Like most of you I have a morning routine. As I am getting ready for school I search the tweets that have come across since the night before. This morning when I was blow drying my hair a tweet caught my eye. It was sent out by @WENYTV in Horseheads, New York.

It caught my attention right away because this is the school where Jason Schrage, the ISTE10 Newbie, teaches. I sent him a text right away to see what was going on. He sent me one back and could not believe that it had already hit the news and Twitter. What was striking was that I knew slightly more than he did about what was going on and I am 1500 miles away. Once again I was in complete awe of the power of Twitter.

I spent most of the morning thinking about the implications of being so connected. Just by following one news station on Twitter I knew about a situation at a school on the other side of the country before the parent knew what was going on. It used to take hours for news to spreading around the globe, but now it takes mere minutes. Social networking sites and cell phones give us more power than we can even imagine.

We all have stories about when we have been blown away by the sheer power of Twitter. What is one of your “wow” moments?

(In case you were wondering it was more than likely a transformer in a storage room that caused the smoke and evacuation of the building.)

Photo by Dean Shareski

Exactly 216 days ago I was sitting in the Bloggers’ Cafe writing a post to announce Jason Schrage as the “new” ISTE 10 Newbie. I was excited to be able to make that announcement while in the physical presence of so many of the people that encouraged me to continue the project.  This morning I am actually sitting next to Jason in the  library at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. We are in Philadelphia to attend Educon 2.2 which makes this announcement even more special.

The goal for the Newbie Project this year was $1600 and at some point overnight we reached it! I want to thank everyone that made this project possible. What started off as an off the cuff idea to prove that Twitter is not a waste of time quickly grew into something very special. Dozens of people came together to help send Richard Byrne to Washington DC and  Jason to Denver. I also want to recognize Schoolwires.  In December they donated $800 to the project. We could not have reached our goal without their support. THANKS YOU!!!!!!!

I am not sure where this project is going to go from here. I have some ideas, but I am open to suggestions.

Jason——– I will see you in Denver!

It seems like it was just yesterday when I was sitting in the Bloggers’ Cafe at NECC in Washington DC hammering out the post which introduced Jason Schrage as the “new Newbie.” I was sitting near Jeff Utecht and had a chat with him about the project. I remember telling him that as ISTE drew closer I would like to count on him for his support. Earlier today Jeff published a post on the project. (Thank you Jeff!!!)

Now here we are nearly seven months later. When I started this project last April I really had no idea where it would lead. All I knew was that I wanted to prove to people that if we work together we can accomplish almost anything. I knew it would be successful because not only was it a great idea, but Richard Byrne was the original Newbie. Who didn’t love Richard? Thousands of teachers subscribed to his blog so I knew his name would help get people involved. I was correct. Within two weeks we reached the goal thanks to the generosity of  individuals and VoiceThread.

I took a somewhat different approach with the Newbie for 2010. I wanted to pick someone who had undiscovered potential. It had to be someone who had an inexhaustible sense curiosity and drive to explore and dabble in different and new ideas. This person also had to be willing to share their learning with others. There were several people who fit the bill, but in the end I decided Jason was the best choice.  During the last six months,  his actions have only reinforced my belief that I made the right choice. He is one of the most positive, caring, and compassionate individuals I have ever had the opportunity to get to know.

My goal this year was to see if our PLN would come together to support someone who was relatively unknown. I am happy to report that we are about $100 away from reaching the goal for this year. The amount of the individual donation was down this year, but the number of donations tripled. Schoolwires also made a huge donation to show their support for teachers and what we do everyday. Thank you Schoolwires— YOU ROCK! I wish more companies would follow the example that you and VoiceThread have set and help sponsor educators to help them get to ISTE and other educational conferences throughout the year. As budgets get tighter districts will have no choice but to limit travel which means fewer educators will get to attend conferences.

We are about $100 away from meeting the goal. If you were planning on donating to the project this year, but were waiting until the conference got closer now would be a great time! If you are attending Educon be sure to say hi to Jason.  Both he and I will be there and are excited to meet some of the people who have helped him attend ISTE.

