Got an unusual email from the boss, Dr. Ludgate, this morning saying that she wasn’t going to be able to make today’s graduation ceremony. Bummer. The reason for the absence was because the “Gotta Keep Reading“ video that we’d assisted in creating with Ocoee Middle School was going to be a segment on the Oprah Winfrey show today. What? Oprah’s people set up a satellite connection this morning so that she could talk to Ocoee Middle School principal Sharyn Gabriel, reading coach Janet Bergh and two students about the video, with the student body gathered in the same quad area where the video had been filmed last December. How’s that for a Friday morning wake-up call?

The segment featured a shorter version of the video and a little Q&A between Winfrey, Gabriel, Bergh and the students, and ended with Oprah announcing that Target Stores had been enlisted to help upgrade Ocoee’s library. Below is the original video and beneath that several stills of the 1,285 that I shot during the video shoot.

Hard to imagine that an idea shared last Fall in a downtown Orlando restaurant has resulted in an inspirational video that’ll be a life-long memory for the 1,700 students who participated and now has become part of the national conversation on the importance of reading.

image by joe bustillos

image by joe bustillos

image by joe bustillos

image by joe bustillos

image by joe bustillos

image by joe bustillos

sources:
all images by Joe Bustillos.

        

Nick Briscoe, Full Sail emdtms grad, talks with Dr. Deason, Dr. Ludgate and moi about Web 2.0 tools such as social networking and their use in education. This is the first episode of Nick’s Educatium podcast which he’s created with fellow emdtms grads Paul Martin, Aletha Williams and Emily Wray. They can only get better from this beginning video podcast. Really.

Here’s a bonus outtake of Dr. Siegel wanting to join in as we were setting up the interview:

        

Another student take on Zander’s giving student’s an automatic “A”:

"May I axe you a question?" Astro's Got an Axe! by tohoscope

Bob is still looking for his A

Grades in middle school are controversial, especially now that students earn credits to be promoted to the next grade level. Ask a teacher at my school to “give an ‘A’” and their response is likely to be one of confusion, disbelief, laughter, or even anger. Administrators will tell you that grades should be used to measure student success and communicate progress. Unfortunately, many teachers use grades to communicate a very bad message and focus on “principle.” “Its the principle of the matter,” exclaims a colleague. “If you give an ‘A’ to a student who does nothing in your class, what kind of message are you sending the kid who works their butt off?”

So it goes back to measure and comparison (see chapter 2). Giving an A is not about allowing students a free ride and telling hard working students that it is all for nothing. Rather, it is eliminating the “anticipation of failure” and allowing the class to focus on what is more important; learning. It’s all about placing everyone on a level playing field (pardon the competitive sports analogy) and saying, “you already have the grade, what’s next?” It’s likely that the response will involve a feeling of relief and willingness to explore.

Ashley’s always reaching for an ‘A.’

However, I think the next step of giving an ‘A’ is just as important as giving the ‘A’ itself. Teachers who feel that giving an ‘A’ would eliminate student accountability will like this step the most. Requiring that students predict how they have earned the A before they have actually received it, helps them develop goals and builds intrinsic motivation. It also helps them see the possibility of being successful, something many have given up on.

Interested in seeing how I felt about this in October, click here. – Noel Nehrig

And my erudite response:

Grades are a bit like religion. There may have been a point at some time but it’s gotten lost in all of the noise and people are very scared to consider what to do if grades/religion had never existed. In the classroom, has the point of all the effort gotten lost to pursuing a grade? I mean, just like religion, isn’t all of this effort suppose to amount to something intrinsic, some good that goes beyond measure?

Grades are institution solution to communicating student progress and/or position in the A-to-F continuum within the classroom. There the measure, not the point. But i’ve seen instructors at all level quibble looking to seal up any possible loophole that a student might use to game the grading system. At best a grade is an approximation that may or may not be related to student progress fulfilling course requirements. In the end, it’s what we carry in our heads and hearts that matters more than this imperfect approximation. Funny how only those who excel and those who feel besmirched care so much about grades. What’s up with that?

Sources:
Wk 1 Reading- “A” is for Ax Murderer by Noel Nehrig. http://web.me.com/noelnehrig/The_Blog_Prince_for_EMDTMS_MAC/2010_MAC_OCD_Wk1/Entries/2010/2/6_Wk_1_Reading-_%E2%80%9CA%E2%80%9D_is_for_Ax_Murderer.html retrieved on 2/9/2010

Astro’s Got an Axe! by tohoscope. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tohoscope/182444838/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

Stone mason by sk8geek. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sk8geek/3917647300/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

Pretty Princess Picking Her Nose by Pink Sherbet Photography. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3295969599/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

        

Dr. Ludgate, emdt program director wrote: “Ocoee Middle School is the state technology demonstration school for Florida- showcased every year at FETC. A few months ago the EMDT crew met with Sharyn Gabriel (principal) and a few staff to discuss a Flash Mob idea. They were so inspired by the Flash mob scene from the Oprah and Black Eyed Peas show- they wanted to try the same concept – educationally inspired. They hired a professional singer to write and sing lyrics related to reading and literacy to encourage kids to prepare and read for the FCAT test. “The amazing Full Sail Online Production team made this all happen- they even let the Ocoee Middle School production class shadow them and gave them mini-lessons throughout the shooting process.”

