What is Mother’s Day in the 21st Century with an iGeneration, digital young man?

cross-posted at Techlearning.com
Before I tell you about my Mother’s Day, I thought I would look up  some information about Mother’s Day.


What do Japan, India, Pakistan, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Bangladesh, Australia and many other countries have in common with the United States of America? We all celebrate Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of the month of May. You can read in more detail here at Wikipedia. It is amazing that this is such an international day of celebration. It is something many of us can relate to and something we all have a part in whether we celebrate our own mothers or we celebrate with our children or we celebrate with any and all mothers around us.

Back to Mother’s Day May 9, 2010. Our son, Daniel,  a recent graduate from the University of Maine, Orono, decided to make dinner for me on Mother’s Day. Where did he get his recipe, where did he learn how to cook this dish he chose, how was he going to measure up? 
How did he do this? He watched the Giada de Laurentiis television cooking show, found the ingredients at the store, then used the Internet to find the recipe to prepare the meal. The laptop on the kitchen counter replaces the hundreds of cookbooks I have in my cupboards. He has access to millions more recipes and mentors for cooking than I had growing up.

I still remember the day I  learned how to make biscuits from my grandmother. I had to drive hundreds of miles to see her and then I watched her prepare biscuits, which to this day I still make from scratch. I remember teaching and cooking with all my sons. We prepared hundreds of snacks, breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Daniel knows his way around the kitchen. However, he has also benefited from the numerous televised cooking shows. When he wants to prepare a meal, he has millions of options, not just those on my cookbook shelf. Daniel can choose from many cooking mentors anytime of day, any culture, any meal. 

Join us for Spaghetti with smashed peas, sausage and ricotta cheese. Yum. 

365 Days in a Year of Photos

This is the link to the set! 365 Days in a Year of Photos.

A Collection of Wise Post-its

Cheryl Oakes reporting from a remote connection for the Day in a Sentence group! Last week many of you played along as we collected your sentences at the Wallwisher, in the form of a post-it.

I will transcribe them to this blog post, but to see the original post-its please head over to http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/maysentence

n2teaching says:HelpinHelping children maintain their composure here at the end of tg children maintain their composure here at the end of the school year.

Lynn Jacobs says: Testing is finally over, we're on the downhill run to the end of the school year and boy, it can't come fast enough!

Jim says: What a beautiful spring day it's been. We planted our garden just the other day and already things are popping up. Summer can't be too far behind.

Bonnie says: So far, the weather has been working with me this week as I drive around my neck of the woods for work and pleasure. So far, I have been staying out of the rain.

sara-p-c says: as the days pass stealthily towards my daughter's july birthing day, i am in awe of every poke, kick, hiccup, and roll she makes - i am sustaining a life here!

Cheryl says: Thanks to our friends in the Southern states for sharing their humidity with us in May!

Gail Poulin says: Why does it feel so wrong to take a week off from teaching to do the literacy benchmark assessments when we are finally rolling along with reading and writing?

Mr. Wood says: Freezing morning cold and dark, blue days slowly warm my day.

PBougush says: Patience is not something I practice while gardening...should have waited a week to plant those seeds with temps in the 30s predicted for later this week!

Amanda says: What an exciting time of year! Exploring favorite units (memoirs) and new adventures (DBQs). I love occupying this uncomfortable and exciting learning place!

Tracy says: My students continue to amaze me, I could never bore of them because they teach me so much everyday - including about artists!

Kevin says: I'm going full bore on using Storybird to create seven picture books in seven days -- another crazy writing challenge that I can't resist.

Thanks for all who played along! Wallwisher just might be the way to get your students writing succinctly, there are only 140 characters! Enjoy the home stretch for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.

Post-it in a Sentence aka Day in a Sentence

I am inviting you all to participate in a long standing project, started by Kevin Hodgson, owner of Kevin's Meandering Mind. This project started as a result of thinking about the National Writing Project and demonstrating multiple forms of writing.

