Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Tech Integration Workshop - Step 2: You Must Take the Lead

Note: Do not do this lesson until you have watched the Watch First video.

Lesson Video:


Action Guide Video:






Once you have watched both videos please complete this step in the Workshop Checklist.

Return to the Table of Contents for the Technology Integration Workshop.


Resources:
http://www.ning.com
http://www.classroom20.com
http://k12online.ning.com
http://www.Edutopia.org
http://www.TED.com

Updates to these videos:
none

Transcription of Videos:

The Lesson

Hello and welcome back to Step 2 of our Workshop here on integrating 21st century skills into our schools.  My name is Brad Flickinger, with SchoolTechnology.Org - and let’s get started in Step 2, which is “You Must Take the Lead”.

Alright, before we move on - stop!  If you have not done the Action Steps from Step 1, some of the stuff we are going to do in Steps 2 and 3 and beyond is just not going to work for you. So don’t rush through this; don’t try to read the end of the book first - go back and do those Action Steps and I promise you, everything is going to work out when we get through all 12 Steps.

Alright, so let’s move on to this idea that you have got to take the lead.  Okay, there are people out there that mistakenly think that students will naturally acquire 21st century skills.  You know, they already love technology; they have their little iPods and their cell phones, and they have all those things - and they think, you know, “Why do we need to even wrestle with this at school?  With all we have to worry about at school, why do we have to work on this too? because the kids are naturally going to acquire these skills?”

Well, now that would be like saying, “Let’s give them all papers and pencils because they are going to NATURALLY learn how to write; they are NATURALLY going to get math figured out and be able to do algebra and…”

You know, it just doesn’t work that way, okay?  So it brings up this point here:  Owning tools does not equal having the skills, okay?  Just because they have an iPod in their pocket doesn’t mean they truly know how to use it; I mean beyond just playing games.

I mean, if you can see the kinds of things that kids are able to do with the technology - they have it just at their arm’s reach - it is amazing stuff; we can teach them to go great things with it, okay?  So that is what it is all about: just because they have them doesn’t mean they have the skills to use them, okay?

The same thing goes here:  We cannot teach the skills without the tools, alright?  If we were teaching the big lesson on how to cut the wood with a saw, we could read it in textbooks, we could watch a video about it - but until the child puts the saw to the wood, they don’t really gain that skill.

And the same thing goes with technology.  We can’t just send them to textbooks and websites to try to learn about it; they have got to do it, they have got to touch it.  And that doesn’t mean expensive things; that means we can do it on different budgets, different schools, different socioeconomic backgrounds of our students - we can adjust and we can do it.  But we need to have the tools to be able to teach the skills.
So this comes down to, “Who?”  Who is going to teach these skills to these students?  Well, I hate to say this - but it’s you and me.  and I know we go by different titles and different schools; and as I am out speaking and lecturing on this subject, I mean, I don’t know if you are called the “Media Director” in your building, or the “Tech Specialist”, or the “Building Tech Coordinator”, or the “Tech Integrationist/Specialist… ist ist ist…” all these things; or you are the “Librarian”, you know, if that title still exists somewhere in our system and everything; or you are the “Assistant Superintendent” or the “Assistant Principal” that is in charge of technology”… I don’t know really where you are coming from - but you are in this PD class because YOU are going to be the one to bring the change, okay?

Let me go to this next slide here.  Unfortunately, you know, our administrators, our teachers, they are just so overwhelmed with all the other things they need to fix and do in schools - they have got “No Child Left Behind”, they are worried about State Scores and National Scores and all those things, that WE have got to be the ones.
And when you stick with me through these Steps, you are going to see how easy it is for the teachers to be able to get 21st century skills - for both themselves and their students.

Because it is not a “Chicken and Egg” problem; you know, “Who gets them first” and things like that - they can get them TOGETHER, and they can move forward together.  And it is going to be amazing.  And it is going to be easy.  And they are going to not even realize how great it is.  And they are going to be in the thick of having 21st century skills all around them - because their lessons are going to have them in them and it is going to be great.

So that is the lesson of Step 2; is that “There is no-one else”, okay?  You have got to be the one to take it on; become an expert in 21st century skills and an expert in integrating them into your school.  And I am going to help you with all that; and we are going to look at all these great different resources.

So, that concludes our Lesson.  So let’s go down to the Action Guide and let’s get into it and let’s start doing some things.

So thank you once again; my name is Brad Flickinger, with SchoolTechnology.Org.

The Action Guide

Hello everyone, this is Brad Flickinger, with SchoolTechnology.Org; and welcome to Step 2: You Must Take the Lead - and this is the Action Guide part of Step 2, so kind of the assignments that you need to do to progress along through these Steps.

Alright, so I am just here on the website; I am a little bit below where you are watching this video right now - I am just here in the Action Items.  And the first one is to “Go into iTunes and look up Edutopia”.  So let’s just go in there and I am going to show you what that is about here.

