Registration is now open for the MassCUE & M.A.S.S. Annual Technology Conference.

REGISTER
http://2010tgl2-masscue.com/index.html

I hear from so many that they are thinking about deploying Google Apps in their schools. If you want to hear more from people who have already taken the plunge, here are two sessions that will be of interest to you.

Session 1 – WEDNESDAY, October 27 – 10:15 am – 12:25 pm
Room 21
Getting Going with Google Apps for Education
Rob Ford, Director of Technology, Wellesley Public School

Are you interested in using Google Apps for Education in your school or district, but unsure of how to get started? This session will walk you through the process of implementing Google Apps for Education from start to finish. We will also look at how to integrate Google Apps forEducation with LDAP, Moodle, and other tools, before concluding with a discussion of the privacy and policy debates around Google Apps for Education and other online collaboration suites.

This is more demo than hands-on, but you are welcome to bring your own laptop and work along with Rob.

Session 3 – WEDNESDAY, October 27 – 2:00 pm – 4:10 pm

Room 21
Application of GoogleApps: Collaboration in the Wild
Dr. Lee McCanne, Director of Technology and School Libraries

This hands-on session will have two parts:  the first part devoted to learning how to use these tools for collaboration by diving in and doing it, the second half devoted to sharing examples and ideas from teachers and integration specialist.In the first half we will get everyone setup with a public gmail account (if you do not already have one) and begin to explore the collaboration features of GoogleApps.  We will discuss the pragmatic use and some of the decisions to be made with the Enterprise Education Account (that Google offers public schools).  No experience with GoogleApps required, but experienced users are also welcome.  The second half of the session will focus on examples of educational application of GoogleApps and discussions of use in the wild.  Experienced users are encouraged to share their ideas and examples with the group.

Bring your own laptop.

Session reservation: $25.00 per session

Registration is now open for the MassCUE & M.A.S.S. Annual Technology Conference.   I’m looking forward to this.

REGISTER
http://2010tgl2-masscue.com/index.html

As promised, here is another session description.

Adobe Classroom Suite – PreConference

Discover new ways to engage students in learning using Adobe Digital School Collection software across the curriculum Today’s technology provides educators with highly effective ways to address a wide variety of learning styles-and engage all types of students, regardless of academic strengths and interests. Beyond the textbook alone, teachers now can use digital images, graphics, video, audio, and animation to engage students in learning across the curriculum. Students can express what they’ve learned through sights and sounds that go far beyond text-based reports. Beyond the classroom-in higher education and the workplace-proficiency with digital technology has become essential. No longer a novelty, digital media is applied and relied upon everywhere. So, in addition to using new technology to address diverse learning styles, teachers know it’s equally important that their students can use the new technology themselves. Students who don’t acquire substantial 21st century skill levels in the K-12 years will be at a decisive disadvantage when they enter college and the workforce. Join Robert Simpson, Teacher Learning Center Director Ferryway School, Adobe Youth Voices Leader, Adobe Education Leader and Digital School Collection Trainer to learn how to incorporate the Adobe Digital School Collection (Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements, and Acrobat Pro 9) in your classroom and across core subjects through your district. This is a full day hands-on workshop. http://twitter.com/becomingamerica

25 is the maximum, so all others will be wait-listed.

All sessions will be held from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at the Sharon Community Center

As one of many volunteers working on the 2010 MassCUE / M.A.S.S. conference (October 27 & 28), I have been active with the conference committee in organizing breakout sessions. This means reading proposals, recruiting presenters, and helping to make sure we have sessions that cover all the strands and that will appeal to all our audiences. The title for the conference this year is Today’s Global Learners—Tomorrow’s Global Leaders and the breakout session descriptions are really living up to the theme. In anticipation of registration for the conference opening very soon, I will post several breakout session descriptions over the next few days.

The session below, Themes for 21st Century Education, is a panel session, and the moderator and panelists are Massachusetts School Superintendents, members of M.A.S.S. If you are an educator in Massachusetts or New England, quality breakout sessions like this one should provide the impetus for you to come to Gillette Stadium in October for the conference. If you are further away, maybe this description will inspire you to convene something similar for your state conference.