Kevin constantly challenges us to think of different ways to write a message. Please consider adding your sentence of the week as a POST-IT at :

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/maysentence

Wallwisher can be used in classrooms as a way to share ideas. My friend Karen Abbott, used it with her first grades as they shared their school rules.

Give it a try! The post-its will be made public at the end of the week. Thanks for adding your Post-it in a Sentence!

My Post-it:
Thanks to our friends in the Southern states for sharing their humidity with us in May!

The Sky is Fall-NING

Cross Posted at TechLearning.com

Okay, it really isn’t fall-ning, but this last week you would be hard pressed to convince my Personal Learning Network of this.

 

  

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparkys/3036226940/

The following NINGS (and many more) are poised to cease and desist.(Details coming May 4, 2010) Well, I haven’t officially heard this, but we are planning to give up the sites as long as NING continues to move on and not offer FREE use of their NING site for educators and students.

Here are examples of some educational NINGs on the chopping block.
A SEEDL-NING  Alice Barr, Bob Sprankle and Cheryl Oakes' Seedlings NING
2010WJHSourspace-ning  8th grade Ning
Images4educa-NING   An incredible online class by Carla Arena
and feel free to add yours to this list in our comments!

I have great respect for all Web2.0 businesses populating the Internet, offering their products for those of us intrepid folks looking for new and useful sites to share with our students. How else are we going to keep our students engaged and motivated when they have spent all evening and outside of school time in interesting places? So, we try out Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket and are rewarded with great opportunities to share our images with others, and to use the images of those who keep them in the public arena with creative commons licensing.(Nevermind that Bubbleshare disappeared in the past year, although with great warning.So, is this a sign of the times?)

We spread the word through Twitter and Facebook, struggling with privacy issues and spam all the while learning and sharing our new found information with our students. We are always trying new sites and comparing them to our standards which include free hosted space, no spam, some unobtrusive advertising if we must, and lots of options and gadgets. NING was a great find! But how did we arrive at NING?

Which leads me to purpose. What is the purpose for creating  nameyoursite?

While looking for a website to create an online presence for our eighth graders we chose a NING for the following reasons:
we could get a free educator site without ads
we could keep the site private if we wanted to
it was easy to teach teachers how to use
the students knew how to use the site from their experiences with social networks
this site promoted our goals for collaboration, communication and creativity
this site was a platform for teaching about a digital footprint, netiquette and copyright information
this site was available at school and from home 24/7
as site admins we had a lot of control over the site and could add features as necessary
did I mention FREE?

What was not to like about Ning, in a matter of 10 minutes I was able to set up a site for 100 eighth graders and their teachers to delve deeply into a book by Chris Crutcher, Staying Fat for Sarah Brynes,  where our students took their mission  seriously. Chris Crutcher  even stopped by and engaged in a conversation with the students one day!  Choose a character, respond to profile questions in character, add your comments to forum questions as your own character, plus, make your avatar depicting what you imagine your character looks like, then choose an astrological sign, music and quotes your character would espouse to.

As educators we were able to focus on the goals and outcomes and not have to worry about the details  or cost of using this Web 2.0 tool. But now with NING falling out of the sky, I am worried. How will I explain to our students and staff that we need to either move our site or pay up to finish our year? Our schools have frozen budgets through the rest of this year, we hear that next year will not be any better in terms of finances. I know that this project has benefited our students, however, I have not planned this as a budget item for next year, so will I be left to find another FREE site and recreate the project, or I will have to pay to keep this going.

By the time this post is made, the Elluminate  session with Steve Hargadon will be an archive and, John McDonald
VP, Advocacy , from NING will have possibly closed the survey he posted for educators. However, leave your comments here or send a message to NING, let your voice and the voices of your students be heard. Hopefully, we will find that NING is not falling out of the sky.

Resources:
For the latest information from NING, check out their NING site with this post by John McDonald, Mythbusters: Three Things we are not doing on May 4th

 Leave your comments and join this conversation. I will make sure it gets back to John McDonald. 

