So – I was quoted in the State News today about MSU’s Moodle LFT (limited field trial)  and that’s not exactly what I said.

I was asked if there would be technical issues.  I said with any technology there are bound to be glitches and bumps, but nothing out of the ordinary should be expected just because it’s Moodle (the article implies otherwise.)  If anything, there is such a vibrant strong open source community around Moodle that problems can sometimes be solved faster than working with a pay-for product.

There were two very important points that I emphasized, both were left out.

First – it doesn’t matter which car you drive, as long as it runs you’ll still get where you’re going.  I’m CMS agnostic – yes different systems have affordances and constraints – and yes I prefer open source flexible systems, but my primary concern and focus is on the content and pedagogy. I mold the technology around those focus points.  I am very lucky that I have a choice in the CMS that I use as an instructor.  Many of the K12 teachers I work with do not have a choice and must use the CMS provided to them by their school district.

Second – I’m very excited MSU is supporting a university wide install of an open source software.  This is a tremendous opportunity for the university and VuDAT to make contributions to the code by improving the install for large scale university implementation and by creating modules and plug-ins that fit with university structure and pedagogy.

My personal use of Moodle has been more from the administrative end – in CEP 820 we have our own install and I create the course shells for students, install plug-ins and modules and help them through their course design decisions.  I’m very excited to have the opportunity to run a “real” course in Moodle and see how it feels from the instructor side.

Others at MSU can play in the Moodle sandbox by visiting – https://qa.moodle.msu.edu/

I also suggest http://moodle.org and following @moodle @moodleplugins and @moodlethemes to keep on top of all things moodle.

I’m also hoping sometime in the fall we could rouse enough interest in an MSU MoodleMoot!

While we have done a very good job over the past few years of aligning our MAET curriculum across delivery formats – there are inevitably going to be differences between taking our MAET courses online, hybrid, or overseas.  One of those differences is “unclass.” Just like Google Engineers get 20% time to explore their passions and special projects, MAET students in Rouen are afforded a similar luxury (in our case 6 hours over 4 weeks.)  Since we meet in such a condensed and intense format (4 weeks, in the same living quarters) we’re able to work this into the curriculum.  It would be a bit of a challenge to do this in our online courses (since we’re spread across the globe) but I’m open to suggestions!

The idea started a few years ago in 2007 when we were in Plymouth, England.  One of the beauties of our program is that we mold the curriculum to fit our students – since we’re rooted in the TPACK model you do not have to have a certain level of technical expertise to join the MA in Educational Technology program.  Our students range from tech newbies to super users.  (Like, super duper users – i.e. our alum Paul who is a multitouch engineer!)   As a faculty, we were brainstorming ways to make sure all of our students walked away with meaninful experiences and I suggested experiementing with BarCamp. (The original  idea of BarCamp was born in 2005 as an open and free alternative to an annual invitation only tech event.)

There was quite a bit of confusion during our first BarCamp – after a week and a half of intense “edteching” to be let loose to explore and work on something without directon or scaffolding was quite a foreign and disorienting experience.  I absolutely loved the chaos (from an instructor’s perspective.) One thing we always have to work hard to do when students come to our program is to school them out of asking “What do you want?”  (Our Quickfire challenges were also created to target this same problem.)  We’re fighting against decades of schooling in a certain way where you ask a question and there is one right answer.  Teching with technology takes creativity, finesse, patience, ingenuity, skill,  flexibility and quick thinking. We try very hard as a program to provide opportunites to allow our students to fail and succeed so they can work on each of these qualities and go back to their own classrooms or work environments armed with experience.

It has been truly exciting to watch this concept has evolve over the past 4 years, and I can’t wait to see how UNCLASS 2011 pans out in Rouen.  This summer we’ll do a little more scaffolding and exploration into Google’s model along with great examples like Give Camp to see just how far we can push our collective passions and expertise!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

A former student emailed the following:

I was just hired as the Technology Department Chair / Technology Integrationist … basically, I will be responsible for writing a technology plan and integrating technology into all classrooms, at all levels – Kindergarten through 12th grade.

Do you have any suggestions right off the bat as for resources I should be looking at?
Do you have any suggestions for things I may need to get started?

I’ll be adding my two-cents – but I’m hoping with the help of my PLN I can point her to some stellar resources.  Thanks in advance PLN!

Today was a very special day for me.  Ever since I had my first "real" office (one with a door) I have had a picture of Jim Henson & Kermit hanging on my wall.  When I was young, it was my dream to work for Jim Henson.  I was enchanted by the Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock – the whole lot.  I wasn't just into passively watching the screen, something made me want to learn and understand what was happening behind the scenes. I wanted to make that magic happen.  I have had a lot of role models and influencers in my life and while I never had the opportunity to met him, Jim Henson had a tremendous impact on my life (as he has had on countless others.) I credit him with igniting my desire to pursue radio and television production.  While my career has morphed into the awesome position I have now, Jim Henson's spirit still stays with me.  I hang that picture in my office as a constant reminder of how we never truly know how deep and wide our influences run. 

When I saw the opportunity to attend a screening of Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey here at SXSW, I jumped at the chance.  Here's a short clip from the film.

Needless to say, I shed quite a few tears through the movie – all happy tears.  This movie is about family, creativity, passion, mentoring, success and love. I can't wait to see it again. 

This afternoon I had the pleasure of interviewing Josh Kaufman.  If you have taken CEP 815: Technology and Leadership with me you are familiar with the Personal Manifesto Project which was inspired by Josh’s Personal MBA website.

Thanks to a twitter connection between Heather Hill (see Storify below) – I was able to meet with Clay Spinuzzi.  More on our encounter soon – but here’s the podcast! (Working out my “workflow” to see how fast I can get things up without sacrificing quality!)