I was there taking still photos during the video shoot & the energy was amazing. If you look really carefully at 3:00 in the video I’m the little black dot on the extreme left of the screen by the trees taking pictures. What an amazing day.

Also, now the response videos are beginning to pop up (song pops up 1:40 in..) and I love that they “freeze” when the video stops because of buffering!):

        

Full Sail student coping with the end of program requirements… thanks Mary

        

I’m back to teaching my Media Asset Creation class and Ben Zander’s The Art of Possibility is back on the menu. It never ceases to amaze me how his approach sparks debate with classroom teachers, particularly when it comes to “giving an A.” One of my students wrote:

Image courtesy Getty Images

I should give everyone in my life an A. My father, my daughter, my friends, strangers, everyone… see what happens when I make a point of not accidently taking the wind out of their sails…. – Aneesa A

My response:

So, what does an “A” mean? An indication of the mastery of the material, a reward for doing all of the assignments (regardless of whether one really understood the assignments), a made up system that designates one’s position within the educational/classroom culture… The Zander’s “ploy” is to get buy-in from the students first, the students write down what they’re going to do to deserve the “A,” then the teacher goes from being the judge to being the coach helping the student realize their goal. Also, at some point we all need to recognize that the value of working hard in the classroom isn’t for a grade but for the education/learning that is supposed to be the point of being in the classroom. All those years that I took Spanish and got a grade (mostly C’s) is meaningless given that I still can’t have a reasonable conversation in the language. Focusing on a grade when the intended goal is clearing missed is fatally flawed. And given all of my years as a student (and educator) I’d have to say that that is the rule and not the exception. Those who have the heart of an educator knows that grades are, at the moment, a necessary evil, but the meaning and worth can’t be represented by a grade.

Sources:
* Week 1 readings: To give an A or not to give an A by Aneesa Adams. http://thoughtthatwas.blogspot.com/2010/01/to-give-a-or-not-to-give-a.html retrieved on 1/16/2010
* Image courtesy of Getty Images.

        

This was my last week teaching Full Sail/emdtms’ LMO (Learning Management Systems) course and I couldn’t end our time together without a little conversation about Moodle. Enjoy.

Moodle is not a verb, or is it?

I’ve been hearing about Moodle at ed/tech conferences for longer than I can remember. In the early years it seemed to be an “under the radar” project bringing together the open source tech community and educators. More recently, with district administrators making decisions to roll-out Moodle, the concept seems to have shifted from a roll-your-own thing to something imposed upon teachers with little training, assistance or attempts to generate buy-in. In either case the platform has appeared to be largely text-driven and visually challenging. Wikipedia has an excellent overview of Moodle at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle.

The following video is intended to help those unfamiliar with Moodle’s module-mentality (and also for big fans of Legos!):

This next video is a good overview of the Moodle interface that includes a few commons tasks teachers might do:

For those curious for more in-depth training I located a course available through Lynda.com at
http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourseN.aspx?lpk2=47547

Other tutorials are available at: http://moodle-tutorials.blogspot.com/search/label/Moodle%20Video%20Tutorials and
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Teacher_documentation.

One of the most important thing to remember about learning platforms, whether we have a say in their roll-out or not, is that it’s an opportunity to enlarge your reach with your students and that it’s your input that changes these things from being just tools to becoming learning opportunities.

Please review these videos and info and come to our Wimba session ready to talk about Moodle.

Sources:

* moodle logo. http://docs.moodle.org/en/License retrieved on 12/13/2009

* youtube video/image: Moodle explained with LEGO short version posted by moodlefan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XPZl6LLvik retrieved on 12/13/2009

* Youtube video: What’s Moodle? posted by jenericjarvis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jY9KcHwIWI&feature=related retrieved on 12/13/2009

        

As I continued to explore online teaching/learning platforms for my LMS course (Learning Management Systems), I revisited Digication, a platform that I used my last year teaching middle school technology and media classes. The following are my notes that I passed along to my students to study before our weekly online session. The last portion are three examples of the Udutu teaching module that we’ve been studying.

