Monday, December 14, 2009

The 2009 Edublogs Awards Ceremony Is Thursday (and Be Sure to Vote Quickly!)

We've just announced the time and date for the 2009 Edublog Awards Ceremony, which will be this Thursday December 17th US Time 4:00pm PST / 7:00pm EST, which is Friday December 18th 12:00am GMT / 5:30am Mumbai / 11:00am Australia EST.  Here's a world time link so you can be sure you have the exact time in your part of the world:  TimeandDate.com.

Remember, voting closes before this -- at 11:59pm US Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday December 16th.  That's 8:59pm US PST. Other international times here.  Don't delay!  Vote now!

The Awards Ceremony will be held in Elluminate this year (my favorite real-time web meeting platform, and--of course--my employer).  Sue Waters from Edublogs and I will be co-hosting the show.  The link to enter the show is http://tinyurl.com/edublogawards.

If you are new to Elluminate — please make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate before the event by visiting Elluminate Support.  We'll open up the Elluminate room 30 minutes before we start, and we encourage you to come in a few minutes early to set your microphone up and make sure you're connected.  Those who would prefer, or have any difficulty connecting, can use the telephone bridge by dialing 913-312-1029 (US toll-free at 877-880-7307) and then using the PIN 495124.  

If you are a potential award winner we just want to make sure you know that should you win we'll give you a minute or two to say a few words.  We expect the show will last around 90 minutes, but we make no guarantees!  Following the show we'll open the mics and webcams and have a "virtual" post-show / year-end party.  We hope you'll join us for what you can.

I want to express my personal appreciation to all who are involved in education and contribute through blogging, social networking, social media, and educational technology.  The Edublog Awards are admittedly an imperfect methodology for recognizing all of those contributions, but hopefully they are a way of celebrating some of the contributions that appreciates all that we accomplish together.  If you feel someone was overlooked or under-recognized, we'll have a chance for you to shout out "well done" to them during the show!  And from me, Thank You!

I also wanted to explain why I have not encouraged voting for my Classroom 2.0 social network in the social networking category.  Since it has won the Edublog Award for the past two years and is several times the size of the next largest network nominated, I don't think it needs additional recognition.  As well, my being co-host this year has inclined me to want the spotlight on some of the other wonderful networks that have grown in this space.  If we had removed Classroom 2.0 from the nominations it would have created confusion, but I've withdrawn it from consideration for an award.  A special thanks to all of you who use Classroom 2.0 to learn and explore the potential of social networking in education!

See you online!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Voting Has Started at the 2009 Edublog Awards


Thanks to Sue Waters and the great folks at Edublogs, the nominations have been tallied for the 2009 Edublog Awards and it's time to vote for your favorites!  There are actual, genuine, prizes (as well as tasty badges and the respect of peers) so your votes count! The winner of each category will get a years free Edublogs Campus subscription for themselves or their institution and an Elluminate 10-seat vOffice for a year!
Voting is now open and ends Wednesday 16 December!
Winners announced at the Edublog Awards Ceremony (more on that to come soon)!
To get started, select a category from below to see the nominations and vote, or visit the Edublog Awards site.

The Edublog Award Categories….

  1. Best individual blog
  2. Best individual tweeter
  3. Best group blog
  4. Best new blog
  5. Best class blog
  6. Best student blog
  7. Best resource sharing blog
  8. Most influential blog post
  9. Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
  10. Best teacher blog
  11. Best librarian / library blog
  12. Best educational tech support blog
  13. Best elearning / corporate education blog
  14. Best educational use of audio
  15. Best educational use of video / visual
  16. Best educational wiki
  17. Best educational use of a social networking service
  18. Best educational use of a virtual world
  19. Lifetime achievement
Good luck to all!

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Elizabeth Kanna on "Virtual Schooling"

Part of the FutureofEducation.com interview series and cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com.

Date: Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Time:
5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern / 1:00am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Join Steve Hargadon for a live and interactive hour with Elizabeth Kanna, author of Virtual Schooling: A Guide to Optimizing Your Child's Education.