Breakout session description:

Where is public education headed?  We know that technology has exploded the possibilities for teaching and learning. We also know that our students must be prepared for life and work in a global context. And we know that certain competencies will be required in the workforce of the future. So what is the debate about 21st Century Skills all about? Is it about curriculum? Is it, as some say, about lowering the high content standards that have put Massachusetts first in the nation in student achievement? Finally, how does technology power the acquisition and application of skills, and support efforts to globalize the existing curriculum?

A panel of superintendents will discuss their work to deepen their understanding of the trends in technology, global education, and workforce skills as they relate to the mission of schools and districts in the years ahead.  The panelists will share their learning, reflect upon the tension between skills and content, and provide examples of what exemplary schools are doing to prepare students for life and work in the global village.

Moderator:
Anthony Bent, Leominster Public Schools

Panelists:
Maureen LaCroix, Bedford Public Schools
Kristine  Nash,  Hanover Public Schools
Ann Frederick-Koufman, Watertown Public Schools

Sometimes the right video makes all the difference in a Professional Development moment, a  School Committee Presentation, or a department meeting.
Here are a few videos that I have used recently and that have provided good springboards to dynamic conversations.

2020 Vision – Karl Fisch

Joe’s Non-Netbook

Medieval Help Desk with English Subtitles

Periodic Table of the Elements

I have signed up for the ISTE webinar:

Make the Leader-Shift:  Strategies to Develop Transformational Leadership
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
1 pm Pacific / 2 pm Mountain / 3 pm Central / 4 pm Eastern

From the ISTE site:

Effective and sustainable leadership is essential to survive and thrive in our ever-changing world. Transformational leadership inspires organizations and their people towards the vision and goals while empowering and building the capacity of the people within. Yet in many cases, this type of leadership is still elusive. Join leadership expert and internationally certified coach, Valerie Woods, for this thought provoking discussion about transformational leadership and the strategies to move towards enhanced leadership effectiveness. This session is intended for all participants who want to learn more about shifting strategies to develop transformational leadership.

presenter: Valerie Woods, MA Leadership, CEC

The description certainly catches my attention and the facilitator has an interesting bio.

I would love to hear from any of you who have participated in any ISTE webinars. Was it high quality? Is it something you would recommend? Did you watch solo or did you get a group together and have discussions about it?

R emember the old parable from India about the blind men and the elephant ? The parable tells the story of a group of blind men, each trying to describe the elephant from the one bit of the elephant he is touching. The blind man at the tail says the elephant is a rope, the blind man at the side of the beast says it is a wall, and the man feeling the tusk claims that the elephant is a spear.

Well, I am sometimes reminded of this fable when I think about how we all define good technology use and best practices. We all do our best to bring meaningful technology integration to our schools, teachers, and students. Naturally, we each bring our own perspective about what really exemplary use of technology looks like.

As I read journals, blogs, and books, I work to envision the big picture, the whole elephant. I continually learn from my colleagues, and as I integrate their great perspectives into my framework my understanding grows. I know I am more effective when I am part of a bigger team.

I suggest that all educators must enter the technology arena and contribute their unique perspectives and understandings. When all points of view are articulated, all facets of technology literacy and 21st century skills come together to form a comprehensive picture, one which we can all embrace. We have to put all the parts together to get an accurate picture so that we aren’t all seeing just our part of the “elephant.”

I share here some elements of my own personal journey . My own Personal Learning Network has developed in a number of spheres. Like many of you, locally, at the district level, I participate in many committees that are not directly technology-related and I reach out to connect with educators at every level and discipline. This really helps my picture of school level and classroom level needs and concerns, successes and challenges.

A little bit wider in scope, I attend the job-alike meetings of the Assabet Valley Education Collaborative . The collaboration with my remarkable local colleagues is incredibly rich. I learn so much from each of them and together we accomplish more than we could separately.

