What is your IT vision?

A New Year

2012-01-03T08:53:00.005-06:00

Happy New Year to you all. It has been an interesting year to say the least. That being said, I have returned hoping to add to the conversations through my blog. It took me a bit to get all the dust off and think about what direction to go now that I am here again.

The school semester has been one of attempting to get everything settled in as this summer we shifted from a Novell network to a Windows server based structure. With the switch to Windows, we also gave the students and faculty web based storage and eliminated some of the additional servers that were used to store student work. The students also have their own email accounts as well. Our students don't need to hit the servers at all. With web storage, our LMS and their email accounts our students can progress very well.

The faculty also has a couple of different ways to store their work. Our LMS has unlimited storage for our faculty and the faculty also has web storage with the same company the students are now using.

We still continue to work with the faculty and staff on the student use of their electronic textbooks as we are 95% all electronic textbooks. Many of the Diocesan schools have been meeting with us and looking for ways to move that direction as well. It is interesting to me to see some of the changes people look to make in their systems based on the direction we have moved to and progressed.

The New Year looks to be a good one and off to a great start, of course that is easy to say when you are only 3 days in to the New Year. My hope will be to talk about some of the things we have done to help make changes in our educational efforts as opposed to merely talking about what I think is wrong.

What changes have you made that are leading your students and faculty to educational success? I would enjoy hearing about them.

So much to learn and so little time.

Some Post ISTE11 Musings - with more to come

2011-07-04T09:20:00.004-05:00

It is always interesting to me to see the buzz build the closer the ISTE conference gets. Then I am at EBC11 and the conference has started and then all of a sudden it is over. Time goes by so quickly once the conference gets started. Yet, there is so much to absorb that I will be pouring over the ISTE website to look at videos of different presentations and keynotes over and over again to try to absorb even more. Of course there is always the #ISTE11 hashtag to take me to other areas of learning as well.

There is never just one take away from this conference because there is always so much to learn to try and do things better. To listen to people and how they make things happen at their schools or districts and to try and figure out how to tweak that to make it happen in my own. So many ways and so many ideas. It almost becomes overwhelming. Overwhelming until I remember one simple thing - it is about the kids.

Many of the discussions that I had during my time in Philly and the ISTE 2011 conference kept bringing me back to the idea of relationship. Relationship with admin, faculty, staff and students. Along with the idea of relationship, we have to TRUST for that relationship to grow. In order to trust we have to let go of some of the things that get us where we are today and part of that letting go is the death grip on ego. Trusting our students allows us to open our networks. Trusting our faculties and staffs to be the professionals they truly are allows us to be about what they need to teach and our students need to learn.

Relationship is so very important in all we do, that this conference continues to be an important encounter for us all. Trust yourself to learn something new with each and every encounter you have even if it is a social encounter, trust that the presentation may well have something you need to hear or know and if not then quietly and respectfully move to another one. Trust that being quiet allows you to hear from someone else, trust that you are here for a reason and you make a difference. Trust that thought you have that has been marinating in your mid is useful and needs to be put out htere. Trust that the feedback you get is important and valuable and not a personal attack.

Thank you to all the people I met for the first time face to face and my sincere apologies to those I missed. Thank you for the time you spent sharing and caring and most especially for the work you do each and every day. You all continue to teach me a lot and for that I am truly thankful and I hope to continue to learn more from you each and every day.

So much to learn and so little time.

I Like to Drive

2011-07-04T08:48:00.004-05:00

As a young boy growing up I always looked forward to vacation and the ride we would take to wherever. The big station wagon and the road newly being constructed on the way to San Antonio or the west Texas heat on the way to New Mexico. Either way we were going to see relatives and we got to travel. No ipods, no TV's built into cars or dvd players for that matter. Merely a book, non-tinted windows and the incessant cries of "are we there yet" or "how much longer" from any of my 4 other brothers and sisters or myself.

The landscape seemd to go on forever, games in the car helped to pass the time and yet as I grew older I couldn't wait to be able to fly wherever I wanted to go. I could get there quicker and see more, do more and not waste time. I could look out the window of the plane and see all of the land at once.

However, last year my wife and I decided to drive to NECC/ISTE. See the country again for a change. Relax in the car. So we packed not only our things but some from our friends as well since we were going to meet them at the same place. New Mexico, Colorado, Estes Park, Denver, the ISTE Mansion, Amarillo and home again. 10 days. Lots of sites and new place to rediscover.

This year with Philadelphia being the goal, we went through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, the Smoky Mountains, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania and on the way back we added Tennessee and Arkansas to the list of states. The ISTE Mansion aptly renamed the ISTE Row House was the destination for yet another ISTE Conference. With some of the same folks a memorable trip was had yet again.

I was aksed if I didn't like to fly and I would have to say the answer is no. The joy of the road is a simple one - we have a beautiful country. We also have a great deal of freedom to move about the country. No matter what the politicians decide, we are living a great life with wonderful freedoms and abilities. The cool thing about traveling in that manner is that with the available technology, we can look up anything we see and decide if we want to go and explore more. We have that freedom.

Today as we celebrate the birth of our nation, know that we have all been placed in this time and this place for a reason. But along with that, we have many wonderful men and women that have fought and defended the right we have to move about the country whether by plane, train or automobile. My prayers on this day will be for all the men and women who are put in harm's way and for their families who also have sacrificed much. Be safe out there, come home soon and I will continue to pray for peace. Thank you all for that you continue to do day after day and for all those who have gone before you.

So much to learn and so little time.

Pre-ISTE 2011 Musings

2011-06-26T09:27:00.004-05:00

As I sit and contemplate the beginning if ISTE 11, I wonder how many are concerned with being heard, seen, or just being noticed? Lately there have been many wonderful posts about what to do and how to approach ISTE and the immense overflow of input that people will face as they try to ingest the gluttonous amount of stimuli. I have even already heard someone state "I am star struck." So many people are here to be heard, so many here that need to be heard and so many that want someone to hear them.

Recently Bud Hunt had a post wondering if we are listening with all of the talk and "chatter" that is going on. While Beth Still has done a good job trying to include more people, especially the "newbies," I still wonder if we are reaching out enough to truly be inclusive?

There are many folks who have worked hard to attain the "status" they have and I do truly applaud them and I hope they continue with their work and forging the way. There are many trying to be heard and will all of the talk and noise going on I sometimes feel that it is hard for anyone to hear over the din. Everyone knows there are problems with schools, everyone knows that the politico's are trying to balance budgets on the backs of teachers and schools, and everyone knows that the economy is hurting everyone.

As I look around, many of the things were are doing today are merely a GUI digital version of what we have been doing for years. One of the differences is that we can do the same things with people from all over the world. I have so many questions rumbling around in my head and the main part of ISTE has not even started. I guess my main point is all of this is YES, we do have problems but what are we doing to solve them? What are WE doing to make things right? How are we as leaders laying it on the line to make it better for all those who are trying, who do give a damn, who do reach kids each and every dayand may not even have the electronic tools that some of us have?

How are we supporting what our children need? I believe that tech directors ( and yes I am one) or the keepers of the networks, need to loosen their death grips on "their" networks. The world is unfiltered. Does that mean let it all through? No, of course not. To me it means block the crap but still teach our children to continue to refine their crap detectors. Show and model responsible citizenship and in order to do that we have to allow our colleagues to be the professionals that they are each and every day.

We also need to listen and we need to listen the old fashioned way with mouths shut and both both ears open with an open mind. We may need to do it the truly old fashioned way by repeating what the other person says and stating it so that they have an opportunity to say no this is what I meant before we even formulate an answer. I must admit that when I first started as a tech director it was all about the hardware, the stability and the speed of "my network." Now I work with my boss and the curriculum director and it is in the educational needs of our students and school that drive what our network does and definitely not the other way around.

Fortunately, I have a great boss that allows me a lot of freedom and as a result this is my 13th or so ISTE. But 4 years ago I met some folks I consider true leaders who helped me to understand and truly "get it." I am just thankful that the Lord helped me to be open minded and willing to continue to learn because that way I can take the time to hear what is being said and continue to learn from there.

I hope you have a great experience at ISTE and don't merely run from one thing to another. Take the time to truly engage with people, listen to what they are really saying or askingand most of all learn what you need to learn to help you resolve some of the issues that you may have in your classroom, in your building, in your district or state. Just know that there are people willing to help and support you.

It took me a while to figure it out. Enjoy your time in Philadelphia.

So much to learn and so little time.

Getting Back to Basics

2011-05-17T18:07:00.005-05:00

I had a chance to present at the Region 10 ESC Technology Planning Conference last week and had a great time meeting new folks and learning some new things. My presentation "Twitter? Really" Show me why and how!" was received well, but I learned a lot in the middle of my presentation. When I asked who had questions a woman raised her hand and asked "So what is the difference and the importance of the "@" & the "#"?" I quickly applied the brakes and we slowed down to address the question at hand. Along with that were several other questions that were all about basic tweeting.

So what did I learn? No matter where and when we are presenting are we taking care to make sure that we are reaching out to those who are just starting to dip their toes in the water or maybe those who are eyeing the kool-aid stand but not sure they really want to buy the drink itself? I wondered how many walked down the hallway and went in to the presentation which I would have loved to be in titled "Tweeting Out of the Box" and were lost as to what was going on?

I know sometimes I have been so immersed in what I have been doing and have become so very comfortable that I forget new people come to the well each and every day looking for ways to communicate and finally willing to try something different. My hope is that those in my session feel that once they left they could contact me and ask questions at any time.

How do you handle the new folks when you are confronted with those questions when presenting? We talk about how students learn in different ways and at different times but are we taking the time to make sure those adults who have come to learn are getting the same attention?

So much to learn and so little time.

Are you equitable?

2011-04-13T22:24:00.006-05:00

Equity - a wonderful word as long as everyone has it, but we know that isn't true. Everyone does not have equity. Schools are not funded equitably, unions are not treated equitably where there are unions, people are not taxed equitably and on and on. What about in a classroom? How does equity play out in a classroom full of students? Students - both boys and girls are the first to pick up on who the favorites are or who is "in" or who remains on the "fringe." Do teachers know? Do we fully understand the ways that we help to keep someone on the outside while allowing others on the inside? I would like to think I do things the right way but I also know that in reflecting on my own practices, I am more than willing to help those who are willing to incorporate new things in to their classrooms and those who just don't get it. I am not talking about using "tools" just to use them. But that is not right wither. So what about the child who is given greater access to a teacher than another student is given? Equitable? We talk about bullying a lot and in so many different ways, but are we helping to establish a bullying system by these seemingly small inequities of access to a teacher or to technology? Is it any different that through my actions I am able to keep someone on the fringe as opposed to the "inner circle?" Is that merely a more subtle type of bullying? I have a lot to learn and so little time left to learn it, but I am looking for some real answers to these questions because I know that I am really thinking about how I might be creating inequities as a result of what I do. Anyone care to jump in and help out? I hope so.

Ejection Fraction

2011-02-22T22:50:00.003-06:00

In the last 6 months I have learned a lot about this phrase ejection fraction. As defined on Wikipedia "ejection fraction is the fraction of blood pumped out of the right and left ventricles with each heart beat." Now this post is not about personal health but rather educational health and just what is left beating as states begin their budget cycles.

Here in the State of Texas, a non-union, right to work state, the estimates so far are that the number of teaching positions cut could very well come close to 100,000. Possibly 4,000 in Dallas alone. The numbers coming in are staggering. Word is that out of 11,000 school districts in Texas, only 40 are solvent. We have been bleeding out for some time if that is truly the case and the percentage of what is pumping is dropping more and more each day.

Tonight I saw different tweets from friends Ryan Bretag, Jon Becker and Angela Maiers in relation to homework their children were doing in Ryan's case, the desire to find the right school in Jon's case and trying to know and find out that her children were cared about and for in Angela's case. Frustration was the course of the night. The pulse continues to get weaker. The number of people that joined in those conversations lending support and talking about it also showed a great deal of frustration from throughout the country.

What does any of this have to do with ejection fraction? The heart of any educational facility in my opinion rests on the heart and passion of the very teachers in the building, the people that are passionate about what they do and the children that are under their care each and every day, and yet, people elected to office continue to perform heart surgery with axes instead of scalpels. There are many people that have said it so much better in so many more ways than I could here. I simply hope that those teachers who work with kids are not on automatic pilot because they are worried about their jobs, I hope they are not mailing it in waiting for the axe to fall on them while supposedly educating our children for their future.

It is during times like this that so many people I have know have risen to the top of their game and continue prove to people over and over again that the reason they are in that classroom is that they are passionate about what it means to be a teacher. I hope for our children's sake that some folks were having a bad day and I hope for our schools sake some people in charge start thinking out of the box, otherwise we may learn how upset our teachers, parents and children can be when the revolution shows up here. The pulse continues to get weaker.

So much to learn and it needs to happen now.

E-Books and Bring Your Own Technology

2011-01-19T14:47:00.004-06:00

This year we made some major changes at our school. After upgrading our infrastructure last summer to have wireless throughout, we then progressed to allowing students to bring their own connectivity. This year we asked them all to bring their own connectivity and we added e-books. We are about 85% electronic books throughout our grades 6-12. We made recommendations to parents about what level the machines should have. We have areas where students can plug in to charge up and for those who may have had difficulties obtaining their own equipment we took our COWs (computers on wheels – the big carts) and cleaned those machines up as much as possible and loan those out to students to use. They take them home after signing an agreement that they will be responsible and if not then they are charged a fee for replacement.

The main focus this year is the E-Books. The school is fortunate to have an instructional technologist that works here who has taken the bull by the horns and wrestled this program into submission so to speak. Christine Voigt has replied to several people who have asked about e-books and here is what she has to say:

“The eBooks are online digital editions of the actual printed texts. The advantage is that they have interactive content in addition to just being a PDF. The world language teachers really love their eBooks, because it allows student to hear and in some cases interact with the languages they are learning. Video and audio clips that previously were only available in class via DVD (or in some classes video tape!) are now integrated with the eBook so students can access them anytime, anywhere.

All the eBooks are online subscriptions. The students login to the publishers website and have a digital bookshelf with titles they need for their classes. What I like about the online login is the fact that they are not tied to one computer. If their computer breaks, or the battery dies, etc. they can login and get their books on another machine. All of their notes, highlights, and work are tied into that online account.

We use eBooks from Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, and also use CourseSmart for all courses that use college level texts (primarily our AP classes).

The only texts that can be accessed on an iPad are the once from CourseSmart
- they have developed their own App for the iPad that is really quite nice.
The regular texts rely on multiple plug-ins such as Java or Flash and they will not work with the iPad, smart phones, or Kindles.

Although many of the publishers strongly encouraged and even gave us bundled pricing for purchasing physical books and the digital ones, we opted to go with eBook only. Overall it was a bit cheaper and we saved a lot of shipping costs, and many trees in the process.”

One of the nice features in most of the e-books is the fact that they will speak. So while the machine may not have text to speech the books do. Our biggest struggle for the students is to make sure they have downloaded all the free Adobe apps. Things like Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Adobe Air and Adobe Shockwave. All of these play a role in some of the more in depth parts of the books for demonstration or even speech.

So very much to learn and so little time.

A New Week & Some New Challenges

2010-08-26T18:05:00.007-05:00

The first week of school has come and gone and the tech team has been busy trying to make sure everything has been up and running. This year, as I have stated before, our students are bringing their own connectivity and we are using as many electronic books as possible to get. All of our students have a school email address and they each have their own access to Edline which is the school's learning management system.

So what has the first week been like and what are some of the good and the bad that has happened? The tech team put together very specific instructions about how to connect to our wireless network and passed it out to our faculty. They had the chance to then work with the students on getting connected. Each teacher also has the ability to pass out access codes to Edline and then we also passed out the school email addresses to several key faculty who were in charge of specific grade levels. Along with these codes and instructions teachers were given the licenses for their particular classes and they are responsible for passing out the instructions for the ebooks in their classes.

Some of the problems that were run into were things like not enough time to get everything passed out in one class period. Students are at varying levels of connectivity and ability so it takes a little longer. Some faculty are more sure about what they are doing than others so it became a case of checking on those teachers. Machines seeking updates from the internet for windows or snow leopard or adobe. This all decreases the amount of bandwidth that is available for the things we really need to do, then compound that with the fact that while teachers are working with other students those that are connected and ready to go are using Facebook and Youtube to entertain themselves and visit with friends in other classes. Our Facebook usage was 65% of our bandwidth and Youtube usage was 35%. That doesn't leave much for the rest of what we were trying to do. We sent this information out to our faculty and reminded them about engagement in the classroom as well as if you aren't using the laptops for things in class have the students put them away. The next day those percentages dropped incredibly.