Elizabeth Kanna is a transformation expert who consults clients ranging in size from start-ups to market icons. Kanna’s visionary transformative work includes repositioning and rebranding, and renaming for prominence, effective strategies for the social Web, reinvention of business models, new media business development, innovative public relations and national promotions for customer acquisition, and world-class partnerships to increase the top line and market share for clients.

Kanna aptly pulls together disparate business segments, establishes frameworks for foundational shifts in business practices, builds publishing franchises in print and digital, and identifies emerging markets and technologies to monetize from education to new media. She has re-engineered brand positioning, and created national promotions with Dun & Bradstreet’s AllBusiness.com, The Grammy Foundation, Yahoo!, jetBlue Airways, Hilton and Sharp USA.
Kanna has been featured on TV networks Fox News, ABC, CBS, CNBC, CW, and in magazines and newspapers, including Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, U.S. News and Review and Women’s Day. As an emeritus advisor at an annual elite business retreat since 2003, Kanna has consulted with more than 500 business owners in taking their company to the next level. She has also consulted for billon-dollar companies, world-renowned scientists Sally Ride and Bob Ballard, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Business Week best-selling authors, philanthropists working in 50 countries, and well-known entrepreneurs and celebrities.

A market leader and pioneer, Kanna co-founded a leading authoritative education portal that Forbes magazine named as one of the top 45 sites on the Internet in 2000. Kanna has consulted with leading education companies on the development of new online learning platforms from Web 1.0 to virtual schooling and mobile education platforms. Kanna is also the co-author of two market-defining books that stand as authoritative analyses of the effectiveness of educational methodologies: Homeschooling for Success, and the first book ever written on Virtual education: Virtual Schooling: How to Optimize Your Child’s Education.

Her website is http://www.elizabethkanna.com.

Angela Maiers on "Classroom Habitudes"

Part of the FutureofEducation.com interview series.  Cross-posted from http://www.SteveHargadon.com.

Date: Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Time:
5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern / 1:00am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Join Steve Hargadon for a live and interactive hour with Angela Maiers, author of Classroom Habitudes: How to Teach 21st Century Learning Habits and Attitudes.

As an author of several books, articles, and curriculum support materials, Angela Maiers continually strives to connect research and scientific theory to real world practices. For the past six years, she has created, developed, and organized multiple literacy institutes reaching thousands of educators across the United States. Her work is featured in the National Research Council Yearbook, multiple professional journals, and most recently in Urban Schools Most Promising Practices, published by the International Reading Association. You can keep up with her at http://www.angelamaiers.com/

Monday, November 30, 2009

Curtis Bonk on "The World Is Open"

From the FutureofEducation.com interview series.


Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
Time:
5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern / 1:00am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.
Event Pagehttp://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/curtis-bonk-on-the-world-is

Join Steve Hargadon for a live and interactive hour with Curtis Bonk, author of The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education.

Curt Bonkis Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University and President and Founder of both SurveyShare and CourseShare. Drawing on his background as a corporate controller, CPA, educational psychologist, and instructional technologist, Bonk offers unique insights into the intersection of business, education, psychology, and technology. He received the CyberStar Award from the Indiana Information Technology Association, the Most Outstanding Achievement Award from the U.S. Distance Learning Association, and the Most Innovative Teaching in a Distance Education Program Award from the State of Indiana. A well-known authority on emerging technologies for learning, Bonk reflects on his speaking experiences around the world in his popular blog, TravelinEdMan . He has coauthored several widely used technology books, including The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education (2009), Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing (2008), The Handbook of Blended Learning (2006), and Electronic Collaborators (1998).



(Cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com)

Dan Willingham on "Why Don't Students Like School?"

Date: Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Time:
1:00pm Pacific / 4:00pm Eastern / 9:00pm GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.
Event Pagehttp://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/dan-willingham-on-why-dont

Join Steve Hargadon for a live and interactive hour with Dan Willingham to discuss his book Why Don't Students Like School?. The book has been called "brilliant" (Wall Street Journal) and "a triumph" (Washington Post).