At the state level, as many of you do, I serve on several boards and advisory panels. Such commitments require my effort beyond the work day, but they are all incredibly enriching. They each offer a really good return on investment (ROI), if you think of investment in terms of time and energy. I learn so much from being active in these organizations. I can draw on the wisdom, experience, and knowledge of my colleagues.

Many of you are members of national organizations, as well. You belong to ISTE or ASCD or NSDC or CoSN – or maybe all of these! I encourage you to actively participate. Rather than be a passive member who receives the emails and publications, volunteer for something. It’s fairly easy to volunteer to be a reviewer of RFPs for a national conference and the experience if very educational.

Another excellent opportunity to collaborate with others and work in a team and bring others in your district into the dialog about technology is to bring a team to the MassCUE – M.A.S.S. Technology Conference . There are sessions in many content areas and at all levels, for teachers, technicians, administrators, and technology specialists. Maybe bringing a district team to Gillette Stadium for the conference will kick off a personal learning journey for your whole district and can jumpstart technology initiatives. Involve many people, as they will each add their perspective and help your schools to see the whole elephant.

E.W. Dijkstra, the Dutch computer scientist, once said that, “Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” If one takes this line of thinking and applies it to computers in education, one can assert that the use of computers in education is not about the computers; it is about education. More and more, people of widely varied backgrounds – educators, technology experts, education policy makers and futurists – are in agreement that technology should be used to help students achieve learning goals. I hear less often that students should be learning about technology for the sake of “knowing technology” and having marketable skills. That means that there is a great challenge for educators to be “able to integrate technology into the curriculum to improve student achievement” (www.nclb.org).
Meeting this challenge well, will take practice and professional development.

“Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”

The NCLB Act refers many times throughout the 670 pages of the act to professional development for teachers and administrators, and encourages states and school districts to support and offer technology professional development. Professional development is a necessary component in working toward the goals of NCLB. “It’s not enough simply to have a computer and an Internet connection in the classroom if they are not made part of the learning process. Technology is a tool like any other, and the value does not come from having access to it, but rather how it is used” (www.nclb.org). This reminds me of an analogy that I heard Chris Dede make at a conference about ten years ago. He said that a computer in the classroom is not like a fire. You can stand near a fire and get warm and reap the benefits of the fire simply by proximity to it. You can’t simply huddle around a computer and reap educational benefits from being near to it. It has to be used and used well.

When I think about bringing the power of technology to bear in our teaching in all subject areas, planning, and assessment, I automatically think about professional development – constant learning. The kind of professional development is a deeper level of professional development (PD) than the simple “how-to” of a software tool. I don’t think schools should offer any how to workshops or courses and envision that it will substantially change teaching and learning. I think instead, that we should be weaving technology into every single professional development activity we offer. By this I mean that whether the workshop is about teaching math at the elementary level or developing units around essential questions and problem-based inquiry or creating rubrics, the workshop should have technology as an essential component.

One successful way to offer such PD is something I will call a “hybrid model” of teaching technology integration. The “hybrid model” calls for a focus on a content area or pedagogical skill that is not in the technology arena, but also calls for the course or workshop to use technology seamlessly to achieve the goals of the course. A “team” of teachers, one with a stronger content knowledge and another with stronger technology expertise might work together to facilitate such courses. If you have had success in your district with a “team-teaching” approach, a content expert paired with a technology expert who will help to include an essential technology dimension to the class, I’d love to hear from you – would you be willing to share your successes? If so, you could share by a comment on this post, or you could write a guest blog post that you could send to me and I could post for you.

A reasonable professional development strategy is one that begins with a CRAWL – a task that provides easy entry into the topic or concept being taught. Participants should very quickly reap the benefits of some early successes. This follows how well designed video games work – it is easy to enter the game and players achieve some simple and early successes.

The second phase – WALK – is one in which expectations are raised and participants challenge themselves to master more complex concepts and skills. They begin to make connections more quickly between the skills they are learning and the educational outcomes made possible by applying these skills to teaching and learning. In the video game analogy, they have mastered many of the game moves and have progressed up a couple of levels. They are moving through the virtual world more quickly and are feeling more comfortable navigating the game landscape.

