A little while back, Terry Freedman wrote an excellent analysis of the NotK12Online situation. I agree with him on many of his points and concerns, and have had similar discussions with other members of our committee as well as other colleagues. Better yet, he models quite nicely the kind of constructive critique that I wish I saw more of online.

I get the sense that folks have made their minds up about what we hope to do with NotK12Online, which is pretty frustrating, because the little bit of information that’s out there doesn’t really match up with, or support, people’s assumptions.

But you know what they say about assumptions, don’t you?

In an attempt to set the “record” straight, as well as to push our thinking and open ourselves up to some feedback and constructive criticism, I thought I’d share some unofficial thinking about some of my and my committee’s plans and hopes for what NotK12Online might look like.

To begin with, NotK12Online is, ahem, not a conference for rejects. I regret that it was even mentioned in the letters that went out to K12 proposal submitters, and I understand the feelings of folks who took that mention to be a statement of intent or purpose. That said, if you believe your ideas to be worth sharing, I hope you’ll share them, whether or not you do so via NotK12Online.

NotK12 isn’t a separate conference, either. It’s an attempt to host an unconference-ish extension to the main event that continues, extends, and further problematizes the entire metaphor of an online conference. In addition, I hope it will serve as a scaffold for folks who need one to help them begin to share their learning online. For those who don’t need such a scaffold, I hope it will provide a needed push to publish good work that would otherwise not get shared, as well as a channel or two of compelling content.  For still others, it’ll be a distraction.  That’s okay.  Feel free to exercise your filter.

I don’t need to tell many of the readers of this blog that such a scaffold or structure is completely unnecessary and contradictory.  What I feel I do need to say, though, is that in my work with other teachers, some folks would find value in such a structure; they may well need a stepping stone into online reading, writing and thinking.

So what will NotK12Online look like? Well, it’s pretty much an aggregator populated by user submissions. If you have a piece of content that you think matches our guidelines, then you’ll publish it elsewhere, perhaps via your own blog, perhaps somewhere else, depending on the kind of content you’ve produced, and come to the NotK12Online site and tell us about it. If it fits our criteria, published on the site, it gets shared. Folks who want to respond to the content will be directed back to the original site of publication. Content shared via our site will be available via RSS. That’s pretty much it. (For now.  But we’re always interested in suggestions and ideas about making it more useful.  Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.)

We’re supporting two types of content at NotK12 so far this year, presentations and critiques. Any material that fits into the categories of the conference is fair game for the presentation channel. The critique channel is the one, though, that I am most excited, and worried, about.

One of my biggest complaints about conferences and online conversation in general is that most of the dialogue is usually cheerleaderish in nature or completely inflammatory. It’s too easy to just ignore or write off ideas and people with which or whom we disagree. My hope for the critique channel of NotK12Online is that we can help promote the idea that we can and should all attempt to be, at least from time to time, critical friends for someone. (Terry, by the way, modeled this quite nicely in his post.  So, too, has Sharon Peters - with Terry - in a recent podcast conversation about NotK12Online. )  Critics of events like K12Online have valuable points. K12Online presenters are not the be-all end-all experts on the content of their presentations.  Can we mix it up a little and productively extend the conversations of and about the conference in a way that’s useful?

I believe we can.  And maybe NotK12Online can be a piece of that progression.  Then again, maybe it won’t be.  But it’s worth it to try.

In this podcast, recorded Friday, I talk a little bit about NotK12Online, the fine folks who will be helping me to put it together, some of my/our initial ideas, and the juicy paradox of the whole endeavour.  I’ve got a great committee of folks assembled to do the beginning planning - but we’ll need plenty of help.  Below are links to the NotK12Online planning committee.  We’re all eager for your ideas, input and suggestions regarding NotK12Online.  It’s new.  It’s different.  It’s a walking contradictory paradox.  I love it.  Please contact us via the various communication links below:

Jackie Ballarini

Twitter - jackieb

e-mail - jackie.ballarini AT gmail.com

Bill Bass

Twitter - wbass3

e-mail - bbass3 AT gmail.com

Marcie T. Hull

Twitter - ecram3

e-mail - ecram3 AT gmail.com

Bud Hunt

Twitter - budtheteacher

e-mail - budtheteacher AT gmail.com

When you use a lot of technology to push the envelope and hang with others who do as well-- it is pretty amazing when you find yourself in awe of the tools. Darren, Wes, Dean and I continually use tools to collaborate since we all live so far away from each other. Wednesday night at NECC wasn't going to be any different than other countless K12Online virtual meetings we have had except that three of us would be together and Darren would be online- or so we thought.

We ended up at a pretty ritzy restaurant. Once we were seated Dean pulled out his laptop and called Darren on Skype. We made him full screen and sat him at the table across from ours. It made him seem as if he was eating with us virtually.

It was so dark that we had to use a candle to allow Darren to see us. It seemed a little like a ghost story moment. Dean took the laptop and walked Darren around with the camera on so he could see the RiverWalk and get a feel for what our surroundings were like. Someone walking by knew Darren and hollered out to him. It was wild, just like he was really there.

The waiter came up and greeted us all including Darren. When he found out he was from Canada he began to sing the Canadian National Anthem. Overall, it was an awe inspiring event.

Download the enhanced podcast here.

Life as science fiction continues.

Here in Korea on a Friday night, close to midnight, I hop onto Twitter, see Chris Craft is there in South Carolina, USA, and tweet him an invitation to talk on Skype. He kindly obliges (and it’s just a free international computer phone call now, so that ain’t hard).