Posted by Cheryl Oakes at 04/27/2010 06:32:55 AM | 

Checking out QR Code.

Wes Fryer presented the Keys to the 21st Century, Creating,Communicating, Collaborating in Wells Ogunquit CSD

Wes Fryer presented the Keys to the 21st Century, Creating,Communicating, Collaborating

It was a morning of a great homemade breakfast, yummy fruit smoothies, bacon and sausage, an unbelievable French Toast, fruit and excitement..
Excitement about the unknown, excitement about sharing good ideas, excitement about accompanying others on the journey into the 21st Century Literacy Tool arena.
The cafeteria was transformed into a workshop full of educators listening to Sarah and Wes Fryer about how to use some new tools in teaching and learning. Sarah explained how easily some tools could be incorporated into any one of their existing lessons. Sarah shared how she used a Web 2.0 tool called Voice Thread to present her book report. Then in about 5 minutes she used some photos from her recent trip through NH and presented a slide show that could be published, not on her refrigerator, but on the web with the world as an audience. Sarah generated plenty of interest and engagement from the audience of educators, so much so that some teachers presented an application to the PTO for a school subscription to VoiceThread.

Wes modeled some great ways of using technology, he also modeled how smoothly he could use a backup plan when necessary and he persevered through a brief fire alarm.

Beth Goodwin, captured the moments with her camera phone and then within an hour put all the photos together and presented a musical slideshow sharing the workshop moments. This modeled how quickly a digital story could be put together, published and available for comments to the world. http://photopeach.com/album/7m19i3?ref=est
Then because the slideshow was shared, Wes wrote a story on his blog post, explicitly sharing how the workshop was prepared and run.

Here is a comment from Author: Isabelle Selak

I am so glad that you posted about these PD sessions here. It is a great model for every school. We should all have numerous days a year (with our school provided laptops, of course) that we are encouraged and guided through using exciting tools that will enhance our classroom skills and lessons. Thanks also for sharing some of the tools that you are using at these sessions. We can't all be at sessions like these, but we can learn from yours!

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2010/04/05/telling-the-story-of-last-fridays-pd-in-maine-with-photopeach/comment-page-1/#comment-128311

Why is this transparency and sharing important?

We demonstrated how the WallWisher worked. Again, it was an explicit use of a Web 2.0 tool that can be used in your classroom. The WallWisher collected comments from our day. Please check them out we collected many great reflections about our day, the food and our learning. You will find the WallWisher comments at the end of this article.

The presenter, internationally known, frequently tweeted out to his followers, and previously had webcasted his schedule for the day. As a result, again, explicit modeling, the workshop was ustreamed and archived. The audience was told that the workshop would be ustreamed. There were 12 remote viewers throughout the morning. What a great opportunity for other educators to participate virtually in the workshop being held in our school. This all promotes the wisdom of crowds, open source learning, sharing with creative commons, share and share alike. We also captured the ustream http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5899688 and 5 days later, over 258 people have viewed the presentation.

Other things that were shared, Wes' slideshow presentation, http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ds7w6vt_363gv64ttps

Can people at different comfort levels take away from this one presentation? How?
This is something that I have been thinking about since last Friday. After all the positive comments, the smiles, the engagement, something is still nagging at me. What next and how to provide support to all learners, participants and the naysayers?

Here is my feeble attempt to provide a supportive timeline with activities for the Journey using 21st Century Skills and Technology.

What is your purpose? This is the first question we all ask before we plan or use any technology. This is not a technology question, but rather this is good pedagogy!

Start reading a blog post a day. TechLearning.com is a great place since there are a dozen or so bloggers posting, you will get a great cross section of current bloggers.

Comment on someone else's post. Find one or two people that you enjoy reading.

This is a leap, register for Twitter and then begin following the two people you enjoy reading. Learn about Twitter here and here and with Liz B. Davis and her spreadsheet of Twitter users, I am sure you will find someone with similar interests to yours.

Join a face to face PLC or begin working with one partner.