The largest problem that the tech team ran in to was suddenly we could not get students on the network at all. They were not getting an ip address assigned. After a lot of discussion and talking with some different folks we discovered that our ip pool had been drained and our DHCP server had nothing to dish out when people tried to connect. As we talked about it we have approxiamtely 230 desktops, 40-50 laptops, several dozen printers and some copiers and these are all assigned IP addresses along with our switches for managing the network. After adding another 512 ip's to the pool info started flowing. We still have some work as our leases are set for 90 days and we need to change that as a a parent could walk on campus, log on to our wireless and leave and we lose an ip address for 90 days.

We will continue tweaking our system to make it the most efficient and secure possible meaning vlan, guest network and the likes. Feel free to ask any questions as we continue on this journey this year. Our hope is to help other miss some of the obstacles that we face along the way.

So much to learn and so little time.

Wireless, ebooks and maybe paperless!

2010-08-15T15:19:00.002-05:00

This week our students begin their orientation camps for the new school year. By Thursday all of our students will be in for classes. It will be an exciting year this year with a lot of changes taking place. We have asked our students to bring some type of connectivity so they can be hooked up to the wireless that we put in last summer. While a fee was charged each student for books, the school will supply whatever book is available for the class be it electronic format or hardback. Our students have email online, file storage online, learning management accounts online for their classes as well as the ability for electronic turn in of homework. We are truly encouraging our teachers to go as paperless as possible. We will see.

I hope to summarize each week how things go this year as we venture in to this area. I am sure there are some other schools doing this but I have not heard as of yet. I hope everyone has a great year and you are able to help implement the change that is needed at your school or district. Be the change you want to be in the world. (Ghandi)

So much to learn and so little time.

Are you burned out or connected?

2010-07-16T14:53:00.007-05:00

Having just left ISTE10 and Wichita, KS where I was attending Podstock10 with Kevin Honeycutt and many others in my network of friends and folks, I continued to hear a recurring theme. The statement that I have heard way too many times in the last couple of weeks is something along these lines: "I am glad to be somewhere with like minded people so that I can get re-energized before I go back to school."

That statement alone is another great reason to work on building your network of friends, colleagues and peers. This is a way for people to be connected year round to those like minded individuals, another way for us to not be isolated islands battling the tides. Many people are in the same boat and we need to make sure that we are able to reach out and use those connections we have. These connections are important for all types of things such as our sanity, our strength, new ideas, along with other ways for us to continue to learn and branch out in our respective positions.

If you are one of those people needing to make connections, come join me, I will be more than happy to connect with you, introduce you to my network of friends. Together we are better, more knowledgeable and more energized.

So much to learn and so little time.

Random thoughts on traveling

2010-07-04T21:11:00.009-05:00

While I haven't figured out the total miles yet, Diane and I drove close to 3,ooo on our journey from Dallas to Denver and back again with several stops in between. Here are some of my observations on the journey, some serious, most not, mainly just some thoughts.

1. When planning a journey such as this make sure to have a list and check it twice. I forgot one requested thing at school and then on the way to the highway realized that I had also left my fishing gear at the house.
2. Don't be afraid to let the spouse drive.
3. In the entire trip we came to realize that there are a lot of things moved around this country by truck and by train. A lot.
4. When driving through the panhandle of the state of Texas, if you get stopped it is best to be totally nice and polite. Even though I was only doing 74 in a 70 and using the cruise control, I said all the right things and only got a warning. His question to me was are you heading somewhere in particular? My response was to a conference in Denver. (This is a week before it started.) His reply does it start tomorrow? We both laughed as I replied no sir.
5. I was glad that New Mexico and Colorado both have 75 mph speed limits.
6. Drink lots of water. First day in New Mexico it was 94 F at 8:30 am but it was only 10% humidity. You might sweat but it evaporates so quickly that you dry out quickly and you never really feel that you are sweating..
7. It was good to travel again in this manner and see the wide open spaces of the U. S. We have a beautiful country and the ability to travel it in this manner is a fantastic privilege.
8. In Santa Fe, NM, if you are in the mood for barbecue try Whole Hog right off the main drag in Santa Fe. It is worthy.
9. Be open to all possibilities. We took side trips and did not just drive on the Interstate Highways.
10. The transition from the desert of New Mexico to the mountains of Colorado was amazing. The mountains were just spectacular.
11. Estes Park was fantastic.
12. If you are lucky to see three guys go over a hill chasing a bear, I hope you are even luckier to see them come running back safely over the hill with the bear chasing them.
13. If you come up on any road kill. you can probably make a great stew out of what is left as long as you have Mike Gras with you. Otherwise leave it for the birds. This includes armadillos.
14. It is cool in the mountains, soak it up and enjoy.
15. When you are staying in an 8K square foot house with pool and jaccuzzi, don't be surprised when all 8 of you hang around the kitchen table and the kitchen island most of the time.
16. Mike Gras is one hell of a cook and a very wonderful man to sit around with and talk to as well.
17. It is enjoyable to watch people younger than you find themselves and where they fit in.
18. It is also enjoyable to see young people thirsting to be a part and to connect.
19. If you want to find out how to be an advocate for educational technology, talk with Bud Hunt and Scott Floyd. It is tough to know two better ed-tech folks but also it is tough to know two better connected ed-tech folks.
20. Language is important, don't think it isn't.
21. I enjoy hearing different accents wherever I go.
22. Language and Literacy. Jon Becker & Ben Grey.
23. Four Square Battles are fun to watch, even if they are created by someone more than a thousand miles away. Alec Couros.
24. Scott Floyd, Mike Gras,Randy Rodgers, Dean Shareski, Adina Sullivan, Lisa Thumann,Chris Craft. You would be hard pressed to find better people to hang with, thanks for the memories.

A question seeking your definition!

2010-06-28T21:46:00.003-05:00

At a time when I feel we should be doing everything we can to leverage the ability of our networks for all they are worth for the education of our students, I found out today that we have such a long way to go in just understanding what we do. With that in mind and before I go on a rant, would you please answer this question?

How do you define the role of the Technology Coordinator at your school, district or state?

Please no word play or semantics. Don't have one but you have a director then how would you define a technology coordinator?

Your help is greatly appreciated. And I will keep your names out of it unless you tell me otherwise.

So much to learn and so little time.

Language and credibility

2010-06-27T17:04:00.004-05:00

I had a great time at the 4th Edubloggercon at ISTE10 and I thank Steve Hargadon for all of his hard work. I also thank ISTE for being willing to provide us the space to gather and talk about those things that are of interest to us. The whole venue gave many people the opportunity to come together and to interact.

Today I have read a few posts about Edubloggercon, one of them here by Steven Anderson, and this has caused me to do even more thinking about some of the things that took place as well as some of the things I took away. It is important that we have the connections that we have. I didn't know the origins of the term PLN but after some searching I came across this post by David Warlick that might be beneficial to any who reads this as well as the links that David includes in that post.

Disclosure #1 I have used the term PLN to refer to anyone that I connect with in any form or fashion that has helped me to grow or has been an influence in my life.

Diclosure #2 - I have achieved the status of friend with many of those same people both here and abroad as a result of the connections through social media.

Disclosure #3 - Some of those same people I am able to say that I would defend to the death.

Yesterday as Jon Becker facilitated his conversation, I saw passion and defensiveness as people defended their use of a simple term that means so many things to so many different people. I never took away any ideas that there was controversy as a result of or as a part of the discussion. To me it was merely grown ups having a grown up conversation that for me took my thinking to a depth that stirs my thoughts and on ocassion my soul. While this was not one of those soul stirring moments it was very thought provoking especially when someone asked the question what gives language it's credibility?

Disclosure #4 There are any number of people that could handle this discussion better than I, but this is my post.

We see so many words come and go in the English language, words introduced to the dictionary as a result of the use of that word or phrase, but what depth does it bring to the language? Their was not a person there, in my humble opinion, that has not used the term and truly understood it to be something very meaningful to them. I guess my problem after doing some thinking is that when we walk into the vendor hall tomorrow, how many of those terms that have been coined via our networks are we going to be using for our buzzword bingo games? We will complain about the vendors using buzz word after buzz word, but how dare anyone question my use of the terms I want to use?

Adults having adult conversations with a final hope of stirring each one of us to think a little deeper. In 5 years what will that word mean, what type of credibility will it have, what legitimacy for the English language? You are in my network, you help me to think, you allow me to celebrate life with you, you allow me to mourn with you, and allow me to give you some bit of comfort in my response back to you. We joke and kid and post pics of what we are eating.

Each of you makes me aware of so many things each day, but you are not alone. Because of my work in a school, in a district, in a state, and in a Diocese, I also am allowed to do the same things with so many people and you also get to glean some of those things from me because I bring them to other tables as well if I deem them worthy to share.

I have no way to wrap this up and make it tidy, but know I count on a lot of people and I hope that people know they can count on me. But what does give what we do credibility? What gives what we say credibility? If a simple term that I use causes people to reject my next sentence, maybe it is time that we looked deeper into how we use language and how we express ourselves.

Your thoughts?

So much to learn and so little time.

Sipping vs Guzzling - ISTE 2010

2010-06-25T16:45:00.003-05:00

I attended my first ISTE then NECC in Seattle in 1997. I paid for the opportunity to work with a great bunch of Seattle folks to learn how to properly terminate and pull both Cat 5 and fiber optic cable. We then pulled the connectivity throughout the Convention Center and work rooms for sessions and the actual convention. I learned so much and enjoyed getting to know people that we worked with, even getting to pull fiber optic cable up in the catwalk of the center. That year there were three T-1's coming in to the convention center and that was mainly for the vendors. we left all the cabling in place and then the CC was torn down 2 years later as Seattle built a new state of the art facility.

This year as I head to ISTE 2010, I wonder if the Convention Center knows who is coming to town and what is about to happen? Sure they have been working with ISTE and the University of Oregon prepping long and hard but do they really know this group of folks? While not all of the attendees are on the bleeding edge, many of these people are carrying laptops, wireless devices in their pockets and they will not be there sipping connectivity. These people will be guzzling at the trough of wireless connectivity. This is a group that uses streaming video, social networking for back channels, email, voicemail, cloud applications and I am sure many other things that I have not even mentioned here.

I am sure that if we had some way of being in what we called the War Room in Seattle in 1997, we might hear the equivalent of the Death Star dying on Monday. The question will be are the systems in place to handle the 15,000 members of the Geek Squad (with apologies to Best Buy) that are about to hit town and fully expect connectivity for every device they are carrying at the same time? I hope so otherwise I am sure the negativity on the evaluations will be loud and long.

I look forward to seeing folks and I look forward to the learning and conversations. May our connections be fast and strong.

So much to learn and so little time.

SummerSpark to CMK2010 - Where are you learning?

2010-06-09T10:27:00.007-05:00

Last week I attended SummerSpark 2010 hosted by The Oakridge Academy in Arlington Texas. It gave me a chance to meet Jason Kern (also known as @jasonmkern on Twitter) face to face and see the good things he is doing at Oakridge as well as spend some great time with Christian Long before his family moves to Ohio. While this was the first time for Oakridge to host this event about 60 people were there and as always there was Twitter chatter and back channeling going on while the keynotes were happening.

I sent out a tweet saying "how is it that teachers continue to pull out the same lesson plans when they have not met their students yet? Just a thought. " This tweet was then picked up by Shelly Blake-Plock, also known for his Teach Paperless twitter name and blog and he wrote about my tweet here.

While I would love to take credit for that tweet being my original thinking I can't. That statement was made by Alfie Kohn while speaking at Gary Stager's Creating Modern Knowledge in Manchester, NH two summers ago. It is a statement that has resounded in my thinking ever since I heard it. Shelly has some good things to say about it at his blog so I urge you to visit there.

But more important is this question: Have you considered attending Gary Stager's CMK 2010? Either the one day version before ISTE 2010 in Denver or his four day event in Manchester? If not why not? Some of the best minds will be in New Hampshire with Gary. The other thing I took away was creating workspace for students and then letting them do exactly that work the way they want to work, and create and solve. I laughed seeing some of the adults that were there struggling because they wanted more direction, more instruction.

So often we want to walk students step by step because WE have so much WE want to cover and yet do not give the students the time to "tinker" or "play" because that is not in the curriculum. It is time we all met our kids before we structured up the environment so that we too can learn something about them as people and not just heads in a room where we teach a subject. I hope you seriously consider CMK it will be worth your time.

Where are you doing your learning this summer?

So much to learn and so little time.

Technology and elderly parents

2010-06-06T12:23:00.004-05:00

Well needless to say I am already behind on the month of June daily challenge to blog which started here. But the good thing is I don't want to write if I really don't have anything to say or don't truly feel the need, so maybe I am not geared for these types of challenges. Anyway I do have some thoughts and questions.

I will be the first to admit that I am very fortunate to have both my parents still with us on this earth. Right before Christmas they moved back to Dallas and are only 1 mile from my house which is great. The other day my older brother went with them to meet one of my dad's younger sisters for lunch and she mentioned that she had an email address. This apparently got my dad's interest up as he mentioned to my older brother that he wouldn't mid learning some computer so as to be able to email. My mom on the other hand worked with technology for the public school system in Dallas and when she retired she said she never wanted to see another computer. Unfortunately at this stage she is suffering from the early stages of dementia.

This got me to thinking what kind of technologies could I help my dad obtain and use that would help us to help them and also to be something that my father would enjoy using? As I thought about it my dad tries not to spend any money at all so my first thought was I have an extra laptop. But then I thought about an iPad. Sure it is the latest thing on the market but I got to thinking that if we got him a 3G iPad, he could have a gmail account, a solid state drive, he could have apps to remind him of things he needed or wanted to do and he could email his younger sister.

Then I got to thinking, what other technologies would benefit an elderly couple and help their children to be a little more comfortable in some of the ways to monitor their aging parents. I hope you have some ideas to contribute. Let me know what you think.

So much to learn and so little time.

A response to a challenge

2010-06-01T22:07:00.002-05:00

On Monday, Memorial Day, a challenge was thrown out by this Blog - to write everyday for the month of June and become better at blogging. So I am entering the challenge.

With ISTE 2010 coming this month I am already getting excited and actually looking forward to getting to Denver. Texas is already starting to heat up and I am worried that we will have another summer like the summer of 1980. That was the year we had 59 straight days over 100 degrees. Let's hope not.

For those going to Denver there have already been several posts about what to do when you get to the conference. Beth Still has been very vocal in leading the charge to help "newbies" to the conference or those who are there for the first time or maybe even a second time but still unsure as to what to do or where to go.

I truly believe that one of the things that happens to many of us who attend is that our school pays for us, and we feel very obligated to see as much as possible to take back to our schools and that means back to back to back sessions with no time to truly reflect.

After 12 different NECC/ISTE events, I can assure you that you must take time to reflect, talk, relax and renew yourself while you learn. Yes you will still go back a better person for having gone and you will be able to help your school move forward. Trust yourself. Learn by listening, asking questions, talking to people you don't know, be willing to reach out to others and enjoy yourself.

The boat show of a vendor hall will be full of people all talking about how their product will cure what ails education at your place by using the the latest buzz words associated with education. Don't get me wrong, I talk to MY vendors and I also walk the entire hall over the three days there but I go in with an idea in mind. Have a focus on what you want to find out and then go for it. Not all at one time, spread it out.

When your head starts to swim or your eyes start to glaze over, sit down relax, visit the Blogger's Cafe and meet some folks and decompress. You will survive. I also look forward to meeting you so don't be shy.

Lots to learn and so little time.

Support Is Just a Question Away

2010-05-21T16:26:00.005-05:00

In my previous post, I spoke about needing to talk with someone. I had some things running through my head and I wanted to make sure I wasn't off base. I just needed some good feedback. If this had taken place 3 years ago, well, first of all I would not be here, I would not have a group of people that I have networked with and I surely would not have made a Skype call to Canada or anywhere else for that matter ( I wouldn't have a MBP either but that is a whole other post someday.)!

I have heard it called a PLN (Personal Learning Network) or a PLE (Personal Learning Environment) or just NETWORKING. It matters not how you refer to it or what you call it, I truly do think however it is important to make connections with others with a broader scope than yourself. I feel that I am somewhat knowlegable in the tech world but as an icon once said "A man has got to know his limitations," and trust me I know mine.

