CLMS Annual Conference

Last month the California League of Middle Schools had their annual conference in San Diego, CA. The goal of this conference is generally to provide Middle School teachers, administrators, etc. with a rich opportunity for meaningful and relevant professional development. Unfortunately, leading up to the conference, there were a number of underlying challenges, as attendance was down (budget constraints), and the number of attendees signing up for the paid sessions was also severely affected. As a result many of the presenters that were due to receive a stipend were told they would not receive it (lodging would still be covered) and were given the opportunity to decline conducting their scheduled presentation. The educational troops rallied and as far as I know, not one person declined to conduct their presentation. This is yet another one of the wonderful things about educators. Even when the circumstances change the greater good and message is not lost in the minutia of the moment.

I had to privilege and pleasure of presenting two sessions at CLMS. One session was titled, "How to turn PowerPoint into an Interactive Multimedia Instructional Tool" and the other was a three hour hands-on workshop titled, "Build it Better: Project Based Learning from the Ground Up with Google Sketchup. The PowerPoint session was very well attended and I only wish I had more than an hour to really share and demonstrate how to develop, plan, design, and implement a PowerPoint in that manner. Perhaps at next year's conference I will submit for a three hour session and really get into the nuts and bolts of instructional design as well as utilizing PowerPoint in way beyond a linear presentation tool. Given the numerous requests for that PowerPoint I am posting the session here and encourage any readers of this posting to contact me for any help you may need in creating a PowerPoint like this.


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by chocxtc


In addition, the schedule and format for the sketchup session can be found here

I am very pleased with all my fellow educators that took the time to present at this conference and to borrow from my good friend Kyle we certainly, "brought water to the desert."

I also would like to thank my good friend Dr. Mark Wagner for his support and efforts to spread the ed tech word.

CUE Sessions/Reflections

Earlier in the month of March I had the fortunate opportunity to conduct two different hands on session at the Computer Using Educators Annual Conference. One of the sessions I co-hosted was the Google Workshop for Educators (Google Learning Institute). My co-host was another Google Certified Teacher, Lainie McGann. This session was the first to fill up and sell out and was very well attended. Lots of google apps and google tools were covered during this session. One of the things that I shared on how to make and use, which also happens to be my favorite is a custom search engine. I am of the perspective that rather than rely on school/district filters, educators can provide a more streamlined method for their students to conduct research on the internet utilizing a custom search engine. By building a custom search engine you can control which sites your students access, which sites to specifically exclude from the search results, and you can remove the ads from the search results. I build a custom search engine for images. The purpose of this search engine was for students to find images that are in the public domain and/or have a creative commons license. By searching only these sites I also ensure that all of the results are K-12 appropriate images for assignments such as digital storytelling, powerpoint presentations, etc. Feel free to link to my site or contact me if you would like the embed code to add to your site or blog. My custom image search can be found here.

The other session I had the privilege to conduct at CUE was an iPhone/iPod Touch in education supersession. I have already shared and posted a cell phone in education presentation I conducted last year, so there is no need to state my position on that subject. What I will add is that these tools and various other smartphone technologies are transforming and will continue to transform education as we know it. These tools can most certainly help classes and schools work towards increasing access to the curriculum in a much more meaningful and engaging manner. My session covered many of the applications that are available for each piece of hardware in a variety of subject areas. I would like to add that most of the applications are currently free to download onto your iPhone or iPod Touch. The session keynote presentation is below:


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by chocxtc

A Lack Of Clarity In A Connected School

With the events of today happening right before many of our eyes and in some cases our ears I could not help but ponder the following: What is the deal with a lack of adequate bandwidth in schools? Why aren't all schools connected to either cable television or satellite television? Why is so much money spent on more and more equipment, but not on the infrastructure to support the use of that equipment?

I reached a dizzying level of frustration at school today. During my planning for the day's events and seizing the many teachable moments that were destined to occur I was met with a complete disaster. Despite my many attempts to stream the Inauguration into my classroom, first with many computers and then ultimately through one computer, my students and I were left with a simple audio feed of the Inauguration. I wondered how can a school and district continually discuss the need for more technology, more computers, an increased use of these tools, and greater use of Web 2.0 applications yet we could not even adequately stream one of the most important events in recent time.