This morning on Facebook I posted the following comment:

Just read a report last night that says kids between 8-18 spend over 7 1/2 hours every day engaged with some sort of digital media. Why is it such a surprise that kids are bored as hell when their teachers do not integrate technology. We MUST meet them in their world in order to teach them.

The report to which I was referring was a Kaiser report which was released on January 20 that discusses trends in media use in kids between the ages of 8 to 18. My status update sparked a comment from a local educator who said it is an administrative decision to decided to what extent technology will be used.  I responded by saying this:

I don’t agree necessarily that it is an administrative decision. Teachers have a choice to learn how to use technology in their lessons and classroom. Even if the only computer in the room is the teacher computer there are still skills that teachers can integrate. The vast majority of students have access to the Internet outside of school (even … See Morehere in Scottsbluff). Those who don’t have free access in computer labs at school or at the public library. It is no longer an acceptable excuse for teachers to say they don’t use tech in the classroom because kids don’t have access. It is an excuse to get out of learning new things. Just my opinion…

I noticed a follow up from the comment from the same teacher who said that teachers at the local high school are very tech savvy and they can do things like attach files to emails. Yes. You read that correctly. They can attach files to emails. Wow. I did not know what to say. I have asked for some clarification and specific examples of what the “tech savvy” teachers can actually do in case I misunderstood what she was trying to say. I will share that info as soon as I get it.

I don’t mean to come across as a tech snob or act like I am better than teachers who think the ability to attach files to an email is all it takes to be tech savvy. But COME ON!!! My question is do these teachers who are  supposedly so “tech savvy” meet any of the NETS  for Teachers? Do they even know what ISTE is? Do they have any clue how to prepare their students to meet the NETS for Students? (I realize there are other organizations that have tech standards, but my guess is they are all pretty much the same.) There are also NETS for Administrators, but that is one bear that I really don’t want to poke today (or ever if I can help it).

Are there really teachers out there who are so far out of touch that they don’t even realize the depths of their ignorance? Is it even possible that there are many who have never even heard of Web 2.0?  I could not imagine living in a world where I was so out of touch.

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think it means to be tech savvy in 2010.

As we go through the process of redesigning our online program one of the things we have to do take a long, hard look at the courses we have developed. Eighteen months ago we were told to design two year-long courses, but we were not given any directives beyond that. After looking at examples of other courses it is obvious that we left out some elements that are necessary to make an online course great. We plan on having our entire team use a rubric to evaluate each course that has been created so far, but we also need to have an outside agency take a look at what we are offering, too.

How did your school go about determining the quality of the online courses that your school offers? Keep in mind that we are a service unit that offers schools to the schools in our region. We are not an accredited high school and we do not issue diplomas so our situation is probably somewhat different than yours.  However, we still want to make sure we are offering high quality standards-based courses that are designed well and are challenging to the students who take them.

US History Demo Unit

If you have read the other posts in this series then you are already familiar with the background of the online school where I teach. In the summer of 2008 I began working with three other teachers who were brand new to my school and online learning. Our task was to build two year-long  courses in our subject area in 8 weeks. All of us are traditional classroom teachers whose experience varied from one year in the classroom to 20 years of experience. We found out very quickly that there are two aspects of creating online courses. First, there is the technical side. Our LMS is Moodle so that is where the bulk of the training focused. (all 4 hours of it) The other side of designing an online course is understanding a variety of ways to deliver content to students and how students can use technology to create and deliver assignments back to their teacher.

Part of our redesign process is to find experts to bring in to train us in both of these areas. What training did you receive to teach online? What do you do differently than you would in a f2f setting?

Another piece of this is something that I am not sure can be taught. Online teachers must be able to make a connection with their students. We must be able to be understanding and compassionate yet make sure our students are staying on track. Communication is a huge part of teaching online. How do you make sure that a teacher has what it takes to teach online?

In retrospect it occurred to me that the teachers at my school might be in a unique position. We are responsible for both creating courses and teaching them. The training and skills for creating and teaching a course may not be the same thing.

Thoughts on this? Please share your experiences.