Daniel Willingham earned his B.A. from Duke University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard University in 1990. He is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1992. Until about 2000, his research focused solely on the brain basis of learning and memory. Today, all of his research concerns the application of cognitive psychology to K-12 education. He writes the “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” column for American Educator magazine, and blogs at the Washington Post. He is also the author of Why Don't Students Like School? (Jossey-Bass). His writing on education has been (or is being) translated into Chinese, French, Korean, Thai, Portuguese, and Russian.

More information at http://www.danielwillingham.com.

(Photo credit: Dan Addison/UVa public affairs)

[Cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com]

2009 Edublog Awards - Nominations Open


The nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards are open! Now in their 6th year, the Edublog Awards celebrate the achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology. This year Classroom 2.0 is co-hosting the awards, and Elluminate is supporting the event.

In order to nominate blogs for the 2009 Edublog Awards you link to them. Full details are on the Edublog Awards site.

Nominations: Close Tuesday 8 December!
Voting: Ends Wednesday 16 December!
Award Ceremony: Friday 18 December!

The categories are:
  • Best individual blog
  • Best individual tweeter
  • Best group blog
  • Best new blog
  • Best class blog
  • Best student blog
  • Best resource sharing blog
  • Most influential blog post
  • Most influential tweet / series of tweets / tweet based discussion
  • Best teacher blog
  • Best librarian / library blog
  • Best educational tech support blog
  • Best elearning / corporate education blog
  • Best educational use of audio
  • Best educational use of video / visual
  • Best educational wiki
  • Best educational use of a social networking service
  • Best educational use of a virtual world
  • Lifetime achievement
Have some fun!

Education in the Digital Age: A Tour of FRONTLINE's Digital Nation


Date: Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Location: In Elluminate. http://tinyurl.com/pbscr20 If you haven't used Elluminate before, you can make sure your computer is configured correctly to enter the room by going to http://www.elluminate.com/support.

PBS Teachers and Classroom 2.0 are hosting a free webinar for educators on Tuesday, December 8th at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern with Producer/Director Rachel Dretzin from FRONTLINE's "Digital Nation" project. Rachel will share her insights and findings from the year-long, multi-platform project exploring the impact of the Web and digital media on life in the 21st century.

The Digital Nation Web site will include online video reports on how the Internet and technology are changing cultures, reshaping workplaces and creating new approaches to the way we solve problems. Issues to be examined include the Web’s impact on education, how social media has changed the way individuals interact, and Internet safety and privacy. Central to the site will be a mosaic of user-generated content designed to let visitors participate in the documentary process. The site also will feature a producers’ blog, embeddable video and other sharable content, and a schedule of live online events with expert guests.

For more information on FRONTLINE: Digital Nation, Life on the Digital Frontier, visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/.

Rachel Dretzin is an award-winning journalist, Rachel has been producing documentaries for FRONTLINE since the mid-1990s. She and her husband, filmmaker Barak Goodman, are joint partners in Ark Media, a documentary production company based in Brooklyn, New York. Together, they have produced and directed numerous documentaries for FRONTLINE.

(Cross-posted from http://www.SteveHargadon.com)

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Howard Rheingold Presents "Howard's Brainstorms!" Part 2

Part of the Conversations.net interview series.

Join us this Thursday as Howard Rheingold continues "Howard's Brainstorm," the second in a monthly series of interactive discussions in Elluminate on technology, culture, and education.

Learn more about the eclectic Howard Rheingold at http://www.rheingold.com/howard/ and join us for a fun discussion! The topic will be "Thinking about Thinking Tools." Howard will briefly summarize some of the foundational documents in this area, recap via screensharing and TheBrain, and then facilitate a discussion inviting questions from the community online.?