Not to become too distraught I immediately reached for the television and figured perhaps I can get a signal so that we can simply view the day's events on a small television. After all something was better than nothing. As soon as I pushed the power button our anticipation, excitement, and fervor was met with, static. I even feebly attempted to maneuver the antenna delicately making micro adjustments in the hopes I would get that one slight signal. Some signal, any signal, just let me get an image on the screen so we can see the excitement of all attendance in Washington DC. We wanted to get the classic picture of the President taking the oath of office and then delivering their Inauguration address. My hopes were crushed and we were left with a periodic audio feed.

Thus, leading me to this blog posting and the aforementioned questions. With all the talk about tech in schools, it is imperative that talk includes infrastructure. No matter how technologically advanced a school is or has a vision to become, it will only be as good as the network infrastructure it most likely already has in place. Bandwidth pipes are only able to handle so many connections and unless you have a situation where the network can be expanded along with the increased technological load schools are actually doing their teachers and students a disservice.

In addition the television troubles had me thinking, in the event of an emergency how would I get my information? Yes I have a cell phone as do most of my students. But when a major catastrophe occurs, are most looking to their cell phones for information or the television. No matter how effective twitter, SMS, and email can be, but to not have a reliable television connection is not appropriate. Of course I can see it now, if we set up cable or satellite in all the rooms the teachers will just show television rather than teach, hmmm are the teachers adults that need to be babysat or are they highly educated trained adults that are fully capable of managing things for them and their students without a need for ridiculous innuendo and interventions?

Seems to me safety, connectivity, accessiblitily, and reliability are more than just key technology vocabulary words. They need to be applied to all facets of the school infrastructure with a plan for scalability as well as proper implementation.

Presentation on Developing E-Learning Courseware/E-Modules for a Medical, Dentistry, and Pharmacy University in Africa

Social Networking as Augmentation To In Class Discussion

Teaching A Course Authoring Package Online: Lessons Learned

Professional Development=Professional Progress

"Quick hurry get your submissions in" that was the theme of many twitter and plurk postings earlier this week. Why? The National Education Computing Conference "NECC" was accepting submissions for the conference in 2009 in Washington DC. Many of my friends, colleagues, and professional learning network "PLN" friends were scrambling to get their last minute submissions in. Most are simply hoping to get at least one accepted while others, myself included, have multiple sessions we would like to have accepted. I also want to add that my friend Dr. Mark Wagner has very insightful take on the submission process and his experiences with it.

During the time in which I was completing my submission I could not help but reflect on many things associated with it. The first and perhaps most important was that I initiated a proposal to conduct a session in which I would moderate a panel on the value of having a PLN. I posted an query on both twitter and plurk asking if anybody in my PLN would be interested in participating on the panel. The response was beyond amazing. I had many who said yes, some even felt honored to share the stage with me, and those that did not want to be on the stage offered support by doing things like moderating a backchannel chat, or operating a camera to live stream the session.

Unfortunately, the format only permits me to have 6 additional participants on stage, but if my submission is accepted I think demonstrating the real value of having a good PLN will be easy to show. Audience members will be able to see the level of support one gets when they not only have a good PLN, but are actively participating with their network. As it stands I may have fellow educators connected from as far away as Europe. I am hopeful to have several continents represented to further emphasize the value of the network. I can only humbly think that without technology and tools such as twitter and plurk, I would not be the educator I am today. I am certain I would have less than 10% of the resources and support I get from my PLN. This is my preferred type of professional development. It also emphasizes the need for teachers to be involved and to attend conferences in order to establish and build a PLN

I have posted links to all three sessions I have submitted and hope to not only see many or all of you at NECC, I hope you will either be able to attend one of my sessions or contribute to the session on having a good PLN. Feel free to post comments and share your thoughts and opinions on this. If possible I will include them in my presentation at the CLMS/CLHS/CUE Technology Conference in Monterey, CA this December.

Build It Better: Project Based Learning From The Ground Up With Google Sketchup [Formal Session : BYOL] (43610829)

Teacher, Teach Thyself-Make Your Own PD PLaN [Formal Session : Panel] (43720659)

We Are Rolling: Film Production And Its' Pedagogical Application In Education. [Workshop : Hands-on] (43610897)