If you are interested in booking me (Wesley Fryer) for a presentation or workshop (either face-to-face or over video) please visit my Speaking page on www.speedofcreativity.org/speaking.
Update 25 August 2010:
In 2010 I am transitioning to the website wiki.wesfryer.com for my handout and presentation/workshop links. I'm not taking content here on PBworks offline, but I have added this "update header" to all my pages as well as adding direct links to more updated versions of these pages as I mirror them / create them on wiki.wesfryer.com. There are 146 pages here on teachdigital.pbworks.com. - You can browse these in page view in addition to using the four category links provided on the homepage. Note this wiki was previously mapped to "handouts.wesfryer.com" but that domain mapping is no longer available.
Stay updated on my latest posts by following me on Twitter, my blog ("Moving at the Speed of Creativity") and Facebook.
All materials, unless otherwise indicated, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
More attribution guidance is available.
Creating, Collaborating and Blending Learning in the 21st Century Infoverse
It is plain to see our information environment has changed dramatically in the past ten years. Digital content online offers rich opportunties for learning which caters to visual learners. Digital collaborative possibilities abound which extend far beyond email, word processing, and gradebook software. Videoconferencing, blogging, and social networking are now mainstream activities for many of our youth. Where do teachers begin in an effort to appropriately, safety, and effectively integrate digital technologies into the learning environment and curriculum? Are their safe and controlled ways teachers and students can use web 2.0 tools for learning? This presentation explores many of these possibilities focusing on FREE tools and applications which permit learners of all ages to CREATE and COLLABORATE in safe, moderated environments and ways which comply with existing U.S. copyright laws. BLENDED learning should be a key focus for teachers as well as students in the 21st century classroom. This presentation focuses on practical ways teachers can begin, with "small victories" (to quote Marco Torres) which teachers can begin implementing right away.
This session is scheduled to be shared over video on 17 and 18 Jan 2008 to Ector County, Texas, and 28 Jan 2008 to El Paso, Texas. Podcast recordings of one of those sessions will be linked here subsequently.
Stories
- 4th Grade Carvinorous Plant Essay Publishing
- Einstein on WikiPedia: A South LA Rapper?
- Blog post 4 Feb 2007: "Albert Einstein and the policing of Wikipedia")
- Jimmy Wales (WikiPedia founder) on WikiPedia
- April 2006 on ForaTV (1 hr, 14 min) (20 min, 47 sec)
- July 2005 TEDTalk (20 min, 47 sec)
Making the Case for Blended Learning
- ENGAGEMENT: The goal of enthralling students for 8 hours per day is a pipe dream. Our goal should be ENGAGING students rather than ENTRALLING learners with lecture, paper and pencil exercises, their textbooks, and fear-based approaches to motivation and operant conditioning
- RESEARCHED-BASED METHODS FOR IMPROVING STUDENT LEARNING / ACHIEVEMENT: See "Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement " by Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, Jane E. Pollock (How are these research-based "best practices" supported with blended learning methodologies and tools?)
- DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING: Essential for ALL learners, deepest and widest possibilities are via blended learning
- AUDIENCE: Changing perceptions of audience can change everything.
- REAL WORLD SKILLS: The Partnership for 21st Century Skills and other groups have articulated compelling reasons why the workforce of the 21st century requires more skills than the classroom model of the 19th century can provide.
The Cooking / Teaching Analogy
- Novices closely follow recipies
- Basic ingredients and tools are needed
- You can get hurt: burned or cut
- Actual practice is the key (as an apprentice under the watchful eyes of a master)
- We need to help our students become journeymen and journeywomen with digital learning
- As learning leaders / educators, we need to take our cooking (digital learning) "up a notch" as Emeril encourages
- In our context, that means focusing on students CREATING and COLLABORATING regularly.
- Publishing student work on the web in safe, INTERACTIVE formats
- Regularly using synchronous and asynchronous digital tools for collaboration
- See the "Educational Technology Gourmet" wiki for more on this cooking/teaching analogy!
Basic Ingredients for Frontier Chuckwagon Cooking
- Flour
- Coffee
- Sugar
- Bacon
- Lard
- Salt
- Beans
Basic Ingredients for 21st Century Learning
- Social Bookmarking
- del.icio.us social bookmarks - Wesley's del.icio.us
- Social Bookmarking 101 (article)
- Interactive Digital Storytelling
- VoiceThread
- VoiceThread for Education
- Videoconferencing
- Skype and iChat
- H.323 (traditional) with Tandberg or Polycom equipment/software
- Commercial multi-point desktop videoconferencing solutions like Marratech (now owned by Google) and Tandberg's Movi
- Wikis
- PBWiki
- WikiSpaces for Educators
- WetPaint
- Examples
- Pam Lowe's Classroom Wikis
- Oklahoma World War II Stories Project
- Networking with Other Educators
- Recommended Educational Blogs
- Will Richardson
- Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
- Miguel Guhlin
- Cheryl Oakes
- David Warlick
- Sylvia Martinez
- Bob Sprankle
- Julie Lindsey
- Scott McLeod
- TechLearning
- The Infinite Thinking Machine
- Lots more listed on the Support Blogging Wiki!
- Classrooom 2.0 Ning
- Digital Dialog Ning
- Twitter (follow Wesley on Twitter)
- Feed Aggregators
- Web-based: Google Reader (Wesley's shared Google Reader Items) and Bloglines
- Client based: FeedDemon (Windows) or NetNewsWire (Mac)
Blended Learning and Web 2.0 Instructional Framework
Find more resources on blended learning from my March 2007 workshop, "Powerful Blending: Using Web 2.0 to Interact, Create, and Assess."
Closing Questions and Thoughts
- Are we preparing students for their present and future, or for our past?
- Are we doing what is convenient, or what is best for kids?
- How am I going to encourage more student CREATION (of media) and COLLABORATION (with digital tools on a regular basis) the next time we have class?
- What is the most powerful modality for writing? Hyperlinked writing! How am I and how are my students REGULARLY practicing hyperlinked writing?
- Does our school website have recently published student work (from the past month) for at least 10% of our student population online NOW in an INTERACTIVE environment which permits moderated commenting and PARTICIPATION by parents, other students, and community members?
- To learn more, GET CONNECTED digitally with other educators! Participate in the FREE K-12 Online Conference!
If not you, then who?
If not now, then when?
Be the CHANGE you want to see in the world. (Ghandi)
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