Digication Revisited

In between large-scale enterprise level learning management systems imposed upon educators and roll-your-own systems like moodle are many smaller online options such as Digication (http://digication.com/). I heard about Digication from an interview of one of the founders, Jeffrey Yan, on Leo Laporte’s "Inside the Net" podcast. Digication’s founders recognized the need for something more than just another place to post content, something that would cater to educators’ special needs that aren’t being addressed by overly-generalized web-portals, and at the same time be as simple to manage as an email account. Following is a Behind-the-Scenes tour of Digication and the "Inside the Net" interview of Digication founder, Jeffrey Yan (NOTE: the interview is a bit long…). Please review these items before our wimba session.

Inside the Net 35: Digication (http://www.twit.tv/itn35)

One of the things that attracted me to Digication was that it had all of the features of a full CMS but didn’t require that I code it myself or try to get the assistance/permission from my district IT. Only limitation for the free account was that there couldn’t be more than 1,000 users at my school. I’ve written about my experiences with Digication a few times on my blog:
* Digication Gets My Vote
* Classroom Website on Digication

* Utudu & You: You should be well into creating your Udutu course/unit. Make sure that you make your way through the Udutu tutorials at http://udutu.com/tutorials.html. Please come to our Wimba session ready to share your progress, frustrations and victories. Remember, you want to have your Udutu course set-up quickly enough so that your fellow students have time to visit and comment on your Udutu course (during week 4). The following examples of Udutu units are offered as an inspiration and encouragement (the first one was created by the President of Udutu!). Enjoy:

All About Web 2.0 and Udutu Genesis by Roger Mundell

Introduction to 20th Century Art by Liz Perry

Introduction to Technology Accessibility by Emily Wray

Sources:

* featured image: Study by hermes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hermes-/421203877/ retrieved on 12/9/2009

* audio podcast: Inside the Net 35: Digication by Leo Laporte and Megan Morrone with Guest: Jeffrey Yan of Digication. http://www.twit.tv/itn35 retrieved on 12/7/2009

* videos: LMO Moments: Behind the Scenes Tour: Digication by Joe Bustillos – emdt/FSO. http://www.viddler.com/explore/joebeebee/videos/22/ retrieved on 12/7/2009

* Udutu units: All About Web 2.0 and Udutu Genesis by Roger Mundell. http://publish.myudutu.com/published/launch/1612/Course15573/Launch.html?redirect=true retrieved on 12/7/2009

* Udutu units: Introduction to 20th Century Art by Liz Perry. http://publish.myudutu.com/published/launch/12441/Course21598/Launch.html?redirect=true retrieved on 12/7/2009

* Udutu units: Introduction to Technology Accessibility by Emily Wray. http://lms.myudutu.com/LMSGadget/courses/lms/12244/Course21696/881/v2009_8_24_18_23_39/course/Course21696.html?redirect=true retrieved on 12/7/2009

        

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working with my Full Sail EMDT students teaching and learning more about online learning management systems. I’ve been using online tools for teaching and learning for over nine years and tech in my classrooms for over 15-years, so I generally don’t think twice about the role of tech in education. But what got me thinking was the depth and complexity of the tools we’ve been studying and the largely unrewarded efforts it will take for our students to get some of these systems rolling. It can be such an uphill battle just to get meaningful online access in the classroom. So I started thinking that some very basic questions needed to be considered in order for my students to be fully prepared to translate what we’re studying into something that they can use in the classroom. The following thoughts and videos were posted for my students to read before our weekly online meeting.

The Role of Technology in Education

As you work through this course’s reading assignments and create your Udutu project you might notice that you might be the only one among your peers working at such a high level of expectation as far as the integration and useage of technology in the day-to-day functioning of a classroom. Why is that? The normal excuse on the part of educators tends to be the lack of time and on the part of administration the lack of funds. And even when technology is brought into the classroom the purchasing process tends to be such a top-down "what do we need now" event, lacking any long-term vision or implementation plan that it’s no suprise that thirty-years after the arrival of the first small computers into the classroom, we’re still having this discussion.

One of the voices of dissent is astronomer Clifford Stoll, who feels that the last thing we need is to have students equate staring at a picture of the Louvre on a computer screen with anything remotely similar to experiencing the real thing. When Dr. Stoll wrote Silicon Snake Oil (1996) the Internet was in just in its commercial infancy, NetDay had 20,000 volunteers wiring local schools to the Internet and there was great buzz about improving education by improving access to the Information SuperHighway. At the time his concern was whether this investment in infrastructure could be better spent on teachers instead of tools. Over a dozen years later, with institutions flying to "online learning" as a way to cheaply expand programs without having to invest in more facilities or faculty, the question still remains whether sound pedagogy is even entering into these decisions.