Demo US History Unit

One of the things that caught us completely off guard when students started taking our online classes in the fall of 2008 was their complete lack of computer skills. There are some things that we must include tutorials for in our classes such as how to navigate around a Moodle class, how to submit assignments, and other Web 2.0 tools that we might use. However, I think students should come to us with a certain set of skills. If they elect to take on online class then they need to be comfortable on a computer. Is it unreasonable to expect students to do a certain amount of troubleshooting on their own? What has held back some of my students are stupid little things like not plugging in their webcam and headset correctly. They claim it is a technical error and then try to use that as an excuse to get out of assignments that require they make a video or voice recording. The adults who are supposed to act as support staff are typically so computer illiterate that they are not much help.

How do you get past this? At what point in time do you say that the course is supposed to teach content not computer skills? Obviously there are some skills that are unique to the class that have to be taught, but what is reasonable to expect students to have when they sign up for an online class? If you have found you have to teach these skills how have you gone about it? I have found screencasts work fairly well when the students actually watch them. Other ideas?

Demo US History Unit

I remember June of 2008 like it was yesterday. I was sitting in a computer lab with three teachers who were not only brand new to my school, but who had zero experience with elearning. We were given the task of developing two year long courses in 8 weeks. Not only did we have to create our courses, but we had to learn Moodle as well. ALL IN EIGHT WEEKS. We could have used other courses as the shell for our classes, but we did not find anything that was good enough to start with. I remember trying to tweak an existing course, but it proved too time consuming so I, as well as my colleagues all started from scratch.

As you can imagine 8 weeks was not nearly long enough to accomplish this task, but we did the absolute best job we could. We had absolutely no direction on where to go so we started with the state standards for our content area. Most of our content is very traditional in nature for a couple of reasons. First, most of the teachers developing the courses were not familiar with Web 2.0 tools at the time. Learning Web 2.0 on top of everything else was not even an option. The other issue was that the two classes that did have some elements of Web 2.o were not well-received by students and schools who found them too “confusing.”

My question to my PLN is what curricular elements need to be included in an online class? Do we need to include state standards in each unit? Do we need to add objectives as well? What are some ways we can deliver content other than “read the section then submit the answers” type of activities? Moodle has a wealth of plugins that allow courses to be customized. In addition to plugins what are some different Web 2.0 tools that can be used?

In the summer of 2008 the four teachers at my school were given the task of developing two courses in out core area. I had been dabbling with Moodle for a year on my own so I had a fairly descent grasp on the basics of Moodle. Instead of determining a standard course layout ahead of time we all went our own directions. There was no consistency with which blocks were used and where those blocks were placed. Some of us used the calendar while others did not. I use several HTML blocks to provide things for my students such as contact information and links to sites we will use on a regular basis while others choose to include those things inside of the actual course itself (typically the middle column in a Moodle course).

Does it really matter which blocks we use and where those blocks are located? I look at the class from the perspective of my students and then I place my blocks in a logical order based on what we will use the most. I don’t think the world is going to come crashing down if all of our courses do not have the same exact blocks. The first problem is that we don’t necessarily use the same blocks.

How has your school handled this issue? Do you have a standard layout format or is this something that you have realized does not throw students off much if blocks are in slightly different positions in different classes?

US History Demo Unit

Over the last four years I have had opportunity to be part of a team that has built a unique virtual high school that is currently offering classes to students in western Nebraska. Like any new program we have have experienced some growing pains. We are currently in the process of trying to identify some of the places where we could have done things differently so we can become the best program that we can be.

Over the next couple of hours I am going to write a series of posts concerning very specific questions that I believe my PLN can help us with. I threw out some questions on Twitter last night and received an overwhelming number of responses, but there is only so much you can explain in a single 140 character tweet. I hope that by giving my PLN a place to expand on their ideas we can all learn something valuable.

I will write about the following topics:

• Course layout and design
• Content/curriculum/standards/objectives
• Technical skills that students must possess to be successful in an online class and how to teach them if they don’t have them
• Skills and training online teachers need
• Auditing of courses (both internal and external)

Here is a US History Course Demo