So it came down to reaching out and I had seen Dean Shareski online through some tweets he had posted so I thought I would give Dean a shout. Not only did Dean respond, but I am sure that I could have reached out to just about anyone that was online and gotten some very good feedback to my questions that I posed to Dean. As it turned out Dean was the one I chose that day.

Too often 140 characters are not enough and the need for some genuine feedback where you can at least hear tone in the voice, or even with Skype, see the other person and their facial expressions are so very important. If you are in my network or I am in yours, please know that if you think I can answer a question or lend an ear for what you are working on I am more than willing. I know there are many out there that would also be willing and available, just call. We can't be afraid to ask, we can't be afraid of who we ask, because I think we are all truly in it for the right reasons.

Too often we get frustrated in our buildings or districts and then we are no good to anyone. We are here for the students, the learning, the possibilities and I am glad that I have that many more possibilities as a result of everyone out there. Thanks for being there Dean and responding.

So much to learn and so little time.

Access, Support and Windmills

2010-05-13T10:46:00.014-05:00

The other day Region 10 ESC had their 16th Annual Technology Planning Day and I was asked to do a presentation on the use of social media in schools and why it is important. I was looking forward to the day and came prepared with a laptop and my air card just in case and figured that there would be a lot of people in the same situation.

Well, that being said, you can imagine my shock when I estimated there were 5% or less of the 500 people in attendance that had any type of electronic device to take notes or even back channel. I realize that there are many people that are very tech savy that take notes with pen and paper but I truly was amazed.

I tweeted a few things out about the fact that night and got several responses from people mostly talking about how they use pen and paper for their note taking a well. As I mulled over the situation I finally thought I needed to talk with someone to check and see if I was reacting in the wrong way. I was fortunate that Dean Shareski was available. After a wonderful conversation with Dean I decided to post the following thoughts:

I worry that the fact that the people in the room did not have ways to electronically take notes that the possibility existed that they were not receiving equipment and possibly support from their schools/districts. If that is the case how can we expect the teachers to be willing to work toward integrating technology in their classrooms when they themselves do not have access to the very equipment necessary?

What happens with those notes and how will they be shared in a written state when these teachers return to their schools? Will they be shared, will they even make it to a file or will they simply sit in that notebook until the next conference?

Who knows, maybe I just worry too much about the wrong things but what I truly want to see are teachers that are fully supported by their IT staffs, their schools and their districts so that they can do the best possible job for our students.

Your thoughts or am I just tilting at windmills? I hope not, our kids need us in so many ways.

More to learn that is for sure.

The Message should be the Medium

2010-03-07T16:44:00.006-06:00

I learned a tough lesson this week. Our annual GeoTech conference was taking place at the school with some great keynoters and presenters. I was asked to present on a couple of different topics and was looking forward to it.

In all my years of being a technology director I have presented or been a part of 6 presentations total, so I am not fluent by any stretch of the imagination. I have alwasy been the support for others who have presented. I decided I would use Prezi for my first presentation titled Building and Maintaining a PLN. I got so focused on the tool itself -Prezi - that I didn't cover my topic the way I wished that I had. While my focus should have been the message it wasn't and as a result the presentation lacked a great deal. I truly feel that if I cover the topic as well as possible the tool should not matter, even though I know that presentation has a lot to do with it. I believe a fully functional message will pretty much take care of itself. The way it is presented is icing on the cake.

So, on to the next opportunity to present which will be in May at Region 10 and an attempt to fully convey the message that I have been asked to deliver. I thank all those I have watched present that always get their message across. I will be watching them much more closely.

Still so very much to learn.

TCEA and their App

2010-02-10T11:27:00.004-06:00

Probably one of the best things to happen at TCEA is the TCEA App. I can not tell you the number of times I have pulled out my iPhone and been able to quickly look up vendors, check my sessions that I have placed on the calendar and I am sure there many other things that this app will do but I have not figured them out as of yet.

ISTE I hope you are paying attention to what your state affiliates are doing because in texas we are doing some good things and this app would be nice to have for Denver and ISTE 10.

I think I will go and explore some more.

Lone Star Edubloggercon

2010-02-10T10:43:00.003-06:00

This year at Texas Computer Education Association, the powers to be decided to give an Edubloggercon a chance to work. I am sure that they are probably glad they did. However, later talking with some folks who wondered what I had gone to see, they asked for an explanation of exactly what an eubloggercon is and why should they attend?

Just so you know an edubloggercon is not simply about blogging. It is a one day "unconference" conference that gives people who are passionate about something a place where they can let others know not only about their passion but also a chance to enter into conversations with others who have that same passion. A place to share and learn and talk openly as opposed to the traditional sit and get of a conference.

At varying times yesterday we had close to 75 people in different rooms talking about Moodle, or podcasts and how to build their own pln and people truly seemed to be enjoying themselves. The day ended with a panel discussion on how best to get teachers more invovled in 2.0 tools and such. The passions came out during that session but yet remained civil enough to have the discussion. A fun time was had by all.

Many thanks to TCEA for allowing the Edubloggercon to happen and making the space for it, thanks also to Steve Hargadon for allowing us to advertise Lone Star Edubloggercon on the origianl Edubloggercon wiki and thanks to those who showed up and took a chance on something you knew nothing about. I hope you were able to take away something new as a result.

I know I did. I am now looking forward to ISTE 10 in Denver and Edubloggercon there.

Snow days = School days or at least they should!

2010-01-07T13:48:00.004-06:00

Today was an interesting day. Last night an artic blast of very cold air made it's way to Texas and beyond. The problem started with the precipitation that was falling before the temp got below 32 F. Anyway there was lots of ice in many areas of the roads to the point that some freeways here got shut down due to the ice and accidents. We initially decided on a late start and then ended up calling off the day and switching to our online curriculum. Our problem with students is that we have no set boundaries that we draw from and some of our faculty travel 45 miles one way to teach at BD.

On the second call notification that I sent out, it was a simple statment: "Due to declining road conditions and the weather school will not meet today. Students are to check their online classes in Edline for today and follow the red day schedule." This was also sent out to our students and parents in email, on Facebook as well as through our school Twitter feed.

So what does moving to our online curriculum do for the students and the faculty as well as the school? It keeps the process moving forward. We don't lose a day. After spending time with the Diocesan office and explaining what we do and how we do it they agreed to let us give it a go. They were pleased about the approach we wanted to take. We started working with the Diocese last year on this venture but our online programs have been in place for more than 4 years. Our online coordinator lives in Wisconsin and he is helped by another teacher that is located in New York. They both travel to meet with students and parents face to face about 4 times a year. At other times they are in contact via email, phone and twitter. There are specific subject teachers at the school that students can work with if they need.

Today I have had several emails from students who were not able to log in to Edline or needing their school email address and password as they were not able to log in at all. I would hope nearly every school has the ability to do the same thing that we did today. Also know that while we are a private school, we are also an inner city school with at least half of our student population qualifying for free or reduced lunch if we were part of that program. So please, do not think we are some rich, private school because we are not.

We will evaluate tomorrow how today went but later in the year we will not be looking for a day to have school, we were there today online.

The tools that we all have available at Bishop Dunne are Edline and in Edline we have the ability to send out email to each of our classes both students and parents. We also have the ability in Edline to set up discussions, online homework turn in as well as quizzes or tests. Each student at the school is also given their own school email address that is web based and virus checked. Individual teachers then can take it a step or two further and use things like DimDim, Skype, or other free online 2.0 tools to work with their students.

I hope that you are working on the same things with your students to help them become learners no matter what the circumstances.

Conversations and Educon 2.2

2010-01-06T20:45:00.004-06:00

My boss called me in today and asked what conferences I was going to and who I was taking with me. We all know it has been a lean year and it gets even leaner when you are an inner city, priivate school. I told her I would gladly be willing to go to Philadelphia to attend Educon. She said make sure you take someone with you as long as they will get something out of it. Anyway, I spoke to my curriculum director and aksed her to look over the Educon 2.2 material online and see what she thought.

She came back with it looks very good. We got her registered and now we are working on flights and such as well as accomodations for the trip. This will be my second year to attend Educon and for me I am sure it will be a calmer experience now that I have the first one under my belt. I met so many people face to face that I knew online and I was almost star struck seeing all of these people walk around and then to be able to sit in a room and hear them begin the conversations that were so good. The biggest problem was the fact that I couldn't get to everything and listen live.

My hope is that my curriculum director will get as much out of this trip and find it as meaningful as I did last year. When I returned last year I told my boss there were more meaningful discussions that weekend than any conferences I had been to all together. No when I attend conferences I do it so much differently. I attend with what I need to learn for myself and for my faculty. I look for ways to engage, enliven and energize students as well as faculty members.

If you are going to Philadelphia, I look forward to seeing you there and hopefully learning with you or from you. I hope I can contribute to your learning as well.

So little time to try and get it all done and rolling in the right direction. Safe travels.

Taking a Byte of Wireless

2009-09-18T10:29:00.005-05:00

I had the chance the other night/morning to see Wes Fryer over in Hong Kong participating with Kim Cofino & Julie Lindsay in their Flat Classroom Project at the Hong Kong International School. While I am sure there are a lot of reasons for me to be asleep at that time of the morning, I wasn't and it is always nice to be able to see what other people are doing in other parts of the world.

Today, Wes posted a link to his blog about Best Practice Wi-Fi Networks in Schools which was timely for me as we are at the end of a wireless install at our school. After a lot of research and half bids and no bids we settled with a company that installed a Cisco Wireless "N" network. We also at the same time upgraded all of our hubs and switches to a complete switch setup with gigabit backbone.

In order to do all of this I had to squeeze the heck out of a very tight and small budget but we were able to make it happen thanks to a great leader, Kate Dailey, my boss. The reason that Wes' post was so timely for me was that it gave me some additional ideas as to how to segment things out. We have posted in our online management system the passcode for the students and given it to all of the faculty. The difficulty that still exists for us is we also have proxy servers in place. We are educating the students about what they need to change when they go home so they can pick up their wireless there.

We are still working on how to make it the best situation for our students and one of the things we do is allow them to bring in their own connectivity. I have helped students connect Macbooks, iPod touches, PCs, netbooks and I have helped parents do the same for when they are here for extracurricular events. We have things open like Twitter, Facebook, Wiki's, Nings Skype, Diigo, Delicious and heading toward YouTube as well as other programs for the students to use. We have adopted a simple mantra "The world is unfiltered." Based on that, we want to truly help our students learn ethical use, how to be good digital citizens as well as how to be safe online. We also want to make sure we teach them that this is one way to work and that it is still so very important to make sure we connect face to face. We do block porn and spam.

The benefit of all the upgrades is that the 20 mbps pipe we have with ATT is so much quicker and it is also a joy to see students sitting around connecting, answering email, checking their Edline pages for homework, tweeting with a teacher and yes even Facebooking.

I know we are not the only school out there with this setup and we need those schools to share their stories more and more for those who are battling to have that type of setup for their students. Is there wireless in your building but yet very few get to use it?

What can I do to help you?

One of the Lucky Ones

2009-08-19T17:53:00.008-05:00

I truly am one of the lucky ones. I have been in education for what will be my 34th year this year. On top of all those years, I have even been at the same school.

Recently I have been haunted with thoughts that I couldn't quite pinpoint and then today it hit me. A post by Ryan Bretag back in May of 2009 which you can read here, struck me then and for reasons I could not understand was haunting me now until just recently. While Ryan was talking about how we need to honor those who go before us, I have been thinking about the ones who leave us. This past year I had a wonderful young man who worked with me in the tech department, helping teachers, helping them understand things like podcasts, why we do some of the things we do and how to do it even better. Kyle Stevens did a lot. However, the biggest thing Kyle did was let me throw new things at him to try and he was off and running. He was good with the faculty and would do his best every day. Understand I am not here to nominate Kyle to sainthood but I use Kyle as the example that we all see happen so many times, someone really good leaving our school.

Kyle left us this year. Like the post that Ryan had about the wisdom and the knowledge that these veteran educators brought to the classroom, I have been linking his post to my thoughts about what do we impart to those people like Kyle that decide to leave? Kyle, in my humble opinion left for all of the right reasons. We tried to get him to stay but he still left. He would have a chance to bring his talent, wisdom and ability to so many new young men and women.

My thinking about this was the fact that I hope I was able to impart the importance of the traditions of Bishop Dunne and the importance that they play in not only my life but the life of so many other people especially those who bring their children back to be educated by us as another generation begins walking the halls. How much of what Kyle learned here, or any of the other Kyles at all of our schools, how much have we taught them about the importance of the students they will be in charge of and the future they will be bringing to those next generations?

I feel comfortable knowing that Kyle will take a lot of Bishop Dunne with him as well as a whole lot of "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" as well. But I also think it is important that the time we do get to spend with our new teachers is time well spent, so that if they do decide to move on, they continue to take a little bit of our traditions and spread them around for others to learn from. It is our job to help these teachers grow so that they may also leave the nest to help others grow as well.

I am one of the lucky ones. I was taught well by what I would call a lot of old school folks, but that tradition does get passed on to those who are willing to take the time. I just hope I am making enough time and being open enough for those who are new here at my school.

Thanks Kyle and thanks Ryan and thanks to all those who have gone before me.

School and Social Networking

2009-08-14T07:30:00.006-05:00

On one of the listservs I am on I received this the other day:

“I am on a mission to find out which, if any, school districts allow student access to any or all of the following during school hours: 1. Facebook or any other social networking site 2. Twitter 3. YouTube Also, do you provide student email accounts either on your domain or through a service like Gaggle. Thanks for your input!”

More and more schools are exploring the possibility of using these types of media tools for educational purposes. I was however amazed and somewhat saddened to see the responses from directors of technology that came back with what struck me as almost emphatic NO’s for the response. I could almost hear “We are not allowing that on MY network.”

A clean working network is a great thing don’t get me wrong, but what will it take for some folks to see the benefit of the tools that are out there and available being used for instructional purposes? I also know that nothing beats great teaching. However, are we using our great teachers to connect with our students where they are and in a way that they communicate or are we merely breaking their spirits to conform to our standards? I also know that we need to leverage what we do with what is sustainable. What if one of these free tools that we sink time and energy into goes away? We have to make sure that we do not lose more time with that happening. I also know that we don't need to use "tools" just so we are able to say we are using tools.

I would imagine that if we were to ask those same directors of technology if sites like Delicious and Diigo were open or whether Wikispaces, Wetpaint or PBworks were available for collaboration the answer would probably be a NO as well. I thought the whole idea with education was just that education. How do we show proper use of tools and ethical use of sites and the Internet as well as collaborative ways for students to work with others and learn from others if we don’t allow them to experience things through the virtual worlds that exists via the Internet? Our faculty members also need to have the opportunities to learn in educational settings because I can imagine that most have a social networking site and before long we will hear, if we haven’t already, about someone getting in trouble for what they have posted because they don’t use them properly. Is it the students we are afraid of or the adults?

At our place we have opened up Facebook, Twitter and are exploring the best options for YouTube. We also have access to Discovery Streaming, Diigo, Delicious, Wetpaint, Wikispaces, TeacherTube, and we are even allowing our students to bring their own connectivity as we have gone wireless on our campus. Do I expect there to be some difficulties, sure I do. But I work at a school where we educate and the way we educate is not just what is contained in the curriculum. We educate the whole person in as many ways as possible. What I also expect more of are the chances for our students, as well as our teachers to do their best to shift the way they are taught as well as the way we teach and sometimes there needs to be a little push. My hope with a more open network is for the students to help with that push and then we get the benefit of teaching the ethical use as well as proper modeling of what is truly available out there to help our students prepare for their future.

I feel that if we truly believe in what we are doing we have to make strides in the direction of being more open with our students, with our parents and with our networks. Sometimes it is hard to let go, yes it can be a scary world out there, yes I want to protect my students and I do everything possible to make that happen, and yes we do teach online safety across the board, but I also want to share what is available, open the eyes of my students and teachers to all the possibilities and hopefully help to make them successful for their future.

New Year New Worries

2009-08-05T16:43:00.005-05:00

So can someone tell me where the summer went? Tomorrow we have a small orientation for new faculty members and my hope is that we do not overwhelm them with "stuff." I am glad it is short and sweet.

This summer I have been busy overseeing a wireless project throughout our facility. All of the campus buildings will have wireless capability and we are planning on allowing the students to bring their own device to connect. Some are asking about netbooks, some are aksing about their own wireless notebooks and on and on. We use Edline and the students have storage in the cloud.