Thank you Clay!

I was lucky enough to spend the morning with the great staff at Way Elementary in Bloomfield Hills. Punya was originally scheduled to be there, but had a last minute conflict and I was happy to step in for him. (He was there in spirit as you can see in the slides.) It has been quite a while since I worked in an elementary setting and I was really excited to get back into a K-5 building. I had from 9am-12pm to pack a PD (professional development) punch.

Here is the archive of the slides (makes more sense when you’re there – but useful to help jog the memory for the participants!) –

I started out with a screengrab from the National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) showing “A Model of Learning, Powered by Technology” (Figure 1 on p.11) I presented this to the audience as a bit of a “trick” so that everyone would think this would be the same-old PD when someone from outside of the school comes in and talks about what other people think teachers should be teaching students in the classroom.  I quickly turned the tide by letting them know we were entering the “EdTech Spa” for the next three hours and I was there to pamper them! I quickly jumped to a screen grab (also from the NETP, below) showing how “Connected Teaching Builds New Competencies and Expertise.” (Figure 3 on page 40) This figure has the teacher at the center and shows the power of cultivating a PLN (Personal Learning Network) to support and nurture the profession.  I LOVE talking PLNs and showing teacher’s they’re not alone – our spa day had begun!

We started off the morning by “Playing Tag.” I was first introduced to this activity when I presented at MACUL with Andrea Zellner a few years ago.  She had adapted the activity from Paul Allison, Bud Hunt, and Chris Sloan (original session at the National Writing Project Annual Meeting, 2010)

I adapted this activity one step further and asked participants to tag themselves with the following prompts

• An interest outside of education
• A tech tool you use on a daily basis
• Your favorite unit to teach

Long story short, this activity is a real life simulation of Twitter and how hashtags form and conversations grow! It has quickly become one of my favorite activities. (As a side note, many of our MAET activities can be found by visiting – http://www.msuedtechsandbox.com/MAETVAULT)

I did a little more talking and took a breather and asked the teachers to write poems and limericks about what we had experienced so far – here is my favorite:

Technology is N.E.W.
Technology is old
Network Together
to become innovative & bold

Finally, I turned on the proverbial firehose and bombarded everyone with some fast, fun, quick tips, tricks and tools that can easily be used in the classroom.  Here’s a laundry list of some of the cool tools we touched upon (in no particular order):

Google Apps – http://docs.google.com
There is a HUGE K12 support community around google apps:
Lesson Plans – http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/lesson_plans.html
Online Training – http://edutraining.googleapps.com/
Google Teacher Academy (FREE PD, keep an eye on the site for US dates) – http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html

Primary Pad – http://primarypad.com
Looking for a quick way to collaborate in the computer lab? Primary pad is your tool.  Primary Pad is based on the EtherPad project. With technical support you can even download the source code and host on a school server.

Delicious – http://delicious.com (my delicious http://delicious.com/gravesle)
Delicious is one of my favorite tools.  As I demonstrated, it’s a great way of “digging through the muck” of a google search.  We did the following search for “ESL”

Google generated 43 MILLION + hits – not all related to teaching English as a Second Language
Delicious Search generated  74 thousand – much more manageable and relevant!

QR (Quick Response) Codes – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code
QR Codes have been around for a LONG time and are just now (with the saturation of smartphones) becoming mainstream. We discussed several fun and innovative ways to use QR codes, from enhancing book reports

Create your own – http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

Google URL shortener also generates a QR code, in addition to a short link! http://goo.gl

QR Readers -Many smartphones have QR readers built into the Google Search.  You can also download specific apps that have added functionality.  If you search for “QR” you’ll see a ton of free QR readers.

Blackberry – http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/ –
Android – https://market.android.com/
Apple –  http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/ios/

Screencasting w/Jing (also Camtasia & Snag-it) –
The best place to start is on the Techsmith website – http://www.techsmith.com from there, you can download Jing and connect to all their tutorials and user communities.  They LOVE to hear how Jing is being used in your classroom & are very supportive if you have ideas/questions about the software! http://edublog.techsmith.com/

Here are some N.E.W. ways our students in the MAET program used Jing in their classrooms http://blog.jingproject.com/2009/07/jing-off-challenge-in-the-clas.html

Twitter
Our “tag” activity scaffolded a lot of the day and I frequently mentioned how Twitter is crucial to my own professional development and edtech day-to-day life.

I use Tweetdeck on my desktop – http://www.tweetdeck.com/ and the official Twitter app on my phone to access and manage twitter.

This is a fabulous list of hashtags to follow (thanks @rehabrajab) – http://www.cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html

It’s SO HARD to pick just a few people for you to start with – this will give you a good start and then search out professional organizations and others you know to build a strong twitter PLN! I’ve started local and moved to individuals who are connected to larger networks.
@bhschools @glasr333 @MACUL @oaklandschools @TechSmithEDU @punyamishra @gravesle @courosa

You can also follow the hashtags for professional conferences like #macul11 #TED2011 and more!

Quick Questions/Tips

Between breaks someone asked if I had any suggestions for conserving projector bulbs.  We dug into the menu of the projector to set the automatic sleep timer to conserve the bulbs – then teachers don’t have to worry about powering down the projector between classes & the projector will wake up quickly when the next class comes in.

I was also asked how to save YouTube videos offline – KeepVid is your best bet – http://keepvid.com/

Book about balancing the digital lifestyle – Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age

~~~~

All in all it may not have been a super duper relaxing day at the “EdTech Spa” but I sure hope everyone came away refreshed and renewed – like the feeling you get after a Zumba class or a 5K! ;)

Way staff – if I have failed to link to something, or if you have further questions – please let me know in the comments below!! Thanks for a great day!