Date: Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Time:
5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Howard Rheingold is the author of:
Tools for Thought http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/ The Virtual Community http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/ Smart Mobs http://www.smartmobs.com Was: editor of Whole Earth Review http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Review editor of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog http://www.well.com/user/hlr/mwecintro.html founding executive editor of Hotwired http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HotWired founder of Electric Minds http://www.rheingold.com/electricminds/html/ Non-resident Fellow, Annenberg Center for Communication, USC, 2007 http://www.annenberg.edu/info/rheingold.php Visiting Professor, De Montfort University, UK Has taught: Participatory Media and Collective Action (UC Berkeley, SIMS, Fall 2005, 2006, 2007 ) http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/participatory_media_and_collective_action/participatory_media_and_collective_action.cfm http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/programs/courses/296a-pmca Virtual Community/Social Media (Stanford, Fall 2007, 2008; UC Berkeley, Spring 2008, 2009) http://socialmediaclassroom.com/vircom09
Toward a Literacy of Cooperation (Stanford, Winter, 2005)
Digital Journalism (Stanford University Winter, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 )
http://socialmediaclassroom.com/digitaljournalism09

Current projects:
Social Media Classroom http://socialmediaclassroom.com
The Cooperation Project http://www.cooperationcommons.org
Participatory Media Literacy https://www.socialtext.net/medialiteracy/
HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation grantee http://tinyurl.com/yqjsmr

Recent Videos:
21st century literacies 40 min video http://blip.tv/file/2373937
JD Lasica's 6 min video interview with me, same subject: http://bit.ly/eFqeI

(photographer credit: Robin Good)

Monday, November 16, 2009

PBS & CR 2.0: Helping Kids Understand Viruses and Vaccinations with Sid the Science Kid


Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Location: In Elluminate. http://tinyurl.com/pbscr20 If you haven't used Elluminate before, you can make sure your computer is configured correctly to enter the room by going to http://www.elluminate.com/support.

PBS Teachers and Classroom 2.0 are hosting a free webinar for educators on Tuesday, November 17th at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern to share information about a currently airing episode of Sid the Science Kid that helps children better understand the science behind germs, viruses and vaccines, and learn good prevention techniques such as as sneezing into an elbow, effective hand washing, and disinfecting common household surfaces to prevent germs from spreading.

During the webinar, health and early childhood education experts will share ideas on how educators can help kids better understand viruses and vaccinations and support healthy habits in school.

Episode Description: Sid is hearing a lot of talk about how to stay healthy, which leads him to ask lots of questions about what can make a person sick and what he can do to keep from getting sick. In the special episode "Getting a shot: You Can Do It!," Sid and his friends learn the basic science behind germs, viruses and vaccines. When it's vaccination day at Sid's school, Sid and his friends are a little apprehensive about getting a shot. Thankfully, a very special nurse will be giving the kids their vaccination — Sid's Grandma! Grandma, Teacher Susie, Mom and Dad all do their part to make vaccination day a learning experience filled with music, games and lots of laughs.

For more information on this episode of Sid the Science Kid, visit http://www.pbs.org/parents/sid/vaccination.html. You can also print a certificate to share with a child who has just received a vaccination.

About Our November 17th Guest Speakers


Moisés Román
Moisés Román appears regularly on the PBS child care information series Los Niños en su Casa as Imagination and Creativity Expert. He is also the educational advisor for PBS children's series "Sid the Science Kid," produced by The Jim Henson Company and KCET. Román is a renowned advocate of child care and early childhood education. Currently serving as the Diversity in Action Chair for the California Association for the Education of Young Children (CAEYC) he appears at national, state and local conferences, presenting a variety of topics such as Men in Education and Early Literacy.

Cyrus Rangan M.D.
Cyrus Rangan M.D. FAAP ACMT graduated from Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1995. He went on to do his clinical residency in General Pediatrics at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, graduating in 1998. He then completed a fellowship in Medical Toxicology at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center in 2000. He is board-certified in both Pediatrics and Medical Toxicology. Dr. Rangan is Director of the Toxics Epidemiology Program at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Public Health. He investigates community reports of environmentally related illnesses or disease clusters and provides expert consultation and education to hospitals and other impacted professionals about medical issues in toxicology, hazardous materials, epidemiology, and environmental health.