So far the only recommendation we have made is that the antivirus software be up to date, that the equipment is insured in some way shape or form and that they have a long life battery available to them. Students also have the option for e-books, yet, not all titles are electronic, or regular bound books. Where I see the struggles coming are with the teachers and their ability to be flexible and teach to many different levels. But I believe this to be an additional flexibility that they will need to achieve this year. It will also give us the chance to start bridging that divide of the haves and have nots or at least seeing if we can.

My current worry however, is the delivery time from the manufacturer. We are waiting on our WAPs - wireless access points. All the wiring is installed and tested, our new switches are here for the backbone upgrade and now we need the WAPS. I am looking forward to a busy and fun year. The full faculty comes in on Monday and the Students begin their orientation camps the following week.

Here we go, plenty of new things to share.

Is it Time for us to Divide the Divide

2009-07-03T14:00:00.004-05:00

The following are pretty much thoughts jumping out of my head and are somewhat all over the place or at least I feel they are. But I also felt the need to get them out to maybe make space for a better organization of the other things going thru my head.

As I sit reflecting on my latest NECC trip in 2009, I am somewhat worried about where we are as a group of educational technology professionals and where we are going. After sitting in a couple of different sessions, on different days I began to notice that, while there were some very ardent and enthusiastic individuals in the room who obviously fully embrace the technology, there were also some people with that glazed over look that screamed “WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?”

In a discussion with a couple of the people from Australia, they were amazed at the politeness of the people at NECC. When attendees come into the room, they sit quietly and listen, get up and leave. Mostly no questions, no pushback, no anything. When I asked about the procedure in Australia, the response was “I had better be ready for at least three or four folks to question and push and argue from the very beginning and that I had better know my stuff thru and thru.”
My fear is that the digital divide among the adults, the teachers, is growing by leaps and bounds. What has resulted in the Twitterverse is that here have been many micro discussions about how to make a difference with those who may be lagging behind. Is it possible to make a difference and close the gap? Is it possible to take the 5-10% estimate of who may get it and close down the gap of the 90-95% that may not get it?

What exactly is it that they don’t get? What is it, about what I see a lot of people do and what I am trying to learn to do better each day, that they do not get? What do they need to know exactly? Is it that the term 21st Century skills are no different than maybe the day to day skills that each and every student AND teacher needs to function, communicate and use to achieve something in this world? Are they looking for how to make the next viral video? Are they wanting to know what the tools are all about? Is it that we are to merely point them to the “edublogosphere’s guru/leader and say read this and leave them alone?

There is no magic potion at least not one that will magically get you your 10,000 hours quickly. We also will not find what we do on the vendor floor. But I do know that if I were to treat any of my students this way, in my school I would no longer have a job. I am so far from having any of the answers and more often than not I sit and watch and listen and try to learn because I feel what I may have to offer is old hat or that I don’t have enough to offer.

But I will offer this out there to anyone who wants or needs it - if you have questions, or if you want to know something, if you don’t understand something, please do not hesitate to contact me either by Twitter(@paulrwood) or by email (paulwood[at]swbell[dot]net and the reason it is that way is so that the farming/harvesting bots can’t pick it up as easily to spam me). I will do whatever I can to answer any questions, direct you to someone who can and the only thing I ask you to do in return is to help someone else. But please understand YOU have a responsibility as well – YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO ASK. If you don’t ask me, ask someone else, reach out, share, because we are all here to learn. This is not some elite circle but you do need to be willing to participate. If you are on Twitter, please fill out your profile and if you have a blog/website, list it so that we can see who we are talking to and what you do. If you want to follow me don’t protect your updates as I will not ask to follow you back.

By ourselves we will never make it, together we are so much better.

PLN's, Purity and Flexibility or how my PLN saved my presentation!

2009-05-17T17:32:00.005-05:00

On Monday evening, May 11, 2009, I was trying to finish up a wikispaces site for a presentation that I was giving at Region 10 ESC to local region educators. I was using wikispaces and was on my home machine which is a Vista machine upgraded to the latest Internet Explorer browser. It became apparent very quickly that I would not be able to edit the wiki the way I wanted, as I had hoped to merely embed resources in a way that I was taught by David Jakes at the TCEA convention back in February.

After several frustrating attempts I put out a call to my PLN on Twitter for some help as I thought I might have forgotten a step. After posting this tweet I put on my headset as I had given out my Skype name and within minutes, Miguel Guhlin called in and asked what the problem might be? I explained what was going on and he looked things over and made some adjustments to the wiki itself and then asked "What browser are you using and what operating system do you have on your machine?" I responded IE 8 and Vista Business. Miguel's only response was "Download Firefox and use that."

While Miguel and I were talking I received 4 other calls or tweets to see if I needed help or if I had been helped. As I talked or messaged each person, the question was always the same "Are you using Firefox? Why not?" Needless to say once I got off of Skype I went to the Mozilla page and downloaded Firefox and installed it. After having a couple of initial problems with the Firefox browser, which Jen Wagner help me sort, we found out it was a result of the links and cookies imported from IE8. I was up and functioning and working on my wiki with no problems whatsoever.

I have usually been a purist on my machines but have opened up to other options as a result of really being in a bind. While I don't see Microsoft as the evil empire and yes I do want a MBP somewhere down the line (sooner rather than later), I truly wish Microsoft would build things to work better with the available tools that are out there. If you can't be all things to all people, at least make it so that your software works right the first time please.

The power of my network proved it's worth once again and I am always grateful. Are you using your network to it's potential? Are you helping others with their networks? Thanks to all those in my network, as always you people are the best.

Just Summer Professional Development?

2009-05-03T18:34:00.007-05:00

As the school year starts to wind down, some people have been asking about where others might get their summer professional development. Last summer I had the opportunity to attend several professional development opportunities and that extended throughout the school year as well. I almost always attend NECC as that is important to my boss and to the future of the school from a technology integration standpoint. I also debated on whether to attend Alan November's BLC '08 or Gary Stager CMK '08. I chose CMK08 and while I can't exactly tell you why, I have absolutely no regrets.

This summer Gary is putting on CMK '09 again being held in Manchester, New Hampshire and has prepared a great lineup. I encourage you to consider this very worthy week long event under the direction of Gary and his great lineup of folks. You want to truly have an opportunity to think, play, reflect, be challenged? This is the place to be in my opinion. Nothing laid out for you step by step, you get to create (exactly what we want our students to do); you get to reflect (another thing we want our students to do); you get to hear some great minds, see some great places and spend some quality time with people who want the same thing - the chance to create modern knowledge together and go back to the classroom with all kinds of great ideas, software and tools.

NECC is just that NECC. You have the chance to explore, cruise the aisle of the largest vendor spectacle around or you can sit in the hallways and participate in true conversations. Between Edublogger Con, Second Life playgrounds, and myriad of sessions that you can either pay for or walk into for free, you have the chance to work and play with people of the same mindset - what can I do to help my students? Don't be afraid to seperate from the herd and learn on your own or by asking questions of those who seem to be in the know, just about all of us want what is best for our students. Whatever you do come up with something more original than "Hey I follow you on Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, etc., etc." Come for the conversations. Come to explore our Capital.

But why just stop with those two? You in Texas or close to East Texas? Scheduled to be featured presenters are Dean Shareski, Alec Couros, and Jennifer Wagner along with great Texas talents Maria Henderson, Stephanie Sandifer, Randy Rogers, the GIS team from Bishop Dunne High School (Christine Voigt & Kyle Stevens), Diana Benner, 2009 TCEA Educator of the Year Pam Cranford, Janet Corder, and Joan Gore. If nothing else come by to see what new dish Mike Gras has cooked up for folks to try. Again chances for good conversation around technology, integration, people and food. Might even have a literacy conversation or two and you never know who might Skype in from the outer reaches of the U.S.A.

But what about during the rest of the year. There are so many good things and the best thing I can recommend is to make sure you don't get in a rut. I branched out last year and went to Educon 2.1 at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia and I can truly say that by far it was the absolute best conference I have attended in my lifetime bar none. True, deep, intensive, free flowing conversations from all involved. The two teachers I took with me were blown away and very grateful for what they experienced.

There is so much professional development all year long from so many people willing to share and stream, and tweet and mogulous, and skype. There are all sorts of people blogging, podcasting and willing to share what they have and do with anyone, anywhere, anytime. If you aren't getting enough professional development, then you aren't making the effort. Don't leave your students behind by not being willing to participate. Their future depends on it. Prpeare them for their future and not what is left of yours. Don't just participate in professional development during the summer, it is waiting for you 24/7/365!

So much to share and participate in. I hope to see you somewhere.

One Year Later

2009-03-29T12:38:00.007-05:00

One year and 45 posts later, I reflect on some of the things I have learned.

A personal learning network is only as powerful as you want it to be. Many times I feel that I don't contribute as much as I should because I am constantly wowed by the truly knowlegeable and brilliant minds that I follow.

I have learned that it is OK not to post all the time. I have spent a lot of time reading and watching the conversations, and when I do jump in I am blessed by the openness of the people there and their willingness to converse and contribute to my thinking.

I have learned that writing helps me to remember. Some times I feel as though I have so far to go in this world of ed-tech and yet I look back to some of my earlier posts and I think I am doing OK. It does however cause me to want to get other people close to me to at least try some of these things.

I have learned that all I have to do is ask and there are people more than willing to lend a hand, say a prayer or just tell you a joke. People are wonderful and this is a great way to meet them and learn about them and share life with them.

I have learned that we all struggle with life, with faculties - those employed by a district or simply my own personal ones, with technology or just work and the trials that electronic equipment brings to us. I am always looking for a different way to help our faculty members reach out to our students and make them more aware of what the future holds for them and not what my future is for them. I have learned many new ways thanks to the people in my life here.

Above all I have learned! I continue to learn and I want to share my learning with so many others so that they may learn. I look forward to the continued discussions about walled gardens, literacies, skills, tools, what is going to show up on a Dean stream, and who will be close to my location so I can go and sit with them and learn some more, or when will the Texas boys teach someone else about the good "Q" down here. When you coming back David?

But as much as I have learned, I have also learned that it is so very important to share. Share as much as possible. I thank you for being a part of my PLN, I thank you being a part of my learning, and I thank you all for helping me be a better person because you are in my life. Here is to each of you and to many more years of the opportunity to learn lots and share more.

So much to learn and share and so little time.

Are you adaptable?

2009-02-22T15:20:00.006-06:00

I had a chance recently to go on a hike with my older brother. I am fortunate that I live outside the city of Dallas in a small suburb that currently is know for the fact that 43, 000 citations have been issued with a red light camera at one intersection and that number is greater than the population of the city itself. There also happens to be a great creek running several different directions throughout the city and it comes close enough to my house that we decided to go "creeking" the other day. Having recently been discharged from the hospital, I took my ID and cell phone just in case and I am glad that I did so that I could take some pictures. As we walked along we came across this tree that you see to the right and I was fascinated by the fact that the roots of that tree were continually adapting to whatever the creek brought it's way. As a result the tree continued to make it in the real world, our world.

This caused me to ask myself whether or not I am adaptable or am I as adaptable as I think I am or should be? While I feel that I am, the discussion that came about with my brother was how adaptable do our students have to be today? At my school our students may have 4 classes on one day and 3-4 on the other depending on their schedule. This is also known as an A/B block schedule. A teacher may have anywhere from 15-25 students depending on the class and the level for 4-6 periods in those 2 days. We all know that students have to be pretty adaptable because they continually adapt while they "play school" to get out. They adapt to the teacher so as to get a decent grade. They adapt to the day as they encounter other students and faculty be it in the hall, at athletics, extra-curriculars and on and on.

As I pondered this more and more, I got to thinking maybe the students don't have to adapt at all since a lot of teachers stick to the tried and true methods that they have known and how they were taught. Maybe we could all learn from the students. Maybe it's time for us to take a closer look so as to be able to see what the students need as opposed to what is going to get me through my day in the easiest way possible. I don't know as I am still trying to figure this one out.

Are you adaptable? If so how so? I would love to see if I am going the right direction. Let me know.

So much to learn and the time gets shorter and shorter.

Conference Envy Anyone?

2009-01-23T11:15:00.004-06:00

This morning as I was catching up on school email, Lisa Durff sent out a tweet with the words "Do you agree or disagree?" I clicked the link she provided and read the post by kwhobbes titled "What's the rest of us to do?" I encourage you to read the post and add your thoughts. Last I checked my comments were waiting moderation so I thought I would go ahead and post some additional thoughts here.

Unfortunately, these are economic times that we will all have to struggle through. We never have enough funding for the things we think we want much less the things we truly need. Mandates from the government be it National, State or local and little to help back it up continue to frustrate all of us even without the thought of trying to convert my school to an SLA look alike. So we all have to be more creative. Yet the thing to think about in my opinion is that if we continue to do things the same way over and over again, our children will follow suit.

We have to work with our students to try and reach each and every one of them in some form or fashion. We need to model life long learning and passing that on. I think of the signs posted in every room and in the hallways at SLA that say "CORE VALUES - Inquiry, Research, Collaboration, Presentation, Reflection." I start thinking do I do that, do our teachers do that? Do we approach all we do in that manner, so as to model it? While I may not go to every conference or see everything I think I need to see or even hear the same thing others hear, it is important to get out there, to be aware, to take teachers to these things so they can be a part of the conversation or at least be within earshot of the conversation, to bring them to the water and let them decide to drink or not. But I do so knowing full well that if I can get there, many others can as well.

There are plenty of frustrations out there without suffering conference attendance envy. Then we we get to conferences the frustrations are also many because we keep hearing the same phrases. In our buildings we continue to beat our heads against the same walls and feeling like we are not moving, but we have to continue to strive to help others make the "shift."

We do that by continually modeling, giving links for the K-12 Online Conference as well as the Not K-12 Online Conference, for Educon for NECC and we have to keep offering people opportunities to make the shift. We have to continually spoon feed and work with and supporting the believers and recruiting new ones all the time.

Frustrating I know, but after 32 years, these are exciting times and I am glad I am here able to be a part of it. On to SLA to learn more so I can share with anybody that wants to listen.

Tagged and Passing it along

2009-01-03T06:39:00.002-06:00

Lately there is a meme tag going around and Jen Wagner tagged me for "7 things you did not know about me." I have seen people tagged for different ones in the past and I thought it would be fun to be tagged but now I am not so sure. I have read several other people's 7 things and now I am trying to think what to come up with or what I might consider to be important. Oh well with that in mind:

1. I have always wanted to be a psychologist, but maybe for the wrong reasons. As an 8th grader one of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart where I went to school asked each of us what we wanted to be when we grew up and my response was a "Psychologist." The response of the class to my response was to laugh. I still remember what that felt like. That was back in 1968. My desire was to help people then and it still is today.

2. One of the most influential people in my life was a nun by the name of Miriam. She is a wonderful Sister of St. Mary of Namur nun who is still around today and I still see and visit with on rare occasions. We would talk about many things while I was still a student. The fascinating thing about her is she was a relative of one of the members of the band "The Monkeys." Well that wasn't the only fascinating thing about here as there were many. She however took the time to talk, listen, question me as well as make me feel that I was important and had a purpose for living. Because of her time and energy I left for college and came back to teach and coach at the very school I graduated from and have been there for 32 years. She was my department head when I first came back to teach at Dunne. I think she also had a lot of influence on my being a deacon but more on that later.

3. I took steroids in high school. Sorry to say that and I wished I hadn't but I did, all for the love and the desirous glory of Texas Football. I liked the way I grew, I liked the muscles that I built, but then I learned to absolutely hate football and a lot of the things I enjoyed around me. I still feel as though I have some of the after effects of the steroids but I doubt I would have come to my next point in life had I not taken them.

4. As a senior in high school I spent many months considering suicide. The phrase I have heard lately is a "convergence of circumstances" or "the perfect storm" related to my senior year. I held several offices in the school, I was probably more popular than I thought, but everything about myself and my life I questioned. I felt so out of place, I felt as if I was at a totally different level than so many of the people I was in class with and as a result the only out at that time for me was the one out I work to make sure no other student ever feels. I often refer to it as a long term solution to short term problems. High school should not be that way for anyone and my hope has always been to help people see the good in the whole situation.

5. I gave serious consideration to becoming a priest while I was in college. I quit dating totally (what was I thinking?), I actually drove to different places in the US and visited seminaries since my parents told me that did not want me to go to the one in Dallas (how interesting that is looking back on things now) but I could go to any seminary in the US. I finally decided that I truly liked women and that the two conflicted so I stayed single for a good while after that but of course I did date often however.