So I am in iTunes; and you just want to click on the “iTune Store”, which is normally the front for all the music side of iTunes - and that is what people are most familiar with, using iTunes.  But it has so much more in here.  And I am going to click up here, along the top bar; there is “iTunes University” or “iTunes U”.  And this has some of the greatest lectures from all around the world from the greatest professors, and things like that.   So you can just spend hours in here!  So go ahead and look around if you want.

But we need to get into some things because we only have just a few minutes of this part here.  So I am going to search for “Edutopia” here, up here in the Search area; click “Enter” on my keyboard here.  And this is going to come up and find “Edutopia is a non-profit group that does…” well, it is working in public education - I guess that is what they are really… their whole thing is all about.

So I can click on any one of these that I want; and this will take me in and it will tell me a little bit about what this lecture is about, or this video is about.  And if I click up here I can go right back to the very front page of Edutopia; and here it is; and this will tell you all about it and what the top downloads are, and all these great things.
And to have one, you just basically click on it and then you click on the “Download” button right over here; say “Get movie” - and it’s free; the downloads are right to your computer.  So that is great.  So go ahead and try any one of those and download it right into your computer.

Okay, let’s also see what else is next here.  It says we should look at “TEDTalks”, and “The Teacher’s Podcast”, and “The Tech Teacher Network”.  These are just a bunch of podcasts.  And some podcasts are just audio; some are video.  And so let’s go ahead and take a look at “TEDTalks” right here.  Up in the Search area again; I am just going to come up here and type in “TEDTalks” - it is actually one word - which we want to hear.  And this is “TED”; let me get into “TED” here.  I am going to go into the front page; I have actually clicked on the link to “TED” and not necessarily to this one episode here.

And these are like, “Ideas worth spreading:  if you have never experienced a TEDTalk, go have fun with it!  Click on any one of these - they are just absolutely amazing to watch!”

So, let’s just get into here, see how many there are.  There are just hundreds of different talks you can watch.  So here is one just recently from Bill Gates, and… you know, these are all the leaders and movers and shakers of the tech industry; and design, and entertainment - just fantastic stuff!  And again, they are free.  So you just click on the “Free” and it downloads it right to your computer.

And the last one I wanted to talk to you about was… let me just check where it was here, back over here on my website.  So it was “Teachers: The Teachers’ Podcast”.  Okay, so “Teachers’ Podcast”; let me see what that pulls up here.  Alright, so there it is - “Teachers’ Podcast”.

And this is one that you can also not just download an episode; but if you click this little “Subscribe” button over here, it will subscribe and then it will always, as new stuff gets put on their Podcast, it will just automatically come to your iTunes, and you can either put it on your iPod, or just watch it on your computer - whatever you want to do.

Here is my Podcast section in my computer; and I have got lots of things.  And even go do something that doesn’t have to do with teaching:  here is one on Fly fishing; here you are - I can also subscribe to a fly fishing podcast so I can listen to and watch things about fly fishing.

And here is “TEDTalks”; and we can go ahead and listen to one of the ones on TEDTalks, see what it looks like.

“Now, we see this space, this three-dimensional environment, as being a canvas on which all sorts of applications can play out.  And maps, directions are really just one of them. If you click on this you will see one of the ones that we have put out just in the past couple of months since we have launched; so, for example, a couple of days after…

That was one of the developers for BING maps; and he is going to show you some amazing things that happen here.  So you just get in there, you watch these things; take a few minutes. For me, every Thursday I spend about an hour just to watch a few podcasts, listen to some things, and then go into my Nings.

And that is what I want to show you next, because I believe that is next on our assignment list.  So we come down here, where it says to “Watch these podcasts and subscribe to them” - I think you should subscribe.  And then it is “Find a podcast of something that just interests you” - and I did fly fishing.  And then it says, “Join some Nings”.

So, last week we created a Ning account.  And so this week we want to actually join some Nings.  And I am going to show you the Nings that I use.  And you might have to search for these in here - you know, you want to go in and look around for a Ning - but I am part of one called “Classroom 2.0”; let me just open that up and I will show it to you.

So, here is Classroom 2.0.  It is a fantastic resource for finding out about what is happening with technology in the classroom.  And these are all the members of it; and you can ask questions, you can watch videos; you can do all sorts of things in this Classroom 2.0.  So join that Ning!  And I don’t have a “Join” button on here because I am already a member; but you just look for the “Join” button; and then you fill out a little form about what you do and stuff, and then you get approved to be able to be in.
Let me go back to my front page of the Ning here.  And then the second one is this “K12 Online”.  And I have got to tell you, I have taken so many ideas from this one.  And this one down here, this little green box, is actually a video; you click on that and you watch a video.  That was what I watched just a few days ago, all about a Second Grade teacher down in New Zealand that is doing the most amazing things with her students.

So this is one of the great resources to really, really get you into what is happening in education and technology.  So please join these Nings - it will take probably 24 to 48 hours for you to be approved - so when we get into Step 3 we can actually start doing some great things with these Nings and we can go around and make some posts, and ask some questions and things.

So that is part of the assignments for today - and let’s see you in Step 3.  So get these things done and then I will see you in there.  Thank you.

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