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cross-posted from www.SteveHargadon.com and part of the FutureofEducation.com interview series.

Date: Thurday, November 12th, 2009
Time:
5:00m Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern / 1:00am GMT next day (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Join Steve Hargadon as he talks with Larry Cuban, Emeritus Professor of Education at Stanford University, and the author of the 2001 book “Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom.” His blog is at http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/about/, and a previous interview Steve did with him is documented at http://www.stevehargadon.com/2006/09/interview-with-larry-cuban-author-of.html.

In his own words: "I am a former high school social studies teacher (14 years), district superintendent (7 years) and university professor (20 years). I have published op-ed pieces, scholarly articles and books on classroom teaching, history of school reform, how policy gets translated into practice, and teacher and student use of technologies in K-12 and college.

"My most recent research projects have been a study of school reform in Austin (TX) 1954-2009 and of a large comprehensive high school in Mapleton (CO) being converted into several small ones between 2001-2009. The Austin book, As Good As It Gets, will come out early 2010. The Mapleton study was done with Gary Lichtenstein, Arthur Evenchik, Martin Tombari, and Kristen Pozzoboni and will be published in 2010 with the title Against the Odds.

"Currently, I am studying a high school where teachers and students have had 1:1 laptops for the past four years."

Richard Halverson and Allan Collins - Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology

Cross-posted from www.SteveHargadon.com and part of the FutureofEducation.com interview series.

Date: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Time:
5:00m Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern / 1:00am GMT next day (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Join Steve Hargadon as he talks with Richard Halverson and Allan Collins about their recently published Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America. In their book they argue that the knowledge revolution has transformed our jobs, our homes, our lives, and therefore must also transform our schools. Much like after the school-reform movement of the industrial revolution, our society is again poised at the edge of radical change. They offer a vision for the future of American education that goes well beyond the walls of the classroom to include online social networks, distance learning with anytime, anywhere access, digital home schooling models, video-game learning environments, and more.



Rich Halverson is an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Rich is a co-founder of the Games. Learning and Society Research Group and the Learning Sciences Program at UW-Madison, and has appointments in the Educational Psychology and Curriculum and Instruction Departments. Dr. Halverson holds a PhD in the Learning Sciences from the Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy, as well as an MA in Philosophy from Northwestern. Raised in Manitowoc, WI he is a rabid Packers fan and fantasy sports enthusiast. More at http://www.education.wisc.edu/elpa/people/faculty/halverson.htm.



Allan Collins self-description: "I am retired now as Professor Emeritus of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. I’ve studied teaching and learning for over 30 years, and written extensively on related topics. From 1991 to 1994 I was Co-Director with Jan Hawkins of the US Department of Education’s Center for Technology in Education. I also served as a founding editor of the journal Cognitive Science and as first chair of the Cognitive Science Society. Recently I was chosen by French psychologists as one of 37 living scholars who have had the most impact on the field of psychology. I am best known in psychology for my work on semantic memory and plausible reasoning, in artificial intelligence for my work on reasoning and intelligent tutoring systems, and in education for his work on situated learning, inquiry teaching, epistemic forms and games, design research, and cognitive apprenticeship." More information at: http://allancollins.northwestern.edu/.

Henry Jenkins on the Popular and Participatory Culture

Cross-posted from SteveHargadon.com and part of the Conversations.net interview series.


Date: Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

Steve Hargadon and you spend an interactive hour with Henry Jenkins in the Elluminate LIVE environment.

Henry Jenkins joins USC from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was Peter de Florez Professor in the Humanities. He directed MIT’s Comparative Media Studies graduate degree program from 1993-2009, setting an innovative research agenda during a time of fundamental change in communication, journalism and entertainment. As one of the first media scholars to chart the changing role of the audience in an environment of increasingly pervasive digital content, Jenkins has been at the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media on society, politics and culture. His research gives key insights to the success of social-networking Web sites, networked computer games, online fan communities and other advocacy organizations, and emerging news media outlets.