6. I hate accolades of any sort. Most of the recognition I have received are things associated with my job. My feeling is that I am paid to do my job and therefore I don't need to be recognized for doing my job the right way. I do however like to be told thank you on occasion. That is more than enough for me. I think a large part of the not liking the accolades is the fact that I hate crowds and having to schmooze. I guess due to shyness but a lot of people say they would never know it.

7. In a continuing pursuit of trying to help people I entered the formation program for the Diocese of Dallas to become a permanent deacon. The program is a long and hard journey of 5.5 years. My wife had to be there for the first 2 so that she would know what we were getting into and then she stayed through the other 3.5 years with me the whole way. I am very fortunate that she accepted my desire to enter the program and even more grateful she has stood by my side all these years, before and after the formation program. It is a tough program but I feel it is worth it. What time I had that I thought was my own now no longer is. I am assigned to Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Duncanville, TX where I can baptize , marry, bury, distribute Communion but can not consecrate, I can't say Mass but I am allowed to assist, I can't hear confessions but I talk with a lot of folks that need to be heard, and on occasion I get to preach. Miriam had a lot to do with forming me in the early part of my life and enabling me to get here.

Seven things you probably don't need to know about me but now you do. Jen, I thank you for tagging me I think. So let's see if we can get a few more folks in on this and if you have already been tagged feel free to pass it along. I tag:

1. Miguel Guhlin
2. Scott Floyd
3. Kyle Stevens
4. Carolyn Foote
5. Clif Mims
6. Randy Rodgers
7. Alan Lutz

Who Was Your First?

2008-11-13T16:56:00.004-06:00

Well if you are here looking for some real juicy tidbits I think you might be disappointed. Last week as I made my way through different sessions at Tech Forum Southwest in Austin, my last session was with David Warlick. Mr. Warlick talked about his PLN (Personal Learning Network) and how it came to be. He talked about initially following Will Richardson and then adding more people as he became more involved in that network of people.

As I drove back from Austin with Kyle Stevens, I got to thinking about who was the first person that initially brought me to the table and my involvement in and growth of a PLN. I was fortunate enough some time back to actually hear about and then stumble upon Miguel Guhlin. Miguel has been involved for a long time with TCEA so I read his work online by the simple task of having it bookmarked in my favorites. All during this time resisting the opportunity to learn more things that Miguel talked about over the years in his blog.

I continued in this manner for several years or so and then I attended my second Tech Forum Southwest in 2007 and heard about things like Twitter, Delicious, and on and on. I opened my Twitter account that day and followed some of the individuals at the event and casually watched the tweets go by over the next several months. And then it happened. The heavens opened, the earth shook, well, not really, but to say my eyes were opened would actually be a true statement.

Then I ran across Kathy Cassidy’s blog as she was just starting and someone mentioned it in a Tweet. So I read it and decided it was time to get in the pool. Miguel had brought me to the water and I just stood there for a very long time, but it was as much if not more Miguel that got me here as it was Kathy.

Thank you Miguel for what you have meant to me over the years and thank you for your friendship and conversations. Kathy I appreciate your timely post and the fact that it came to my feeds. To all of those who exist in my PLN you are all so very awesome and you continue to push me and make me think. Thank you all and know that I pray for each of you every day.

So who was your first? Who helped get you to where you are and have you thanked them recently? Meanwhile, someone pass me some more of that kool-aid.

2008-11-07T14:28:00.002-06:00

2008-11-07T09:53:00.002-06:00

2008-11-07T08:39:00.000-06:00

K-12 Online Conference is Here & Not Here

2008-10-12T23:33:00.007-05:00

Now is your chance to jump into the conversation. The K-12 Online Conference is here. You can click here for the schedule. The idea is to join in the conversations. Anytime, anywhere learning is what it is all about. Not going to be up? Not a problem. The events are recorded and you can access them at your leisure. Join in the conversations and see what you can contribute, share, learn, take back to your classroom or faculty lounge. It is time to be a part of the change that is about our students. First timer to the conference? Click here.

The investment of time will be well worth it. But wait - you don't think the K-12 Online Conference will be the thing for you? Well then take a moment to crusie over to the Not K-12 Onlne Conference FAQ page. More opportunities to jump in and be a part of online learning.

Take a moment, bring some friends, have a ribfest and watch. Whatever you do take some time to refresh your opportunity for online professional development with some of the best.

I hope to see you there.

What voices have you heard?

2008-09-24T22:14:00.005-05:00

What voices have you heard from your students? There has been a lot of talk about it is not what we teach but what we as teachers are also learning. So my question once again is what voices have you heard from your students? Is it the voice of being "powered down" because of what is not taking place in the school? Is it the voice of what is going on this weekend with anticipation? Or is it the voice of the girl who is so stone cold due to home that you wonder if she will ever warm up? Or is that a front so you will leave her alone? Or the young man who is loud and boisterous and always has something smart to say? Or is that a front that he is scared? Or is it the silent voice of the young person in the back row that you would never know was there because all they want to do is to be invisible to the whole world but yet there is a body there in that desk?

Yes we need to be learners, yes we need to model all the "it's not the technology, it'sthe tools" we can, but better yet, we need to be open to our students so that they bring whatever voice they have and we help them and ourselves become the most literate, 21st century people we can be. It is their future not ours but in order to bring them to it, we have to know them, we have to hear their voice, we have to know what their voice is truly saying, thinking, feeling and asking, even though their voice does not say it out loud.

Yes we need to learn. But more importantly we need to open our ears and our eyes because we don't teach subjects. We need to learn how to better work with our students and we do that by truly hearing their voices. Learning is messy and that is OK, life is also messy and that can be OK too.

What voices have you heard since school started?

It's A New Year

2008-09-12T03:17:00.003-05:00

Since returning from CMK08 it seems all I have done is get ready for the start of the school year. We have installed a new server and now have a total of about 1.6 TB of space to house the volumes we have carved out on the two servers - Anselm & Falcon.

We are preparing 270 iPods for distribution for our incoming 9th graders as well as all our remaining faculty who have yet to receive one. This is our third year of the iPod initiative and we will have a total of 480 iPods in the hands of students.

We are also working with AT&T to up our bandwidth. Our first jump will be from 1.5 mg to 20 mg. Looking forward to that. Along with that we will be replacing switches this year in order to be able to handle the increased bandwidth and to also prep for VOIP.

We have a new 6th grade and we just recently ordered 30 Intel 2Go PC's. We are waiting for them to arrive and will need to get them prepared as well as add a couple of wireless access points.

We finished out our classrooms with SMART boards and projectors. It is amazing to me the amount of equipment we had worked to get over the past few years and now we are giving it away because with the SMART boards and projectors we no longer need them as the desktops play DVD's. We have a couple of TVs and vcr's remaining for the tapes that have not been converted to disk but we are getting there. We have about 35 boards and projectors.

On top of all of this I am teaching 2 classes. Thankfully, I guess, it is the same class but 2 sections. I have juniors and seniors for a Christian Relationship class and we are having fun right now. I just don't have enough time in the day to do all the things I need to do. One thing I am learning is to try and get the most out of those who are working with me even if it is on a limited basis. We have set up a class wiki, Google accounts and have been doing some searches with cell phones in the class. The students have been amazed at what some of the possibilities are and I am glad the administration has allowed me the chance to truly explore these things with my students.

I realize that this is just a lot of info with out a lot of reflection, but I have struggled to get back in the saddle and write. Maybe this will help to kick start a few things. I plan to explain more in depth what we do with some of these things we are rolling out. If you have specific questions about them, send the to me and I will post responses and maybe just make a post about individual items that come my way.

Keep on learning and sharing.

A New Jersey Tale - Fuhgedaboudit!

2008-08-04T06:45:00.008-05:00

NOTE: When reading this all NJ speaking parts should be read with the Sopranos in mind.

When I decided to go to Constructing Modern Knowledge ’08, I worked on getting my plane tickets with Scott Floyd of Whiteoak ISD. Knowing that gas prices were climbing, luggage was costing money and plane tickets were not getting any cheaper, we turned to Priceline.com. When all was said and done we flew to Philadelphia and made a connection there to fly into Manchester. The return trip was going to be a little different with the first leg of the trip going to Newark, NJ and then from Newark to Dallas.

Backtrack a bit to the 4th of July and the Travel Channel. I happened to catch the Top 10 Hotdogs Places in America and wouldn’t you know, one of them is in Clifton, N.J, Rutt’s Hut. Upon further investigation Clifton is about 20 miles from the Newark Airport. Since I was traveling with Scott Floyd (@woscholar) I hoped he would want to take a side trip especially since we had 4 hours to burn while in Newark.

We landed in Newark and headed to the taxi stand. Scott had done some research and I knew the cost of the ride out there would be a bit expensive - $52 – one way. So we got to Newark and went for it. I told the driver, country of origin unknown, that we wanted to go to Rutt’s Hut and he assured us he “knew” Clifton, NJ. So while he was driving I was using my iPhone to get us the address and directions we needed. After a couple of wrong turns we circled back and arrived at Rutt’s Hut. There were 2 entrances so we took the non-bar entrance first. We stood there just watching and soaking in the atmosphere. There we were, two Texans in the midst of New Jersey history, society and Travel Channel lore. We walked up to the counter and truly not knowing what to get I simply ordered 2 “World Famous.” That’s it. Nothing else on the overhead menu about choices. The guy behind the counter who probably was the guy that made sure the Sopranos was authentic on TV, looked at me and said “Anything else?” I just said no. In less than 10 seconds I had two “rippers’ as they are referred to. The reason they are called rippers is that they throw these hot dogs in deep fat fryers and cook them. Once they get hot enough the skin rips and they pull them out, slap them on a bun and pass them to you. I then moved to the side and looked around. There were two containers with lids on them and I took the lid off one and there was this chunky yellow stuff (which Gary Stager assures me is known simply as “yellow stuff’) that I assumed was their homemade relish. The other container had what looked like a special mustard concoction. I put the “yellow stuff" on one hot dog and the mustard on the other. After a bite I walked back to the counter and asked if I could get a soda and the Soprano historian looked at me and said “I asked if you wanted anything else.” I got my soda and looked at Scott and he simply used ketchup on his one dog.

We ate and actually made small talk with one of the locals who was watching his young daughter work on eating a cup of chili. The local asked us where we were from and then he asked if we had ever seen the bit on the Travel Channel? When I said yes he said “whatever you do go over to the bar area and also make sure you go in the restroom. It will all take you back to the early 1920’s. Scott and I took out our cameras and were snapping pictures and people all around knew we were definitely tourist. So we finished in the diner part and walked around to the bar/dining room area. I walked up to the bar and sat down and Scott joined me. The bartender who looked as if he lived there for the majority of his life asked what we wanted. Scott said he was good and I said 2 dogs and a Pepsi please. Two more deep fried, nitrate infested, sulfide loaded Rippers. As I ate and Scott drank the Coke he had with him we looked around and listened to the bartender ordering food on a microphone to the other side of the diner in a language foreign to the two of us. We could see him open his mouth and hear sound come out and were totally unable to translate it. Next thing we knew food appeared at the pass through window which he delivered. Amazing.

We finished up and started planning our next move – getting from Rutt’s Hut to the Airport. I told the bartender that I needed to call a cab, thinking of course that any bar has several numbers for cab companies. He looked at me and said “You gotta number for one?” To which I replied no I don’t and he walked away. Scott and I looked at each other and we started chuckling. We walked outside, I called information, I was connected and I was told that it would be 20-30 minutes. We were still well within our layover window so it was all good.

We walked around taking pics outside and talking and then started to get a bit nervous. I called information again and as I was getting connected this huge black limo pulls up with a guy that looked like Kam Fong Chun from Hawaii Five-0 only bigger. He was wedged into the front seat with a huge crate in the passenger seat. He said “You call for a car?” I called for a taxi. “You goin’ to Newark?” I said the Newark airport yes. “Get in.” I looked at Scott and we hopped in. The limo smelled of stale beer, and was dirty. The ac barely worked and then the questions and the verbal assault started. “Where youse from? Texas. “Texas? What part?” Dallas and East Texas. “Oh I’m going there soon.” Really what part? “Terrell.” (He pronounced like Terrell Owens of the Cowboys) Oh where Jamie Fox is from. “Who?” Jamie Fox. “Yeah whatever.” What are you going there for? “Going down to buy me a gaming dog.” Me I am thinking a bird dog but quickly realized NOT. “They still do that in Texas?” (Dog fights) Scott replied it’s against the law. “That’s what I thought. No cock fights, dog fights nuttin huh?” Nope. “That’s why the only thing left in Texas is steers and queers.” Not in our neighborhood. “Yep steers and queers.” “I got me a world class champion up here in the front.” I’m thinking I doubt he is talking about parading a poodle around at the Westminster dog show. He tells us that the only reason he is in the limo business is that his uncle set him up and was willing to front him the money. Otherwise he would be working in the family furniture store for $300 a week.

We got to the airport, in plenty of time for our flight and OZZIE our limo driver was laughing because he talked about always being abusive to his passengers and they still keep coming back for the entertainment. All about the atmosphere in the state of Jersey.

I think I will watch a rerun of the Sopranos to relive it.

Constructing Modern Knowledge '08 Reflection

2008-08-02T15:30:00.003-05:00

This past week I had the chance to travel to Manchester, New Hampshire, where I participated in Gary Stager’s Constructing Modern Knowledge. Not only did we sit and listen but then we had wonderful opportunities for those hallway discussion that, in my opinion, are absolutely essential to try and digest all that we heard with the other 30 or so educators who were there.

Probably one of the most amazing things was to have a chance to talk with Peter Reynolds , Alfie Kohn, Bob Tinker, Marvin Minsky, Sylvia Martinez, & Gary Stager (of course) and to question and push back and discuss and reflect with each of these individuals. To walk into a workshop and come face to face with these individuals and to drink from that fountain of knowledge was at times like trying to sip from a fire hose, but it is that full blown washing of our minds and ideas of the old ways, that helps create the new ideas that lead to the potentiality of change.

As a former coach I saw many student athletes that had potential and in many cases that potential was realized and in others it wasn’t. The same is true of students that aren’t in extracurricular as well as with our faculties. How many of us have seen teachers shut down and just never reach their potential or start off like a rocket and burn out in that first 5 years we all hear about?

Throughout this week I saw the opportunities for me personally to realize potential and the possibility of not realizing potential. If anyone would have walked in during the conference I’m sure they might have immediately thought “well all they are doing is sitting around and just playing.” We did play, we tinkered, we talked, we got frustrated, we sat with people that paved the way and we listened and talked and listened but most importantly we LEARNED.

We learned new ways to be present to our students, to our faculty, to each other. Sure we learned new tools but as so many in the blogosphere have said over and over it is not about the tools. It is or at least it should be, about how we help bring our students to the well of knowledge. Do we allow them to passively sit, are we on the stage, is it about us or them, do we allow them to make mistakes and try again, do we allow their learning to get messy? For those in positions of leadership the same questions apply to the faculties and staffs we work with each and every day. What gets modeled is what gets learned.

This week we listened, we talked, we learned, we created and we learned from what we created and from what others created and we questioned and were questioned and we learned from that as well. We were even given the opportunity to get messy. I encourage each of us to model the messiness of creation and creativity, model the need to dive into the deep end, to walk the plank of education by being on the edge, to lead by example and to be willing to do it all each and every day and be wonderfully exhausted at the end of the day,

Thank you Gary Stager. Thank you for going out on a limb, for being willing to bring us together, for being willing to model , for being willing to helps us get messy, for helping us question but most of all for being there to support us.

Thank you Gary.

Constructing Modern Knowledge

2008-07-29T04:18:00.007-05:00

Sitting in New Hampshire at the Constructing Modern Knowledge Workshop this week, we started the program off with a short trip to Boston on Sunday going to the MIT Science Museum and followed that with a guided tour of Boston's Freedom Trail. One of the joys of walking through the MIT Museum is watching the eyes and the imaginations of the kids, young and old, light up in the museum as most of the exhibits have some type of hands on aspect to them.

After watching a young lady up on the second floor playing with the combination waterfall/strobe exhibit, I had a chance to ask her a question before she left with her parents. "What was the most interesting thing you saw or played with today in the museum?" Her response caught me totally off guard, especially given the time she took at the waterfall/strobe exhibit. Instead of talking about the strobe display with the waterfall, her response was the exhibit that talked of the use of zebra fish for cancer research which was located on the first floor and probably about the third exhibit you come across. I thanked both she and her parents for the chance to ask the question and to talk with her and we parted ways.