The third phase – RUN – is marked by participants taking what they have learned and running with it. They have the confidence to adapt their new skills to meet their style and goals, and further, to begin to innovate both in their use of technology as well as in their actual lessons and assignments. If this were a video game, they would be getting closer to saving the Princess and would be munching stars and power boosters and easily defeating the power draining obstacles the game puts in their path. They would have learned more moves and could switch between the basic game moves and the trickier ones at will.

The professional development area I want to focus on with educators in my school district this year is online communication and collaboration. My vision includes teachers and administrators confidently using listserves, blogs, wikis, and “cloud” document sharing to teach, learn, communicate, and collaborate.

What I am struggling with is applying the CRAWL – WALK – RUN strategy to this effort and envisioning the CRAWL stage. What can we expect in CRAWL? Is it simply reading blogs and commenting? If so, what are those early successes? What impels people forward to WALK?

In the WALK phase, administrators might replace current newsletters and announcements previously done on paper and on web pages with a blog. The wins are easy to foresee – instant communication with many, a sense of personal accomplishment, and positive community feedback. One of many possible “win” scenarios for educators would be participating with students in an online environment (Moodle or a wiki or a blog) and the early successes, again, are easy to imagine.

As I plan professional development activities for the coming year, it would be so helpful to hear from other educators. I welcome advice on how to frame that CRAWL or introductory phase. I especially am interested in hearing from voices of experience. If you have accomplished this in your district how did you begin and what were the intrinsic rewards for those early adopters?

T here were so many good sessions at the CoSN Conference , along with lots of noteworthy connections that I made, that I could write many more entries about it, probably too many. Instead, I want to tell you why CoSN is so valuable to school technology administrators (Technology Directors, CTOs, CIOs, etc).

CoSN provides professional development, advocacy, representation in Washington, webcasts webinars, research papers, and regular briefings on key issues.   (CoSN Member Benefits )

I belong to numerous professional organizations, all of which provide worthwhile benefits that I value and make the most of in my work. Some examples are:

• Massachusetts Computer Using Educators ~ MassCUE
• International Society for Technology in Education ~ ISTE
• New England ISTE ~ NEISTE
• National Staff Development Council ~ NSDC
• Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ~ ASCD

But by far, the professional development that is most relevant to me in my role of Director of Technology is through my membership in CoSN (Massachusetts chapter: METAA ).
CoSN provides PD designed for K-12 technology leaders; it is where I can stay up to date on best practices and solutions that are specific to my role in the school district.

CoSN is working on certification criteria for school CTOs, it provides CTO clinics around the country, it provides voice and leadership for educational CTOs, and, since it is the professional home organization for CTOs nationally, the peer connections I have made and continue to make provide a network of expertise that is phenomenal.

I encourage you to look into CoSN membership for yourself.

Last, here are a few more snippets from the conference.

From Gartner and CoSN Session
Technesia is when stakeholders fail to remember the value of technology in their environment. It is not uncommon for the other department leaders to push to cut technology budgets to then expect the same level of service, systems, and efficiency post-cuts. Stakeholders really have to understand the value of IT.

When thinking about TCO, most people have little difficulty understanding direct costs, but it is harder to get your arms around indirect costs. For example, if you reduce tech support positions to reduce direct costs, think about how much it costs to have users support themselves. Are we really happy to pay teachers to do their own tech support? Are we sacrificing PD, planning, curriculum development, and time with students so that teachers can support technology? Teachers are not trained to do this – they do not have the expertise or practice. It would be ineffective and more costly even if they made the same hourly wage as a break-fix technician. This is a HIGH indirect cost. Establish and communicate the value of direct costs.

From Thinkfinity Session
Thinkfinity is a totally free, online resource. All content is aligned to ISTE NETS and state standards and is a partner with Partnership for 21st Century Skills. They offer free professional development.

From closing keynote – Clay Christensen and Michael Horn
We need to move beyond layering technology on top of what we already do. We need to use technology to transform teaching and learning.

Technological progress always outpaces what our typical customers can absorb.

Looming budget cuts and teacher shortages are an opportunity, not a threat.