just haven't been moving fast enough. This afternoon changed that for me. There are a lot of great teachers out there doing wonderful things, and there are many more teachers out there feeling overwhelmed by how much there is to learn, who are still willing to take the next step forward. On a more personal note, the world of web2.0 http://del.icio.us/dtruss/web2.0 has given me wings, but I realized that I too have a long way to go before I am doing all the things that I can to give my students wings too! Thanks to Jill Reid for the invitation, to all the leaders who helped make a day like today possible, and to Alan November... I am refueled and ready to continue my journey of learning along with my students. Here are some notes about today e-mailed to me from Joni, a true leader in our school. She may not be tech savvy (yet), but teachers like her who offer their leadership, guidance and support are what will help 'us' move forward using technology 'for learning' rather than just using technology to teach! webcast site: Jingproject http://www.jingproject.com/?CMP=KgoogleJhomeTM Suggestions: Kid jobs for the class 1) Answer questions from class. This kid needs to answer all questions, if he can't, he needs to find the answer on the web, then post the answer. 2) Continuous researcher through class 3) Official scribe: takes notes for the class every day. Post them to the site. 4) Create a Wiki site. Allows children make a contribution to the world. wikipedia, or your own space like www.wikispaces.com 5) Contributing any source that they find on he web to the class: use a social networking site. eg. www.diigo.com create a diigo account for the class or every student has their own account and then "share to group" David Truss http://eduspaces.net/dtruss/weblog/ http://eduspaces.net/dtruss/presentations/317/clean
Thursday, 22 Nov 2007 10:51 by Sustaining the Enthusiasm
It is very impressive how you have been able to sustain the enthusiasm over the last two years since Alan first visited the district. It is also amazing how a district can go from having the reputation of "being behind" with technology to the very front. Sometimes it seems easier to make a big step than several small steps. I think you also nicely highlight the challenge - the infrastructure is not a one time investment, but an ongoing investment - it is not simply a "tech project" because the more excited people become with the possibilities the more the infrastructure needs to grow. Well done Brian . .. I guess it opens the question if Alan helped take you to where you are now - how do you go to the next place and what will be the next "awakening"? CK
Thursday, 22 Nov 2007 11:36 by The next awakening
Chris raises a great question. What is the next big thing or place beyond today for Coquitlam? I suggest that our my43 journey to transform the learning and work in our school district will be our next big thing for quite a number of years. An interesting thing about my43... is that it is possibly limitless in supporting learning, teacher practice, and work. Our educational focus on formative assessment, differentiated instruction, design with the end in mind, etc. all provide tremendous challenges and my43 transformational opportunities. I think it is only limited by our imaginations. Perhaps the question is, what will our collective imagination powered thinking bring us beyond or with my43? What is it that will be most transformed? How do we leverage my43 to go "good to great" in Coquitlam? How do we continue to add "shareholder" (student achievement, parent satisfaction) value? I think we should create our own "Did you know" video that chronicles Coquitlams journey to 2020. Is anyone with me on this?
Thursday, 13 Dec 2007 06:28 by Keep Bringing Them In
I loved having Alan November come to speak in our district. Since that time I have made great leaps in my efforts to apply technology to the elementary setting. I also was grateful for the opportunity to hear the Will Richardson speak, and have made an effort to start blogging on a regular basis myself. I was wondering...when can we get them back again? Are there any other educators / motivational speakers of their caliber on the horizon, coming to a school gymnasium near me?
Friday, 14 Dec 2007 07:17 by Bringing in the big thinkers
Hey James - you are not alone in your great leaps. Alan November has helped us move to teaching and learning WITH technology from ABOUT technology. We are "planning" to bring in Will Richardson next school year for a series of professional development days. Staff Development is working on it... stay tuned. I am a huge believer in bringing in well respected external voices. This approach stimulates our thinking in new and interesting ways for sure.
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