As Scott Floyd, Gary Stager, a young lady named Bobbi from Oregon and I walked through the museum, we came across an exhibit by Arthur Ganson. While just about every piece he did that was on display in the museum was a fascinating piece of work, Gary, Scott and I were fascinated by a sculpted piece of work with a series of connected worm gears, a crank and rice. As you moved the hand crank the rice undulated in the box and looked like a wave type machine or maybe even ground that had some type of worm getting ready to come to the surface. It was really cool looking.

The next day we sat and listened to different theories about play, tinkering and the chance to have hands on experiences and what that does for the mind and for learning. At a time when budgets are being cut in arts and extra-curricular activities, it was easy to come to understand the need for the chance to simply play and explore. When given the chance, Scott, Frances from Mississippi, with a wonderfully southern voice that was like warm syrup, and I all decided that the rice sculptor was what we wanted, but we wanted to motorize ours so that it could merely become zen like to watch. We also had to add some special effects. No different that kids would.

So off to the suitcases of Lego's, and the adventure began. Here is a video of the final product.

So what did I take away? Given the chance to think, and play and tinker brought out the ability to work with others, get frustrated, be creative, laugh, learn, try, fail, try again, succeed, fail again and retry some more. Are we giving our children that chance? Are we giving our children the chance to fail yet be supported? Do we give them the chance to tinker without punishment? Are we comfortable with the amount of time it takes to create or do we just want to cover material? We need to think about these things and how they affect the education we help our students to achieve. We all need the chance to play and "tinker."

Day two of CMK08 coming up. Scott and I are committed to tinkering with Tali from Israel and she comes across as wicked smart. Why do I say that? As she approached our setup she immediately started saying you could use that for teaching about sand dune erosion, wave simulation, teaching about weather and cloud formation and on and on.

We will see if these two Texas boys are up for the fun and the challenge of tinkering at a new level.

NECC 2008 in Review

2008-07-09T21:29:00.006-05:00

As I reflect back on the National Education Computing Conference there is truly a lot to reflect on. One of the things I thought about was the words I heard - Pedagogy, scaffolding, tools, social networking, blog, wiki, ning, NECC, release form, learning networks, ubiquitousness, just to name a few. Of course if you went down into the vendor area that covered two Texas counties you heard even more words and language that was all geared toward "this will do _____" (fill in the blank) as long as you purchased it during the show.

I started early this year but not as early as those who have been working on this for a long time like a year or more, but I started by volunteering. We set up work stations on Thursday at the back of the Convention Center so that we could stuff bags with all the materials that vendors paid to have in there by way of sponsorship. I actually came back the next day and had a crew of 6 or 7 people and we stuffed bags for over 3 hours.

On Saturday I came and attended my first Edubloggercon. It was an interesting experience that I was amazed at, especially since this was my first one. Most of the discussion on the side centered around the presence of Pearson and their camera crew and the structure of the "unconference" which apparently left much to be desired. I can only imagine that NECC 29 years ago probably began to feel and hear some of the same things and it has grown from there. Steve Hargadon, I thank you for your time and energy. I found the day very valuable and while maybe I was a little star struck seeing so many people that I watch and read online, it was a good experience and I enjoyed the chance to be there and participate.

On Sunday I was lucky enough to get in on The Constructivist Celebration sponsored by Gary Stager and his Constructivist Consortium. A wonderful day of creating and meeting and watching and enjoying. Many people there to help and as a result I look forward to the chance to go to Manchester New Hampshire in late July to spend four days in the Gary Stager think tank. By the way there are a few seats still available. Come join us.

After the Constructivist Celebration I hustled over to the hotel where along with four other wonderful Texans, Scott Floyd, Mike Gras, Brian Grenier and John Maklary who had been hard at it were prepping for the Ribfest. What a great time that was as we sat and ate and drank and listened and talked with a lot of folks from the north and also learned and drank from the fountain of wisdom within the group. There was also lots of good food.

The conference started on Monday and moved at light speed - sessions, vendors, workshops, live blogging, ustreaming, conversations in the halls and with folks from all over the world at the same time as they participated in the back channel chats from whatever session was broadcasting. It was amazing to watch and participate in for sure. The tools became the venue only from the standpoint that the cameras and live blogs opened up a truly wonderful conference to more than just the 17,000 plus people located in Texas.

ISTE and NECC did an excellent job. Sure there will always be some glitches and grousing along the way but I think a truly wonderful time was had by all. My thanks to all the volunteers. I know the ones I worked with were so wonderfully Texan with hearts just as big as the state.

To those I met, thank you for taking the time to teach me, mentor me, to drag me on occasion kicking and screaming and mainly for allowing me to be a part of the world of Educational Technology. However, if I heard one thing over and over again, everyone and I do mean everyone of the attendees that I came into contact knows that t is all about the students. Let's make sure we keep it that way. They are our future and one day they will be making decisions for us. Let's lead them properly into their future and not backwards into our past.

I look forward to Washington D.C.

Idea Karaoke at NECC 2008

2008-07-01T20:42:00.005-05:00

"Idea Karaoke" I would like to say it was my idea but it wasn't. Steve Hargadon and I both got a kick out of it as Kevin Hunnicutt tossed out that phrase while interviewing Steve for a vodcast done by Kevin. I was sitting in the Blogger's Cafe at NECC 2008 in San Antonio as I wanted to play a little bit with Ustream as I had not had the chance to do that. So while I sat there and worked on my ustreaming (which I hate to say I didn't do a very good job because I couldn't get the link right and working) but in the process I recorded about 35 minutes of video and at the same time talked with Miguel Guhlin, Henry Thiele, Clif Mims and then Kevin saw what I was doing and he said well let's do a vodcast and get both of them going.

Will Richardson said that a lot of conversations would happen in the hallways. While that is true anyone who comes to NECC no matter what year, needs to make sure that they don't just run from session to session one after another. I mentioned to my team from BDHS that you have to take time to reflect on what you have just heard. Go to a session, then talk with others. meet others learn from others, bu no matter what you do come in to the conference with the idea that there are things to learn and make sure you learn at least one a day.

Talking with people over the last year and changing my attitude a bit I have been able to start blogging, live blogging, trying to ustream and I will get there, jail breaking iPhones, podcasting, Skyping, posting to youtube, etc., etc. Does it mean I am an expert, not by a long shot but I have tried and I continue to learn. Isn't that what we want to create in our students? The ability to be lifelong learners ? Or are we simply hoping to make them totally dependent on us?

Empowering or enabling? What are you doing with your staff and more importantly your students?

More learning and sharing coming up tomorrow.

Strategic Ed Tech Thinking

2008-07-01T15:28:00.001-05:00

Will Richardson & Sheryl Nussbaum Beach

2008-07-01T13:55:00.001-05:00

Ian Jukes @ 12:30 pm

2008-07-01T12:04:00.003-05:00

Jakes & Shareski Live @ 11

2008-06-30T10:36:00.002-05:00

Thank You ISTE - It Ain't So!

2008-06-26T21:00:00.007-05:00

When all the hulabaloo erupted about not being able to audio,video,stream, etc without the "expressed written consent of both the presenter and ISTE" the bloggosphere erupted with calls to arms and keyboards and send the words to ISTE and the Administration. We are ISTE and as such the "Administration" listened to its members and did a good thing. Below is the response I received from Leslie Conery and I post it with her permission.

"Hi Paul,

I mentioned in an earlier email that we were working on a way to respond to the concerns that would meet the needs of all the groups of stakeholders who need to have a say in this discussion. We received substantial feedback about this issue and have had great internal conversations in the last 24 hours about how best to respond. We needed to listen to and address the valid concerns of ISTE members while also protecting the rights of the people who have agreed to present at NECC.The statement below addresses how we'd like to handle this for NECC2008. Post NECC2008, we are planning to convene a discussion around the issue of broadcasting presentations and to work together collaboratively with podcasters, bloggers, presenters, and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for NECC2009 that meet the needs of the education community.

ISTE recently disseminated a code of conduct regarding video and audio recordings at NECC 2008 which has generated some thoughtful and energetic discussion. We welcome your interest and comments and would like to clarify and amend the code of conduct for NECC 2008. For NECC 2008, ISTE's permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops. However, for NECC 2008, written permission from the session or workshop presenter is required prior to capturing a video or audio recording. Any permitted recording should respect the presenter's rights and not be disruptive. Under no circumstances may any length or quality of video/audio capture be used for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without express written permission from both the session presenter(s) and ISTE. Thank you. We look forward to an ongoing dialog about fair use.

//Leslie"

Leslie and the rest of the Administrative team, my apologies for the delay in getting this posted. I thank you for opening the door to discussion even though it was probably beaten down. I look forward to the dialogue after NECC 2008 to come to a common ground for protecting the rights of the presenters and also making available to those unable to attend as many resources as possible.

To the edu-bloggosphere, I hope that we can continue to pursue the right thing in the right way and maybe we can start by setting up our own Creative Commons Licensing so that people know ahead of time that what is posted or saved or discussed or shown on the web is available for the right use and purposes.

Thank you ISTE and I look forward to seeing you in San Antonio. I especially look forward to the conversations afterward.

Learning coming up, get ready to share.

Say it ain't so!

2008-06-19T22:58:00.004-05:00

Today my wife & I drove from Dallas to Houston as I will be participating in Stephanie Sandifer and Steve Hargadon's Web 2.0 Live Tools session all day tomorrow. After stopping for dinner, my wife drove and I quickly checked on email and the Twitterverse to see if I had missed anything. Much to my surprise there was some rapid discussion going on about NECC 2008 and what I feel amounts to censoring of recording/podcasting/ustreaming/ etc. of sessions without the "1.Permission of the presenter and 2. the permission of ISTE." I was shocked. This after there was a huge call to people in Texas to blog about the conference.

I had participated in the conference call with several of the higher ups at ISTE and was greatly pleased to hear them take suggestions and work toward implementing them for the good of the conference, for the good of educators throughout the world and for the future of all of our students. This announcement that was brought to light by Wes Fryer was a stunning blow to me personally. After reading Wes' blog I then scooted over to Miguel's blog and found more of the same along with a request to send your thoughts to ISTE.

No longer was the world flat, instead it was a cold, dark cave like place waiting for Og to create fire. No longer was there a collaborative air about the conference, instead it became the us vs them aspect that so many schools already struggle with when speaking about faculty and administration. Some people speculated that it was merely ISTE's way of protecting themselves for copyright purposes, some felt that maybe technology was finally catching up to the realities of the world.

I personally feel that it stinks but I am waiting for clarification from Leslie after writing the email. What about those who can't get here because of frozen budgets? While a lot of my expenses are paid for by my school, I have a lot of out of pocket expenses that I do not pass on to my school as we are a private inner city school. I have posted my letter to Leslie Conery below and hope you will take the time to weigh in on this whole situation. I started the letter off personally with some of my thoughts and then used some of the sample letter portions that Miguel had posted on his site.

"Leslie,

I find it worrisome that after working with you and several other ISTE admin people through the use of a conference call and being asked to blog about NECC, we are told that only with permission from both the presenter and ISTE are we able to record sessions at NECC 2008? As I sat in on that conference call, I was impressed with the things that were discussed and brought up and felt that I was finally dealing with an organization that was truly forward thinking. MY DUES WERE BEING USED FOR SOMETHING GOOD. This is true collaboration, true education reaching out to all. The flat world truly coming together for the good of the future - our students.

NECC 2007 proved to be an exciting learning experience because educators embraced disruptive technologies and were open to sharing their ideas as blogs and podcasts. ISTE and NECC Organizers have missed the boat in capitalizing on the use of communication and collaborative technologies. In essence, NECC 2008's policy is to ISOLATE rather than enable educators to COMMUNICATE and COLLABORATE. When I consider the words of Dr. Don Knezek at in 2007 about education no longer being an isolated act of teaching, learning and leading, and juxtapose that intent with NECC 2008's approach, I am aware that ISTE and NECC are no different than K-16 schools today...struggling to escape the past. Even as schools and organizations reach towards the future, old fears and habits keep us from moving forward, keep us from being who we desire to be and have said we want to be as reflected in the ISTE NETS- S. It's difficult to find a new way, and I had hoped that ISTE and NECC would provide the leadership for all state organizations (e.g. TCEA) but I see now that my hope may have been misplaced.

As an educator--teacher, administrator, edublogger and learner who has internalized the ISTE Standards--I challenge you to set aside your fears and reconsider your policy. I intend to encourage all educators to reconsider their participation in future NECC Conferences. I encourage you to respond to post a response on your own ISTE Blog. If I have misunderstood the policy, I hope you'll set me straight. Thank you for taking the time to review the contents of this email during such a busy time.

Wishing you well,

Paul R. Wood
Director of Technology

My Viral Vacation

2008-06-07T12:32:00.006-05:00

The first week of June is gone already. School just ended on the 4th for the students and the 5th for the faculty. I always joke that now I can get things done, the faculty is gone. I already miss the students. So what to do this summer? I have several professional development situations lined up and I am truly looking forward to them, however, my online learning network continues each and every day, 24/7. Here are some opportunities for you to go viral with the rest of us.

On June 20th, I will be in Houston for @ssandifer's and Steve Hargadon's Classroom 2.0 Live Workshop which is a one day session with lots of presentations by some very knowledgeable folks. If the info link above looks goods to you here is the link to register. This one is free and if you are near Houston check out the site and see if you can make it.

NECC is coming hard and fast. ISTE & TCEA and lots of other folks are getting ready to strut their stuff for all those who are coming to town. The venue is San Antonio, TX. My very favorite get out of town to relax place. Northerners beware! San Antonio can be a hot one at the end of June. Check out @technolibrary's wiki on places to go and things to do while in San Antonio. If you are coming in early check out the things on tap with Edubloggercon. There will be free sessions all day Saturday at the Convention Center at Edubloggercon so look it up and learn more so you can share more. There will be additional meet ups and sessions during NECC so check it out.Don't forget to make sure and stop by to see Scott McLeod and pick up your "I'm here for the Revolution" button which he and Wes Fryer worked together on to pick the winner, Bill Mosely.

After NECC it will be a couple of days relaxing and then the next trip is late July to Manchester, N.H. for the Gary Stager-thon. Actually it is called Constructing Modern Knowledge. Beginning on Sunday the 27th of July and going until Thursday July 31. You can find more information here. I have heard there are some spots still available and the faculty for this one looks great.

In between I will be trying to prep machines, ipods, orders, bandwidth and sanity as well as trying to soak in as much as possible and so that I will be able to later share even more. The tools are there and we need to leverage as many of them as possible, otherwise the natives (the digital one that is) will be very restless.

What a viral summer vacation this will be.

The World has Lost a Good One

2008-06-01T15:11:00.006-05:00

This is the obituary that appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Sunday, June 1, 2008:

"A Sister of Saint Mary of Namur, died Thursday, May 29, 2008, at Our Lady of Victory Centers at the age of 58. Service: A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10a.m. Monday at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church, Most Rev. Ricardo Ramirez, bishop of Las Cruces, celebrant. Most Rev. Kevin, Vann, bishop of Fort Worth, and priests of the diocese will con-celebrate. Interment: Mount Olivet Cemetery. Vigil: 7 p.m. Sunday at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church in Fort Worth. Memorials: Sisters of Saint Mary, 909 W. Shaw St., Fort Worth, Texas 76110. Donna Ferguson was born Aug. 4, 1949 in Dallas. She attended St. Cecilia and St. Elizabeth grade schools and graduated from Bishop Dunne High School in 1967. Following a year at St. Thomas University in Houston, Donna volunteered in the missions of the Sisters of Saint Mary in Africa. In 1968, she accompanied the sisters to war-torn Belgian Congo (Zaire) where she worked with local women and taught PE to 8th and 9th grade girls. Her experiences there inspired her to enter the Community. Sister Donna made perpetual vows in 1985. She earned a BS in Secondary Education and Social Sciences from the University of North Texas in 1974, and a Master’s Degree in Christian Spirituality from Creighton University in 1985. On the strength of this degree, Sister Donna began a long career as spiritual guide an1 retreat director. After three years teaching 7th and 8th graders at John XXIII in Dallas, Sister Donna became ill. Despite a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, she channeled her energies into vocation work. In 1981, she was assigned to the Vocation Office of the Diocese of Fort Worth, and in- 1984 was made Vocation Director. Bishop Joseph P. Delaney named Sister Donna Director of Seminarians in 1989, and she. served in this office until 2006. The future priests benefited from her honesty as well as her encouragement. Sister Donna served as Member at Large for the National Board 0f Diocesan Vocation Directors from 1982-1985. Within her religious community, she served on the Provincial Council and as Provincial Treasurer arid Treasurer of Our Lady of Victory Center."