Jenkins is recognized as a leading thinker in the effort to redefine the role of journalism in the digital age. Through parallels drawn between the consumption of pop culture and the processing of news information, he and his fellow researchers have identified new methods to encourage citizen engagement. Jenkins launched the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT to further explore these parallels.

Jenkins has also played a central role in demonstrating the importance of new media technologies in educational settings. At MIT, he led a consortium of educators and business leaders promoting the educational benefits of computer games, and oversaw a research group working to help teach 21st century literacy skills to high school students through documentary videos. He also has worked closely with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to shape a media literacy program designed to explore the effects of participatory media on young people, and reveal potential new pathways for education through emerging digital media.

His most recent book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, is recognized as a hallmark of recent research on the subject of transmedia storytelling. His other published works reflect the wide range of his research interests, touching on democracy and new media, the “wow factor” of popular culture, science-fiction fan communities and the early history of film comedy. Altogether, he has written or edited 13 books on media and popular culture. His new book project is Spreadable Media, which is being developed with Sam Ford and Joshua Green, in collaboration with the Convergence Culture Consortium. The Convergence Culture Consortium seeks to apply concepts of participatory culture, transmedia storytelling, moral economy, and spreadable media to address challenges confronting the contemporary media industry. The consortium is best known for running the Futures of Entertainment conference, which brings together researchers and industry leaders to discuss cutting edge trends impacting popular culture.

Henry Jenkins blogs regularly about fan studies, transmedia stories, media policy, and new media literacies, among other topics, at henryjenkins.org.

See much more (!) at http://www.henryjenkins.org/aboutme.html

NotSchool.net - a Proven Successful Alternative to Traditional Education

Cross-posted from SteveHargadon.com and part of the FutureofEducation interview series.

Date: Monday, November 9th, 2009
Time:
10:00am Pacific / 1:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

In this session we'll talk with the UK and US organizers of the NotSchool.net program, an online community which aims to engage teenagers who are out of school in the long term into learning. Between 500 and 700 young people are involved each year.

Notschool.net offers an alternative to traditional education for young people who, for a variety of reasons, are unable to engage with school or other complementary provisions such as home tutoring or specialist units. After almost 9 years and 5000 young people, Notschool.net is a full-time alternative provision; successfully demonstrating that young people for whom 'school does not fit' can renew their confidence in learning and gain a range of qualifications that recognize their progress.

Jean Johnson has worked in the education field for twenty five years, beginning her career teaching in East London schools working with difficult and disaffected teenagers. She began working with new technologies in 1993 and was one of the first teachers to pilot the use of the Internet in schools. She was part of the early developer group of schools for Oracle’s Think.com, contributing to the final design of the software. Since then she has been involved in a number of high profile online projects both in the UK and abroad; working with schools as far apart as Sweden, Finland, USA, India, Japan and New Zealand. Projects have included Web for Schools, The Virtual Classroom, Learning in the New Millennium and Schools Online. Her work within Europe was influential in developing a model for the use of the Internet in schools in the EU. In 1998 she was presented with an award as Teacher of the Year. Since 2000 she has led Notschool.net research project working in the field of social inclusion for disadvantaged youth, focussing particularly in the creative and innovative use of multimedia to develop learning. Jean has published a number of reports and papers including extensive work on Internet based accreditation and content delivery models. Jean has contributed to a number of TV and radio programmes. She has been described as the ‘pre-eminent expert internationally’ in the use of ICT to engage disaffected and excluded students.

Sometimes described as the technical brain behind Notschool.net, Jonny Dyer has worked on the project since 2000. He brought with him an extensive academic research experience, technological expertise and knowledge of alternative learning paradigms.


Beth Baker and Glen Taylor are with Inclusion US Inc. (IUS) a not for profit organization dedicated to engaging at risk youth in learning. To accomplish their mission, IUS has developed IUS Global Schools, based on the Inclusion Trust's "Not School" program in the United Kingdom. Currently, Beth is a Michigan Education Policy Fellows Program participant and Education Consultant at Wayne County RESA. While teaching 6th grade, she received a U.S Congressional Commendation, and was a Michigan STAR award recipient.