The following videos look at the role of technology in education, but not in such a "either/or" point of view. The first video harkens from the dawn of the small computer era when Seymore Papert developed something called Logo to teach programming to children:

This next video is one man’s crazy idea to enable third world children to completely skip industrialization and move from agrarian culture to the information age. Another alumni from the MIT Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte talks about the deployment of the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) program:

In this last video the protagonist looked outside his office window, to a wall that separated his nice surroundings from a slum and thought, I wonder what would happen if… Thus began Sugata Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall/Digital Divide“ studies:

Please review these videos and come to our Wimba session ready to talk about the Role of Technology in Education.

Sources:

* The Internet? Bah! Hype alert: Why cyberspace isn’t, and will never be, nirvana, by Clifford Stoll | NEWSWEEK (From the magazine issue dated Feb 27, 1995). http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554 retrieved on 12/7/2009

* Youtube video: Seymour Papert 1983 posted by cynthiaso. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOf4EMN6-XA retrieved on 12/7/2009

* TED video: Negroponte takes OLPC to Colombia. http://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_takes_olpc_to_colombia.html retrieved on 12/7/2009

* TED video: Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html retrieved on 12/7/2009

        

I just finished updating the reading part of my course and I somehow ended up telling my own story of Possibility. At this point in the course my students have read the first nine chapters of the Art of Possibility and are finishing up their final week in my course. They are just about to begin their last month in Full Sail’s emdtms program. Thus, the following is a glimpse of what my students suffer through. Don’t feel sorry for them. I’m the one who has to read (and grade) their blogs. Ack. Actually that is one of the best parts of this job, it’s reading the great things they share in their blogs… oh yeah, I usually share such things right here in this blog. Duh. Enjoy

:: Description
You will read the Art of Possibility chapters 10 -12 and post one entry (or more) into your blog.

:: Rationale

pacbell by joe bustillos

Ah, but the story continues from there. Truth be told, being a teacher was somewhat akin to being a phone company drone in that the highest form of praise tended to be that one always showed up for work on time and never did anything that made work for others. Yeah, I somehow ended up in another world of "lifers." Of course, I didn’t know any better so I kept doing things like teaching my students video journalism to help with their literacy and brought computers from home into my classroom. I guess I became a bit more entrepreneurial because I’d get involved in creating some new tech/ed/media program on campus, we’d have great success and then after a couple of years the funding would go away and I’d find myself working for another school/district, bringing tech/media to the natives. While getting a master’s degree and time spent working on a doctorate I continued the "create a tech program/find success/lose funding/change jobs" cycle three times. Alas, the doctorate program ran aground (twice), but I was lucky enough to work with Dr. Ludgate and somehow found a home on the opposite end of the country working for Full Sail. I am not the poster child for the Art of Possibility. But I am kind of stubborn as far as expecting a lot from myself because I’ve already been given so much. And if I can influence someone to not settle for the status quo, to push the technology, to enable their students, well then, that’s a damn good day.

The following video features someone who found amazing success, in many ways, through equally amazing failures. Having witnessed three of his incredible keynote speeches, this is not one of his better speeches. But the message is all the more real given the speech’s lack of polish. Enjoy.

:: Resources

The Practices
This books is less of a “study” book, where you try to analyze every sentence and paragraph and more a book that you want to move through and try to focus on the over-arching concepts presented. At the end of each chapter are some questions that form the “practices” part of the book. Use the questions to prompt your book notes that you will post in your blog. Feel free to answer the following study questions, or comment on the practices at the end of each chapter, or write about whatever moves you most (that’s directly related to the reading). Your choice.

Chapter 10. Being the Board: It’s not them. It’s not the circumstances. It’s me. It’s my choices. Now what do I do?

Chapter 11. Creating Frameworks for Possibility: How do I take this flash of insight and make it into daily thing? And how do I share this with others?

Chapter 12. Telling the WE Story: I told you it wasn’t about you. Have you been able to tap into the power of combining your expertise and passions with someone equally gifted? Have you had the pleasure of lifting a teammate, student, stranger up enabling them to realize their dreams and exceed anything that you could have imagined?

Coda: Now what do we do?

Sources:
Image: Pop!Tech 2008 – Benjamin Zander by Pop!Tech, http://www.flickr.com/photos/poptech2006/2968249798/ retrieved on 11/12/2009
image: pacbell01.jpg by Joe Bustillos, http://joebustillos.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/pacbell01.jpg retrieved on 11/12/2009
image: jbb & zander by Joe Bustillos, http://web.me.com/edm613/media/jbbnbzander.jpg retrieved on 11/12/2009
YouTube: Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005 posted by peestandingup, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA, retrieved on 11/12/2009.