Tech It Up

I went to an awesome conference this past fall. I'm a little late with my conference info post - better late than never!

For the October ProD I went to the Tech It Up Conference in Kamloops. The conference was cosponsored by the school district and Thompson Rivers University. There was an amazing group of keynote speakers, half of whom I knew either through reading their work or had quoted in my thesis research. All the sessions I went to were great! The conference was a excellent mix of technology tools and pedagogy. Below are a few brief notes from the sessions I attended, with links provided by the speakers for further info.

Dr. Jason Ohler was one of the keynote speakers. His specialty is digital storytelling. We were fortunate in our district last year to have Jason skype in twice for workshops. Jason's keynote was called Beyond Words New Media Literacy, Fluency and Assessment in Education. His website has great information and workshop handouts on it.

Jason is excellent. He talks about new literacies in the technology-rich information age. According to Jason, base line literacy are words; the new base line literacy includes media collages. His talks about the development of the story, the storytelling itself being the most important piece of the learning. The technology is secondary. He stresses setting quality standards for media production.

Dr. Michael Carr-Greg, from Australia, was another keynote, speaking about Cybersafety. He is at the forefront of great programs 'down under'. Two of his statements resinated with me. "The biggest problem is not predators but what children do to each other." How true! Our focus, as educators, should be teaching social responsibility, no matter what sandbox our students play in.

Michael's second statement that "Parents need a digital spine," I found poignant as well. Parents not only need to be aware of the online environments their sons or daughters are playing in, but spend time in them themselves, so they understand them. Educators, too, also need to understand these online environments - so we can teach the good with the bad - it's the only reason I have a Facebook account - I'm not building a farm or throwing sheep anytime soon - although my philosophy of learning about my students' sand boxes may also lead me into Secondlife - eeeeek!

I have also ordered a copy of a book Michael recommended by Australian author Kate McCaffrey called Destroying Avalon. The plot has a cyberbullying focus. I'm looking at reading it to hopefully find an option for the English department reading list.

Here are some links Michael shared with us:
National Centre Against Bullying
Cybersafety and Security Advice from New Zealand
Reach Out Australia - an online counselling service set up by professionals in Australia to help teens and young adults

Dr. John Seely Brown was also a keynote speaker. I quoted Dr. Brown in my thesis research. His keynote was Re-Imagining Dewey for the 21st Century: Learning in/for the Digital Age - scroll down to look for the presentation notes in the Learning sandbox.

John's message was that life in the Digital Age is a culture of participation, of building, tinkering, remixing and sharing. "We participate therefore we are - understanding is socially constructed." As John says "nothing clarifies ideas better than explaining them to others." Learning is social, even more so in the digital age - figuring out how to pedagogically integrate technology tools into learning is key.

John also works with the MacArthur Foundation's digital media and learning initiatives that aim to determine how digital media is changing the way young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

Doug Johnson was both a keynote speaker and a sessional instructor. I consider Doug a mentor. I have read his work for over 10 years. I have contacted him many times via email for advice on various topics - he has always been more than generous with his replies and forwarding of info. I organized a book study focused on his book The Indispensable Librarian: Surviving (And Thriving) in School Media Centers, which Doug is currently revising.

Doug's session was about preventing plagiarism: The Fence or the Ambulance: Are You Punishing or Preventing Plagiarism in Your School? My take away quote from the session was "the principal sin of plagiarism is not ethical, but cognitive." Too true! We need to be teaching our students critical thinking, challenging them to higher levels of thinking and analysis, not regurgitation of facts - it's all about the questions we ask.

Doug writes an awesome blog, you might want to RSS Feed, as I do.

I went to another great session called Using VoiceThread in the Classroom. The presenter, Tracy Poelzer, a teacher librarian, integrates technology into learning throughout her program. She has worked extensively with VoiceThread and has compiled together VoiceThread Resources, information, and links.

Tracy recently completed her Masters. She compiled together a wiki of resources Teaching with Technology: Information for the 21st Century Educators - the why's, how's, what's, and now what's of technology integration - take a look through - there are some great links.

Well, that's it for this conference round up!

Here's to finding a conference equally as inspiring next year!

The Life of the Blog...

Before heading into professional topics I love to write about, I'm going to take a minute to reflect on the last two posts of 2009. I would like to thank my colleagues, family, and friends who read and forwarded the blog to interested parties.

The topic of the two posts generated over 100 more readers in Canada, 10 from our neighbors next door, and 4 internationally. The blog was also reposted nationally on the CASL Ning and referred to provincially on the BCTLA blog.

I would like to thank those of you who left comments. It is always nice to know you are not alone. You took the time to write insightful, yet from the heart, comments.

It is my sincere hope that your comments are read by our trustees - fingers crossed!

I created a wordle using the text from the comments - interesting to see which words came forward.



I'm not sure what the future will hold.

I do know that I needed to take the time to formulate my thoughts, while compiling together some related information for reference sake.

Thank you for stopping by!