Bruce Umpstead is Director, Office of Educational Technology and Data Coordination, for the Michigan Department of Education.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Today Live: Innosight Report on Florida Virtual School with Katherine Mackey and Michael Horn

Part of the FutureofEducation.com interview series.


Date: Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Time:
2:30pm Pacific / 5:30pm Eastern / 10:30pm GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tr.im/futureofed. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

In this live and interactive interview with Michael Horn and Katherine Mackey of Innosight Institute we discuss their recently released education case study that details the rise of the Florida Virtual School. From its humble origins in a $200,000 grant and 77 students in 1998, the Florida Virtual School has grown exponentially to serve over 70,000 students in over 154,000 enrollments in the most recent school year thanks to a series of policy and design decisions. Michael Horn writes: "As we seek to understand the power of disruption to transform the education system into a more student-centric one, understanding Florida Virtual School's disruptive growth and drawing the right lessons from it are vital."

Download the full case study here: http://www.innosightinstitute.org/media-room/publications/education-publications/florida-virtual-school/

Michael B. Horn is the co-founder and Executive Director, Education of Innosight Institute, a not-for-profit think tank devoted to applying the theories of disruptive innovation to problems in the social sector. He is the coauthor of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (McGraw-Hill: June 2008) with Harvard Business School Professor and bestselling author Clayton M. Christensen and Curtis W. Johnson, president of the Citistates Group. BusinessWeek named the book one of the 10 Best Innovation & Design Books of 2008, Strategy + Business awarded it the best human capital book of 2008, Newsweek named it as the 14th book on its list of “Fifty Books for Our Times,” and the National Chamber Foundation named it first among its 10 “Books that Drive the Debate 2009.”

Disrupting Class uses the theories of disruptive innovation to identify the root causes of schools’ struggles and suggests a path forward to customize an education for every child in the way she learns. Horn has been a featured keynote speaker at many conferences including the Virtual School Symposium and Microsoft’s School of the Future World Summit.

Prior to this, Horn worked at America Online during its aol.com re-launch, and before that he served as David Gergen’s research assistant, where he tracked and wrote about politics and public policy. Horn has written articles for numerous publications, including Education Week, Forbes, the Boston Globe, and U.S. News & World Report. In addition, he has contributed research for Charles Ellis’ book, Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox (Wiley, 2006) and Barbara Kellerman’s Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters (Harvard Business School Press, 2004).

Horn earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB from Yale University, where he graduated with distinction in History.

Katherine Mackey is a Research Fellow in Innosight Institute’s Education Practice. Prior to joining Innosight Institute in September 2008, she was an eleventh-grade English teacher at Highland High School, a public high school in Utah. She worked previously as a designer at Houghton Mifflin Children’s Books. She is the co-author of a strategic five-year Academic Master Plan for Salt Lake Community College and has assisted with the formation and writing of professional development packets for the Utah State Office of Education. She has also worked as an intern for Senator Orrin G. Hatch for two summers.

Mackey holds a BA in English and French from Wellesley College and an MA in Education from Harvard University.

[Cross-posted from http://www.stevehargadon.com]]

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Education Summit @Google

As I've mentioned in a previous post, Google is co-sponsoring an education summit along with the Joan Ganz Cooney Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and Commonsense Media. An interesting blend of business, technology, and education leaders will be discussing their work on Tuesday, October 27, and Wednesday, October 28, at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

You, too, can participate. Get involved in the following ways:

1) Read blog posts of some of the attendees and presenters. Leave some comments!

2) Ask burning questions via a tool called Google Moderator.

3) Sign up to watch the web cast here and here.

4) Follow conference happenings on Twitter.


I've also compiled a Twitter list of people who will be in attendance at this event. Send me a direct message (d elemenous) if you will be there, and I'll add you as well !

"Educate the Fear Out of Them"

Thank you, Cheri Toledo, for this phrase.

