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.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Lone Star Edubloggercon
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.
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.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Snow days = School days or at least they should!
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Conversations and Educon 2.2
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.
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.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Taking a Byte of Wireless
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?
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?
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