If this is not enough to get started, begin your own class blog or professional blog. You have something to share with others and others have a lot to benefit from you.

I put this question, "How do I know what I don't know?" out to my personal learning network and this is what I got back:

Elaine Griffin Plybon commented on your status:

"I tell teachers there is no way they'll ever know everything so they need to let go of that. What they should focus on is 1. what do I want to accomplish 2. What type of technology might help me accomplish it, and 3. what tool has that feature. If more than one, which one meets my needs the best. We don't need to know it all, we just need to know what we need."

Heidi G. Pence

A couple things- with things changing so fast, it is understandable that you are overwhelmed. What can I do to that might help you? Technology should be something that "adds to your life". What would you like to learn- something small that might make life easier/better for you or your students?

Here are some other resources !

Wes Fryer

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2010/04/07/be-the-change-you-want-to-see-in-schools-by-shannon-miller-vanmeter-i11i-library-perspectives/

Nancy White

How to assess 21st Century Skills , thanks to Nancy White from Aspen High School for this great Prezi! http://prezi.com/l8e1rzmtcs_l/assessing-21st-century-skills/

Assessing 21st Century Skills on Prezi

Bernajean Porter's Guidelines

http://ow.ly/1vKzF

Check out the GA Spectrum Table and the Cadre Charting Instrument

WallWisher Comments

Comments from the WallWisher! again, modeling something that could be reproduced in a classroom.


Thanks for an excellent breakfast! I've enjoyed having Sarah be part of this presentation. Such great confidence and ease with an audience!
Our students create quite a bit with technology, but we are struggling with what are useful ways to SHARE and with whom?
Psyched to start doing some more things with the smart-board and the kids laptops - so much opportunity and potential!
Wonderful to be here with the Amazing Wes Fryer!
It is exciting to see and learn new things that can be brought into the classroom.
How do we know what we don't know?
Great ideas and a wonderful presentation!
So much to try! I am still working to understand my new promethean board! I will get there! Thank you for your sharing.
This presentation was the best!!! The book report presentation would work great for our kiddo's instead of hand writing and face to face presentation!!
What does anyone know about Tweentribune.com?
it is great to see technology in action. Terrific presentation!!
Lots of new things to try with kids.
As we develop ideas for 21st century literacy, we need to remember that all people will learn from the practice of story telling.
I hope some of this technology (the solar paneled $100 computers) make it to third world countries.
I can't wait to integrate some of these ideas into my class!
I'd like to have students present more in this fashion but I worry about the technology and tech support at home.
6th grade will be using Google Docs for the research project on 19th Century reformers and inventors, this year. I will let everyone know how it goes.
thanks for the breakfast and the inspiration. I loved this workshop.
I can't wait to try using voice thread with students! Thanks for a great presentation.
Eric L: Let's talk. Key words to remind me of the idea for collaboration: Chain of Love blog. THanks.
Great job Emily...thanks for coming and sharing your expertise.
Good luck creating folks!
My husband would love this! It is amazing.
If anyone would like to collaborate with a class in York, let me know. We'd love to connect classrooms with a project.
Technology is so fascinating but still very overwhelming!! I really hope to step further into this 'magical' world.
Voice thread is something that I might actually try
Overwhelmingly Wonderful! I can't wait to use these ideas with the students in our classroom.
My son would love this!
It has been a very informative morning!
The book report presentation looks like something that I would like to try.
It is great getting together with everyone to share and learn!
I really liked the the book recreation of the Black Eyed Peas song. I bet our students would enjoy watching it.
This was a great presentation! I can't wait for the kids to begin working and to see what they do!
I'm the school social worker. Sometimes technology is not so wonderful...in fact it has made my job more difficult.

Thanks for sharing . I hope to use the voice thread real soon.

My son is going to love the Stanza app on his iTouch.

Thanks to:

Wes Fryer

Sarah Fryer

Alice Barr

Beth Goodwin

Bob Sprankle

Eric Lawson

Our Hero, Chris Chessie! http://en.tackfilm.se/?id=1272026690657RA36