In Google Wave, several educators have been discussing the fact that all the great tools and learning environments that we regularly explore are blocked in many districts.

This blog post by Ewan McIntosh also has me thinking:

http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2009/10/why-backward-socialnetworkbanning-education-authorities-are-wrong.html

I think we need a significant repository of schools where Web 2.0 technologies are welcomed and used in a safe and thoughtful manner. These stories would serve to educate districts out there who are grappling with implementation and safety issues.

I was part of a team that created such a space last summer as part of an Apple Distinguished Educator project last summer. This online network was created for the purpose cited above, but I also think that we need a simple directory of schools as well. So I am also creating a Google doc form for this purpose: http://tinyurl.com/web20inK12institutions

Please fill out this form or pass it on to someone who might want to share their information. All fields are optional. To see the results, visit http://tinyurl.com/web20inK12institutionsresults.

It's time to embrace innovation and networked learning, people!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Google Teacher Academy in Washington, DC

The next Google Teacher Academy (GTA) has been announced! I've said this several times before, but I’m thrilled to be involved with this project - and to share it with you here on this blog. As with all previous GTA events, tech savvy educators and professional developers in the local area can apply to participate in the special full-day workshop. And as with the last four events, the application process is also open to anyone, including educators out of the area, out of the state, or even out of the country (with the understanding that Google doesn’t cover travel or lodging). In other words, any of you who feel you meet the criteria for application are invited to apply!


Below is the official announcement and invitation to apply:


Google Teacher Academy - DC
Washington, DC
December 9, 2009

--------------------------------------------------------
Applications Due: November 9, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------

We are pleased to announce that the next Google Teacher Academy will be hosted in Washington DC on Wednesday, December 9, 2009. Outstanding and innovative educators from around the world are encouraged to apply.

The Google Teacher Academy is a FREE professional development experience designed to help K-12 educators get the most from innovative technologies. The GTA is an intensive, one-day event (8:30 am -7:30 pm) where participants get hands-on experience with Google's free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, collaborate with exceptional educators, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, GTA participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region.

50 outstanding educators from around the world will be selected to attend the GTA based on their passion for teaching, their experience as leaders, and their use of technology in K-12 settings. Each applicant is required to produce and submit an original one-minute video on either of the following topics: "Motivation and Learning" or "Classroom Innovation." Applications for the event in Washington, DC are due on Monday, November 9, 2009. Participants must provide their own travel, and if necessary, their own lodging.  

Learn more about the program and the application at: http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html

The GTAs have been a wonderful experience for everyone involved, with 97% of all attendees rating the GTA as "outstanding."

Here are a few quotes from GTA participants:
----------------------------------------
"The academy was everything I hoped for and more! I can't wait to plan out ways to use the tools we learned about, to share my experiences with my colleagues and to re-connect with the other academy participants!"
----------------------------------------
"The focus on innovation in education, and not just about the tools, was right on target."
----------------------------------------  
"I appreciate the opportunity to be connected to a group of educators that are passionate about preparing students for the 21st century. I feel inspired and able to meet the challenges that lie ahead!"
----------------------------------------
"Until now, I had never attended a conference where I was so engaged and loving every minute of it."
----------------------------------------
"This was easily the most important professional development experience I have ever had as an educator. World-class tools demonstrated by world-class people at a world-class facility. THANK YOU!"
----------------------------------------
"I love [the Google Certified Teacher community] for the ideas and inspiration that comes flowing to and from it...folks share professional development strategies (technology or otherwise) that have worked. It's nice to have a variety of ways to assist others and having that variety also provides spice for those of us responsible for doing the providing."
----------------------------------------

Feel free to send any questions to gteachers@gmail.com - and please spread the word to anyone who may be interested in joining us. 

We're looking forward to another great event!

The GTA Team
gteachers@gmail.com

Google Teacher Academy - DC
Washington, DC
December 9, 2009

--------------------------------------------------------
Applications Due: November 9, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------





I hope to see some of you in DC! Also, we hope to be announcing additional events and additional locations in 2010, so stay tuned.