I met Donna through my older brother. She was in need of platelets for an experimental program that would attempt to treat her MS. They took my blood and centrifuged it and gave me what they didn't keep back. They cultivated what they kept and gave her injections of it to combat her MS. It worked until funding for the program went away.

Sr. Donna later became my spiritual director when I entered the Deacon Formation Program for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas. A 6 year formation program, we were all told to find a spiritual director, one that we would meet with on a once a month basis and this director would help to keep our spiritual compass pointing the right direction. She was as responsible for helping me to ordination day as those who taught my classes. She could ask questions of me that would make me dig deeper than any one else I knew. That was why I chose her. She walked every step of the way with me through formation. Once ordained I kept her as my director and my hope was to have her be my spiritual director for a very long time.

I last met with her over dinner about 4 weeks ago. This was a little bit of an oddity as we never met over a meal. She thought it was a distraction. Our meeting was not so much spiritual direction but more a quest on her part for information about what I planned to do this summer. We talked and visited and relaxed and also had the joy of being waited on by my son who works at the Japanese restaurant where we ate.

I received the call on Monday evening, Memorial Day, that she had suffered a massive brain hemorrage. They took her to the hospital she was awake, responding but was unable to speak or move her left side. I waited to go to her side as I knew the drill in the hospital, one that didn't need extra people in the way and I wanted to wait until her family was able to get there. When I got there she had already begun the downward spiral of life but the upward spiral to her eternal home. I saw her on Wednesday of that week. She slept with only an oxygen tube and breathed a very simple pattern the entire time. I held her hand, I prayed with her and for her and I talked to her, telling her to go ahead and pass on through as God was waiting for her. Her work here was done. She had been unconcious for almost 24 hours at that point.

Donna, you have been a good and faithful servant. You have helped me in so many ways. You are already missed but I know you will continue to guide me spiritually in the days ahead.

I love you Sr. Donna Ferguson and I thank you for being a wonderful part of my life. My only hope is that I can pass on to others at least half of what you have given me.

Donna don't forget, all of this is God's doing so you need to give Him some leeway!!

Memorial Day Freedom

2008-05-27T21:15:00.003-05:00

I accomplished a lot around my house on Monday, Memorial Day, a day set aside to remember those who have fought for this country. As I was working outside a group of fighter jets flew over the house in the "Missing Man" formation. A few minutes later a group of vintage propeller fighter planes flew over the house. The flight path they were both on would take them past the DFW National Cemetery and over a couple of other cemeteries in the area that were also having Memorial Day Ceremonies.

As I heard either the drone of planes or the whine of the jets, I began to think about guys like my father. My wife and I are both fortunate enough to have both of our parents still alive and in pretty good shape given the fact that they are 80+. Anyway, earlier that day I had watched "Recount" on HBO, the story of the 2000 Election and the Florida debacle. My writting is not about that or the fact that it all happened or that the right or the wrong guy won. My writing is about the fact that all of those veterans out there did a very wonderful thing for us and that is give us freedom or helped to preserve the freedoms that we have.

Toward the end of the movie, one of the James Baker stated something that I am going to paraphrase and that was for us to remember that all of this took place, the election of a president and the dissent and the court hearings, etc., etc, without a single shot being fired, without a tank in the street, without anyone being hurt.

In my Twitter conversations with @jutecht he is always asking if something is down or are the filters killing my ability to get there? FREEDOM! When Santino, one of the original Lost Boys talked about being here or going back he said he would stay here. If anyone spoke bad about the government in his homeland that would be their last day. In America if we speak bad about our government, we live to see another day and gripe some more. FREEDOM! If I want to go to church, any church, no one questions me, I go. FREEDOM!

I dislike war as much as anyone, too many young lives lost and too many families destroyed but sometimes war is a necessary evil. I don't hate it any less and I would love to see all of our service people come home safe and sound. But the things we beilieve in and the freedoms we have were won by some people doing what they had been ordered to do at a great cost to many. FREEDOM!

Thank you for giving me so many opportunities to exercise the freedoms I partook of on this Memorial Day. I keep all of you in my prayers.

Lost Boys As told by Santino

2008-05-23T08:49:00.003-05:00

The Power of Words

2008-05-21T15:41:00.003-05:00

I came across an article about a woman who lives in N.J. and has been banned in Yemen for what she writes. Seems after 9/11 she decided she needed to know more about the Arab world so she started studying and researching. She came across some different information concerning a journalist that was being held in prison for sedition. As she explored the information she started to blog about it. She has become so well known in Yemen that she has been called a spy, a member of Al-Queda along with many other things.

In April a young man was arrested in Egypt for taking pictures of a protest. He "twittered" the word "arrested" from his cell phone. His network of 48 other people went to work and a few days later he was released from jail. His story is amazing to say the least.

In both of these instances, and I am sure there are many more out there, through the simple power of the written word so many things can be accomplished. So why aren't we using the different tools of Web 2.0 to help our students discover their own inner power? The fear of losing funds through Erate keeps many people holding on to the filters. Some people actually try to work with their IT departments and are able to accomplish a lot. We want technology integrated but does that automatically translate into learning? How much power are we losing in our words or the words of our students by not getting those words out there in the real world?

Business as usual or taking a swim

2008-05-14T15:01:00.005-05:00

I recently watched conversations via Twitter concerning what is keeping teachers from being able to move to the next level, to join the revolution, to use the tools that are there, to stop talking and really start doing, etc. As I sat and thought about it, one of the things that came to mind was could it possibly be as simple as ego? The more I thought however, I began to realize it is more than that.

I would like to think that in my 31 years as a teacher/learner, I was able to put my ego aside and work with the students rather than being the sage on the stage. Last October I attended a one day conference in Round Rock sponsored by Leading and Learning. Speakers were the likes of Wes Fryer, David Jakes, Miguel Guhlin and others that I have forgotten since then and if you were one of them I apologize. My point is that I had never "twittered" before that day. So I started with Twitter and was fascinated. Then I played with Ustream.TV and thought "Wow!" Then I started watching the discussion on Twitter and started adding some people. I would go to others Twitter home pages and see who they were following and add some of them.

Then came TCEA 2008. Some of the same people I was following were talking throughout the conference online, through Twitter, live blogging, etc. I then had the chance to listen to Carolyn Foote and later that day followed that with Randy Rodgers and I sat on the sidelines with John Maklary and Miguel Guhlin, Scott FLoyd and many others and drank it all in. Then all of a sudden it clicked. I can't tell you exactly what the trigger was, but I felt like that scene in the "Hellen Keller Story." All of a sudden I got it, I realized what the importance of what I had been reading all along in the TEC-SIG listserv and on Twitter and reading through others blogs. It was as if the heavens opened and a bright light...well you get the picture. It all clicked.

Then, like that scene I was running from item to item electronically trying things out and I actually started blogging, then I tried to Ustream a presentation we did at NCEA in Indianapolis (that failed but I am ready to try again), I have been practicing live blogging and I feel like I have been a contributor.

So what does this have to do with ego in the classroom. I think there are so many things that we are shouting from the rooftops about, that those who don't get it are overwhelmed and what is the fail safe when we are overwhelmed - business as usual. So in an effort to get around the business as usual approach I have started sending out emails to my faculty that have "Did you know..." in the subject line. They have gotten used to knowing that it will be some small snippet of technology that they can try out. I usually keep it as simple and as brief as possible. The result has been teachers asking when I am going to send out the next one. I have gotten responses from teachers such as , Thanks, I like the info, Cool idea, I am going to try that and even I like my technology in small bytes.

So maybe it is time to stop the shouting and start spoon feeding. Those of us who think we get it have been brought to this river of knowledge by many in our PLN's. We drink freely from its cool and flowing waters and we continue to absorb and be refreshed. If others see us drink from it often enough and we share with them and give them sips on ocassion, we might find some others coming back for buckets and maybe an ocassional swim.

All I can say is last one in is a rotten egg.

NECC 2008 - How Refreshing!

2008-05-09T17:54:00.007-05:00

I received an invitation to participate in a conference call with some of the higher ups at ISTE and the conference planner of NECC 2008 today and came away looking so forward to the conference. Why? Because anything that was suggested from the group of Texas bloggers present was snapped up and the ISTE folks were going to do something about it immediately or make sure they found out and would get back to us.

Why is this refreshing? Isn't this the way it should be you ask? It is refreshing because all they want to do is get the word out in any way possible so they can help us help others as they do their part to continue bringing the revolution. Are you in Second Life? Go to ISTE Island and see what is on tap there. Most times you can find several people willing to show you around or talk about NECC 2008. Do you look at wiki's for information? See the NECC 2008 version by clicking here and getting information. Simply prefer to read about it? Go here to see the conference web site. Want to know what to do while in San Antonio? Click on @technolibrary's wiki to see when people are coming in and some of the things to see and do. Do you Twitter? Feel free to ask me @paulrwood or @technolibrary or @woscholar and so many others out there. I am sure if we don't know the answer we can sure find the answer.

What about the keynotes? The opening night keynote will be James Surowiecki who writes for the New Yorker Magazine. Here he is being interviewed about his book on Youtube.

If you are here for the revolution, join us at NECC so that you may be fully prepared and equipped. Hopefully the ISTE/NECC attitude will be adopted by the affiliates in the not too distant future.

So much to learn and so much to share.

Lead, Follow or ...well you know!

2008-05-08T17:40:00.005-05:00

Today I had the chance to go to the TEC-SIG Spring 08 meeting held in Austin. In the past, I have been unable to go as we have been so swamped at school that it was not feasible. A couple of years ago, we were asked to fill out a survey and one of the questions was about video streaming, podcasting, etc. and how would that affect my attendance at meetings. Well if I can't get there to begin with, it would seem that my attendance is already greatly affected.

I am blessed with a great boss and a wonderful, although sometimes frustrating situation at work. We all know how that is, sometimes things just don't want to work right and no matter how hard everyone tries, is there ever enough money? That being said I am glad I am where I am and the situation I work in for sure.

I asked for time off to come to this year's meetings and I had actually thought about runnng for office to try and make a difference. Several friends that I have made through TEC-SIG and TCEA were unable to make it and yet we, the supposed leaders of technology and innovation for our schools, were unable to either podcast, or ustream any of the meetings "due to leagal issues."

It is time that we all make use of the tools that are easily accessible to all of us so that we can make available to all events such as this. With only 76 people here along with budget cuts, gas prices, etc., we have to connect and communicate the mission of this group in each and every way possible. We must continue to spread the word and we can do it with conferencing, live conferencing but we have to have leadership, solid, forward thinking leadership.

Lead, follow or at least get out of the way so that we can help to keep others connected. As @ijohnpederson says SHARING is what it is all about. Let us use the collective to our advantage as opposed to charting the same, stale static course. If we are the leaders then there is only one thing left to say: LEAD!!!

How Googlable are you?

2008-05-04T22:40:00.004-05:00

While spending almost a complete weeek at home due to a bad bout of bronchitis, when I wasn't sleeping I was searching the web through my Twitter personal learning network (pln) and found several presentations by some of the people I follow who were presenting on UStream so I tuned in to a couple by Will Richardson. As I was listening in Will made a statment about when he goes in to school systems and does some professional development, he asks about how they use Google. As always many talk about how they Google applicants to see what might be out there good or bad. He then asked what they were doing about making their students "Googlable" to which they all replied "Nothing." His post about "Making Kids Googlable" can be read here.

This got me to thinking about how do we do that with our students? While I know many of our students have either Facebook or Myspace accounts, I know of a couple of teachers that work extensively with their students to help them figure out the validity of web sites using some of Alan November's techniques. After that it falls off rather drastically.

This was brought home recently when we had a situation of bullying online through some Myspace traffic between students. When one of the students was brought in her first statement was "You aren't supposed to read that, it is private." I was stunned. How could this child possibly think that? We have to continue to work to make our students more aware of what is possible on the web and how they can improve their presence by making themselve more Googlable.

So much to teach and so much to learn!

Are you part of the Revolution?

2008-04-22T04:55:00.004-05:00

Today is Earth Day and I continue to wonder where the world will be and how will things be different in say 20 years. More importantly, what part are you playing in the digital revolution? In the last few days there has been a lot of discussion (read blogging) about "being here for the learning revolution."

I have been involved in technology for many years but only recently has it seemed as if the world has suddenly opened up to me about the power of what I sit in front of, my laptop. After the last two weeks, I can no longer refer to this piece of equipment as merely a tool. I can no longer say that I am alone in Dallas, TX., writing for myself, I can no longer ignore the fact that we are all called to make a difference, and yet I am almost at a point of not knowing what direction to go.

Last week we met with a Sister of St. Mary of Namur by the name of Immaculee Mukabugabo from Rwanda. She was visiting the school for several reasons but the biggest was to make connection with us as we try to put together what we refer to as a "Global Partnership" with another SSMN school in Rwanda. We asked many questions and were having a wonderful discussion when the question of the 1994 genocide came up and how this had affected the children who are at the school.

Sister talked at length about how at certain times of the year the students struggled with just getting out of bed because of the memories of that period, or the loss of family members. Then Sister took the chance of trusting and being comfortable enough with us on only the second day of her visit to tell her story of what they went through trying to protect innocent people as well as save their own lives from the horrible destruction. I truly felt as if I were standing on Sacred Ground while listening to Sister tell her story.

With the help of Wes Fryer's posts about the Celebrate Oklahoma Voices Project, we decided we needed to start our own voices project. In the next few days we hope to have posted to our school site a section called "Voices." This will be voices of people that have spoken to the students on different subjects with Sister's being the first one. We also hope to include many others who have stories to tell. The power of the voice will truly be something for us to be a part of, continuing to take us further down the road of revolution.

Our next hope is to help bring the revolution to our global partner in Kibuye, Rwanda. They exist in a situation where they hope to get equipment to bring not only TV to their school but also Internet service as well. I continue to look for ways to help make that happen.

So many voices to listen to and so little time.

Earth Day - Celebrate it

2008-04-20T20:43:00.006-05:00

Over the weekend many places were holding Earth Day activities. As I watched some of the traffic on Twitter, I saw a couple of post saying that solar energy is not as good what many people seem to think it is. With that in mind I did a search for an old reliable book that I used many years ago trying to teach students about the need to conserve, reduce, reuse and recycle. The book 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth was easy enough to find on the web and I had to go digging through my stored boxes of books to find my original version of the book.

The new version has been updated. One of the things that it says it to simply pick one thing, one item from the book that truly interests you and work on that, get that word out, help others to understand what that means to you and maybe, that one item will become someone else's and the ripple effect will start anew.

I recently changed the majority (about 80%) of the bulbs in my house to compact fluorescent bulbs. While I realize there is still a bit of a problem with disposal, I have decided that it is necessary to begin making a change in some way. I have also decided I will hang on to those bulbs that burn out until I can find somewhere that will properly dispose of them.

When we first moved in to the house we now live in, we added insulation in the attic, we installed new, energy efficient refrigerator, washer, dryer and central ac/heating system as well as installing a programmable thermostat. Just recently I replaced one of my water heaters with a new high efficiency water heater. The affect of all these changes was that my utility bill has dropped.

Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day. Celebrate it, embrace it, do something to help keep the Earth green.

50 simple things to help sustain the Earth, which one to lock in on!!

The Cost of Not Getting an Education

2008-04-16T21:30:00.004-05:00

Tonight I had the opportunity to listen to the Honorable Craig Watkins, District Attorney of Dallas, TX. He spoke at the school as part of our Geo-Tech Lecture Series. The lecture series was started to bring speakers of influence in to speak about social justice and human rights issues.

Mr. Watkins is the first African American District Attorney in the U.S. He is also part of a program that has helped 16 incarcerated individuals to be released from prison through the use of DNA testing. The national program that is in place is called The Innocence Project. Today the 16th person was released. Mr. Watkins has been instrumental in the program here in Dallas.

So what is the cost of not getting an education? According to the statistics I heard tonight, 75% of those incarcerated did not graduate high school. Add that statistic with the latest statistics concerning the number of students that drop out and we are in for some serious prison building if we don't reverse the trend. Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people that don't get a high school degree and are great citizens, but if we continue to cause our students to "power down" when they walk in to our buildings, then we aren't helping the cause.

Another statistic thrown out this evening was the amount of money given to a school to educate a child in Dallas, was $8 a day. The amount of money given to the prison system for a person that is incarcerated is $34 per day. How does that happen? Four times as much money given per person to the prison system than to the education system?

I look forward to Mr. Watson coming back to the school to speak to our seniors in a smaller setting, and I applaud him for the tremendous work he has done, but maybe we need to rattle the cages down in the capital to help them get the funding priorities straight.

More research to do.

Rwanda on the Horizon

2008-04-14T22:02:00.003-05:00

This week at the school we will be visited by a Sister of St. Mary of Namur who was the principal of Sainte Marie School in Kibuye, Rwanda. The information received from Sr. Immaculee Mukabugabo was very interesting. They are primarily a boarding school with 303 students, 301 girls and 2 boys. 293 of the students are boarders living on campus and 10 come in each day from the town. The students range in age from 12 - 19.

At each level of the educational process the students must take a National Exam and this determines whether or not the student progresses to the next level. The 6th year of Primary results in the National Exam and if a student does not pass they may take 6th grade for up to 4 times. She did not say what happened if they did not pass after that time. The students then move to the secondary school cycle which has two levels a basic studies and a senior cycle of high school. Each of these also ends with aNational Exam to see if the student progresses to the next level.

Tuition at this school is $163 for older students and first year students pay $195. They take 7 to 8 hours of classes a day and also help with the care of the classrooms and the campus before classes begin. When Sr. Immaculee was asked about needs of the school, the first thing mentioned was more classrooms to accomodate the children that want to come to school. They just don't have enough rooms. The second thing mentioned was the lack of Internet access. They have no telephone connection at the school because of the expense of getting the line to the school. Her third item was a parabolic antenna for being able to access television so that students could at least know what was going on elsewhere in the world.

As I reflected on all the things we have available to our students, I thought there has to be a way to make some of these things happen. I am currently part of a team that hopes to journey to Rwanda in December to make connection with the school and the teachers there. My hope is to also help begin to bridge the gap that they are experiencing. The one thing that Sister mentioned was that the poverty of the students and the families they come from is so incredible and then for them to try and pay $160-$195. If we can get them on the web the need for a better vehicle to take the students on educational field trips is lessened to some degree because then the world is open to them.

I look forward to the trip and I look forward to any and all input for ways to help make some of these things happen. More information will be forthcoming when Sr. Immaculee Mukabugabo visits on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

So many gifts and so many to share.

It's not about the hardware

2008-04-09T19:41:00.003-05:00

Today I received a call from a company that works for Edline, our online portal for parents, students and teachers. The gist of the call was that they had a local station that wanted to come out and do a story on how we were using different ed-tech tools, especially Edline for the benefit of students.

I spoke with the principal, a couple of teachers and several students to give them a heads up about what was going to take place and we wanted them to talk about it on camera. On arrival, the reporter, a graduate of Incarnate Word High School in San Antonio, was asking me questions about some of our programs. We are currently in the 2nd year of an iPod initiative with our incoming freshmen as well as many other things to hopefully help encourage our students to become life long learners.

As we progressed through the discussion and the interview it seemed to focus more on the hardware than education. As I watched and listened to the questions and the direction of the interviews I began thinking how many people feel the same way? How many people feel that as long as we have a lot of equipment we are doing well? Or how many people feel that because we don't have certain equipment then we can't do what we need to so maybe we shouldn't try? I may be jumping too hard on the interview process as I have not seen the final product, bad storms in the area have taken much of the news time this evening.

After reading Miguel's entry on "What Is Your Stop Doing List" I think maybe looking at what we do in that manner may open some new mental doors.

So many wonderful reads out there and so few hours in the day.

Breaking Ground

2008-04-05T12:13:00.006-05:00

As I have said before, I am new to this so I am not breaking any new ground in most instances. However, I have already had a couple of people approach me about "this blogging thing" and "how do you do it?" That is always nice to have someone feel comfortable enough to say can you show me this...?

The reason I bring this up is that there is currently conversation taking place in the blogosphere asking the "community" question. Are bloggers, twitterers, im'ers, social networkers, etc., actually a community?" My initial response would have been yes until Miguel tossed M. Scott Peck's 4 Stages of Community in to the mix.

Based on those 4 stages - 1. pseudocommunity - where niceness reigns; 2. chaos - when the emotional skeletons crawl out of the closet; 3. emptiness - a time of quiet and transition; and finally, 4. true community - marked both by deep honesty and deep caring; I would say that maybe all of this bblogging, twittering, etc is at the #1 level but I truly feel that it all begins to break apart after that.

While others have already talked er rather blogged about this same question, I await and look forward to Gary Stager writing about what is and is not a community in the next few days to get his take on it. If this was divided up into segments like pre-k to 5, middle school, high school, university and above, I still do not believe that you would be able to say that you have a community, yes you might get a few people that become closer and take more time to go deeper into certain areas but I truly think community is involved in face to face, dealing with the same issues and working hopefully toward a common goal/good. While there are many conversations going on and people trying to solve many different problems, I still think there is a lack of truly delving into the deeper aspects of what makes a community just that.

That being said I think this blogoshpere of people has very easily descended into area 2 of Peck's hiearchy of Chaos however the skeletons are not those of emotion that are coming out of the closet, it is rather the skeletons of those who have not progressed beyond their own universe to truly make an attempt to try and realize not only the technical tools available and their potential, but also their own personal tools and potential that they have been gifted with to share with those they come in contact.

So many wonderful reads out there and so few hours in the day.

Global Partnerships

2008-04-02T16:40:00.003-05:00

Today we had an opportunity to meet with Sister Patricia, SSMN, who has been very active at the Dallas Peace Center in Dallas, TX. Sr. has been a great activist for many social justice issues and has spent some time in jail as a result of her activism which I applaude her for. The Sisters of St. Mary of Namur were the founders of BDHS which actually started out as Our Lady of Good Counsel.

While we try to be a very ed-tech oriented school trying to infuse technology throughout our curriculum, we have also been working on global partnerships. We feel that it is important to get our students out of themselves so to speak so as to be more equipped to deal with local things by seeing global things. While we have taken many local oriented trips to places such as New Mexico to visit the Anasazi Ruins for geological and geographic studies, to Washington D. C. with Close Up, to Austin, TX the Capital for governmental education, we have also tried to reach farther than the coasts of North America. We have a relationship in Honduras which is four years old that some of the other Catholic High Schools have joined, we have had a group of students go to Ghana, a group of our students just returned from Costa Rica where they did GIS work and explored the country side as well as spent time learning the culture.

Our meeting today with Sr. Patricia was to continue working toward a plan to go to Rwanda. The Sisters have a great history of mission and education that has spanned the globe and we want to make sure we can help to connect the dots. Our desire is to eventually create this partnership with a couple of schools in Rwanda that the Sisters run and hopefully learn things that are similar to us like getting along with different cultures in the same areas, making do with what we have and using the resources and tools that we have all been given to make a difference in the global community and not just in our own back yards.

In reflecting on this meeting today I felt as if the communities that I belong to online are about the same thing, making differences as a result of the connectedness from a network of caring people who also want to make a difference. I can see the possibilities of using some of the things I have learned from this vast network with Google Earth, Flickr, Ustream and many of the other tools available. I hope the forces that have brought this Rwanda group together will continue to drive us toward a full fledged visit. Then along with learning I hope to teach though the use of the tools I have come to know with this electronic global partnership that I am a part of today.

Personal Professional Development

2008-03-31T19:45:00.009-05:00

As I have entered into this world of the weblog or the blogosphere, I have already seen the benefits of what it can do for me by using this tool. While on Twitter today I saw a reference to a post by Ryan Bretag that truly made me stop and think about what I have or have not been doing about professional development and how do I help others in the same area. Most of my professional development was limited in my mind to going somewhere and listening to someone or participating in a hands on workshop of some sort or another.

Ryan's post actually opened my eyes to the fact that if I am invovled in some type of learning no matter where or when, then I am helping to lift myself up past the bar which some have set for me professionally. Can I get a certificate as a result of what I learn in the Twitterverse? Probably not! In the blogosphere, I doubt it, however, the ability to share and learn is there just the same and in some cases it is more personal. The great thing is that instead of just one person's input, it is very easy to get several on the same subject.

So, the next direction for me is to try and help those on my staff figure out a way to get in some PPD and help them to find a way to share with others and keep away from getting cited for "teacher malpractice." I need to help them keep up with the changes in they way of the world , especially the 21st Century Learner World, so they too can raise their hands.

So many wonderful reads out there and so few hours in the day.

Resources and Tools

2008-03-29T11:41:00.001-05:00

I arrived back at home and I am glad to be here. I have already received a couple of emails from people that were in my sessions so today what I am going to do is post the tools we use at BD. These will be a combination of items that are accessible to teachers and students. Where possible I will also make sure they are linked so you can click them and get information.

Before I begin I would like to mention Miguel Guhlin who is linked on the main page and his topic which I read this morning titled "Intensity of Authenticity" where he mentions that in all of his blogging he has received few responses. I mentioned to him in my comment that sometimes I personally feel I am not worthy(?) to post due to not being at the level I perceive him to be. I do know that there have been many occasions where his post and musings have lead me to have discussions with other people however, be it in my building or with others in the Diocese.

That said, here we go. We are a Novell networked school, we have almost 230 Windows based machine on our network. Our current supplier is Daktech Computers for both laptops and desktops. We are able to purchase monitors from them as well and they supply us with digital/analog, flat View Sonic monitors of at least 19". We have also purchased laptop carts outfitted with a printer and a wireless hub from them to complete those packages. We use Edline Corporation for web based grades as well as class pages for parent - school communication.

Jackson Software for Grade Quick Web
Administrators Plus by Rediker Software along with the modules for Discipline, QSP for Cafeteria, SNAP for the nurse's office, Concourse for the Library and Admissions Plus.
Windows Operating Systems and Office 2003 & 2007. We currently run XP Pro on all machines.
Macromedia for web classes, graphics animation and graphic art classes. Macromedia has been purchased by Adobe and we are going through that licensing now.
Quia for online test making and taking.
Twotrees Technologies for web mail for all faculty and all students. Twotrees also does our content filtering, pix firewall and has done our webhosting.
ArcView software from ESRI for our GIS program.
SMART Interactive whiteboards. We also use Airliners From SMART, Synchronize
NEC Projectors for use with the SMART IWB's.
Geometer Sketchpad for Math
TI Smartview software for math with the SMART IWB's
Audacity, GCast and Photostory for podcast creation
Naviance with the Guidance offices
Discovery Channel School for United Streaming
SAS in Schools by Curriculum Pathways.
Turnitin.com for plagiarism checking.
Avid & iMovie for Broadcast Journalism classes

Our library has an extensive database that is subscribed to for the student so I will link you to the librarian's page and you can scroll down to see some of the tremendous work that she has done.

I welcome any input as to other alternatives to these items posted. This is a portion of the list of what we use at BD. I hope this helps.

The Day After

2008-03-28T08:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my presentation "How we Used Technology to help Transform the School" and I was very honored to have 25 people show up. I look forward to getting the evaluations from the committee. The reason for being glad that 25 people showed up is that there were 21 presentations going on as well as the keynote, all at the same time. The keynote was Daniel Pink so that is why I was happy to have 25 folks. We had some good discussion about how we did some of the things we have done so I was pleased with it. I hope to hear from some of the people that were there.

As I talked with some of the people that helped organize the event I found out that they were thinking there were only about 5000 people in attendance. This dissappoints me in general. I do plan to get more involved witht his organization to try and help make a difference.

I showed a couple of different videos that many of us have seen and used before but I want to create a link to them for those that were in the session in case they want to use them back at their schools.

"What if..." by Karl Fisch.
"Did you Know" by Karl Fisch
"A Vision of Students Today" by the Digital Ethnography Class at Kansas State University - This is the Teacher Tube edition.

These can be wonderful starting points but it is all about the tools that are available to all of us. I am beginning to play with things like Google docs and the tools that they have available. We shall see.

Why did I wait so long?

2008-03-23T12:48:00.000-05:00

As I write this I have been preparing for a presentation at the NCEA Convention this coming week in Indianapolis, IN. The National Catholic Education Association awarded me with a Secondary Education Department award for significant contributions to American Catholic Secondary Education back in 2004. As a result of that award, this year I got a call and I was asked if I would be willing to give a presentation on the topic of my choice at the upcoming Convention? I replied yes and since then I have been an absolute blank on how to present what I want to talk about.

My chosen topic is How Technology helped to turn around BDHS. When my current principal came to Dunne 13 years ago, we were on a decline and had been going that way for a while. We were down to 242 students in grades 9-12 with a major monetary deficit and a building that was also in decline. When she entered she said we were going to become a technology specialized school and be one of the best. From that point on all focus was on using and integrating technology in every aspect of the school and curriculum. I was fortunate enough to get tagged as the Director of Technology about 3 years after she arrived. My credentials - a willing workaholic that wanted to see the school succeed and just enough geek in me to want to make it happen. At the time I was the head of the Theology Department (yes we are a Catholic School), the defensive coordinator for the football program, head baseball coach and now tech director.

Since then we have been recognized in several areas as well as increasing enrollment from 242 to 650 in grades 7-12, recognized as a SMART showcase school and Blue Ribbon Lighthouse School as well as several awards for the work our GIS department has done mainly as a result of the students and their efforts.

If I had been doing some sort of blogging about this as time went on I could have easily gone back through my written thoughts and brought it all together easier. Well, the record has been started so I need to make the most of it. I do know that since Kate Dailey has been at BD, work has been fun and a challenge but all good.

What is your favorite tech tool?

2008-03-20T12:36:00.000-05:00

While I am in my 31st year at BD, needless to say I have seen many changes. Obviously the best one we have all seen is the explosive growth of technology to the point of it being with us at all times. From the cell phone to the iPod(be it iPhone, iTouch, Classic or Nano) to pda's in whatever flavor from Blackberry to Windows to Palm or should that be in your palm, we continue to figure out ways to use these items not only for our own lives but for the betterment of our lives.

What should a school look like as a result of all of this? Check out Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach's wiki as some of the best try to create the best. Mr. Gates, want to fund a true dream? Check it out by clicking on Sheryl's name above.

While the guru's continue to come up with the ideas, I am still trying to figure out ways to use the tools that I have been given so that the tools are not seen as such, but rather a pleasant, inocuous way of getting through life. I sometimes have difficulty remembering the product in my pocket that rings also takes pictures, sends email, send text messages, allows me to keep up with the "twitterverse", check flights, weather, stocks and so much more that I sometimes forget to use it for those very things. I also need to remember to keep my head up and participate in life itself. Don't get me wrong, I love the technoverse I live in but I also need to celebrate the life I have been given and the people that cross into my life on a regular basis.

These people that cross in and out of my life are the greatest teachers and are in my life for a reason. I hope I can continue to honor them throughout my life and give back to them in the same way they have given to me - openly, honestly and very willingly.

The water is fine or is it?

2008-03-17T18:32:00.000-05:00

As I write this I am grateful to people like Miguel Guhlin and many others that I have been introduced to by him, though not personally. As I have gone to make comments on other's blogs and their musings, I have felt bad since I did not have a "web address" to add when leaving a comment. Tonight I read Kathy Cassidy's blog and thought it is time to dive in to the pool. While I always felt better standing in the shadows and helping other people get there, I felt it was time enough for me to join in and try to make a difference, that lead by example type of thing.

What kind of difference? Who knows, one idea, one person, maybe start a movement...well let's just stick with keeping my head above water and only stirring enough thought and maybe enough trouble to stay out of the really hot water until the right time.

I am a Director of Technology for a Catholic School in Dallas known as Bishop Dunne. I have been there for 31 years as a teacher, coach, administrator and I am fortunate enough to have been educated there many moons ago. I am a 1972 graduate of the school. My entire family - 5 other brothers and sisters - graduated from BD.

I was ordained a deacon in the Catholic Church in the summer of 2006 and I have been assigned to Holy Spirit in Duncanville, TX. Needless to say that is where staying out of the really hot water with some opinions comes from so I guess I will stick with what is going on in the ed tech world that I know and experience.

If you are a twitterer, I am paulrwood. Back soon hopefully with some more from my world as I hopefully share my vision.