I record it, edit it, and an hour later, self-publish it for anybody in the world who is interested in lessons learned from two humble pioneers of global classroom collaboration.

Our topic? We take up the question of how to refine our approach to global collaborative projects so that they are less prone to fail, or to wear out all parties involved (teachers and students) when they succeed.

I’m most excited by the last 5 minutes or so. Chris and I fell into a spontaneous “pedagogical jam session” in which we riffed on the idea that the best projects are - not projects at all*. Instead, they are authentic uses - and modelings - of Personal Learning Networks (PLN’s) via Twitter, Skype, Facebook, etc: “quick in and quick out.”

Good background reading from the edublogs:

• Sylvia Tolesano’s Collaboration Projects - Doomed to Fail? (USA)
• Graham Wegner’s Parable 2.0 (Australia)
• Susan Sedro’s Learning from My Online Project Mistakes (Singapore)
• My own enthusiastic post on George Mayo’s “Many Voices” Global Twittory project, and my own lessons learned from the 1001 Flat World Tales (S. Korea)
• My “Freshman Arthus Invades Korea to Co-Teach with Me” post

It’s only 15 minutes. It’s enhanced, if you download to iTunes, with chapter markers for quick navigation. And notice, if you play it from this post, you can still see links to URL’s we discuss along the way in the embedded player.

Enjoy! And better still - extend or challenge in comments

—

*I owe a debt to Chris Harbeck’s K-12 Online Conference 2007 presentation “Release the Hounds, Part 4” for planting this seed a couple of months ago. It’s sprouting some healthy shoots now.

Similar Posts:

• Maxim: “Give Me a Unit I’ll Learn for a Day…”
• Many Voices: A Global Creative Writing Twittory for K-8 Worth Joining
• New: 1001 Reflections Podcasts: Chris Watson on Improving Peer Feedback in the Writing Workshop
• Real Flat World Science and the 45 Nanometer Intel Microprocessor: A Revolution
• I Can’t Make Educational History - But We Can: “Networked Learning” Class Update

   One of the teachers taking our K12Online Conference course writes (in a forum that's private - so no linktribution):

There are so many conference sessions to choose from.  Some conferences have catchy titles, but don't grab me when I click on it.

Will you give me a few recommendations?  I teach high school social studies (including psychology.)  I am interested in Moodles and blogs and any way to combine interesting social studies sites into one place for my students to explore.  My goal for the end of the course is to have created something that will serve this purpose.

What sessions or directions would you suggest for her?  Any projects outside of K12 Online that she should be considering?  I'll share all of your suggestions with her - and also use this post to model the power of the network.  Thanks in advance.

    I think we had an excellent first session of our K12Online group in St. Vrain.  I had to literally turn folks away, as we ran out of space in the classroom - and it's a pretty tight classroom.  (Perhaps I need to run a second session?  Why couldn't I?  The content's there either way . . .)
    After dealing with course logistics and introductions - there's a wide range of school district staff there, from classroom teachers (elementary and secondary), to librarians to support staff to school board members -- I walked folks (or maybe sprinted - I talk fast when I get excited) through a short history of the conference.  I then shared the first half of David Warlick's 2006 pre-conference keynote with the group.  I like his direct approach to the audience  ("I am here and I am now - but that's not important, because you are there and you are then .  .  ." - goosebumps.) as well as his metaphors for education.  I thought it got us off on the right foot.
    For two months, we'll be communicating mostly via Moodle forum as we begin to take a look at the various course offerings of the conference.  The forum's just for us right now, as we get comfortable using digital conversation spaces.  I hope to invite some of you to join us, if you're willing, at some point in the future.  I also hope that some of the participants will choose to punch through the password-protected private space and join the public conversation(s) in some way - but that's up to them.  It should be a choice.  And, speaking of choice, thanks, K12Online, for the handy schedules for each year of the conference - it's really easy to look at all the options when they're all there in one place, just like a big ol' menu of PD.  Well done. 
    John is attending our class.  He's also scheduled to be sworn in as a school board member tonight, so I'm pleased to have him with us.  He posted his reflections on the first night of the class over on his blog.  I thought his list of learnings was an excellent summary of the night:

My take aways from last night (including ideas reaffirmed), in no particular order...

- We have barely scratched the surface of what's possible when it comes to tapping technology to enhance learning.

- There are good and bad online protocol, "good ethical practices,"
as Bud described them.  I'm still learning which of these practices I
might be violating - and doing well.

- Geography means a lot less than it used to.  The very notion of
school "buildings" is going to be challenged far sooner than many of us
imagine.

- Students will choose their own pace and hours for learning no matter what schedules we try to impose.

- The role of teacher will be far different in just a few years.
Teachers will shift from instructors to guides helping students direct
their own learning.

- We still need face-to-face time to strengthen relationships.

- We still need quiet time, uninterrupted by technology, to reflect on what we're learning and imagine what we might learn next.

  I particularly like the last one - we all need time for reflection and imagining.  That was well said.  The trick is finding that time, as well as continuing to flex the brain so that imagination continues to be a possibility.  Now begins the hard part of courses such as these - trying to create and maintain community.  All of the right people are in that room - lots of really bright and passionate folks.  I'm excited to be learning with them.  Should be good. 

    I'm pretty excited about tomorrow.   Tomorrow, I begin this class:

The K120
Online Conference is an online offering of presentations created by
educators and centered around new applications and new technologies.
It's a way to address both teachers' needs as well as the opportunity to
connect to an online network of professionals that can be drawn upon
for future professional development activities.

There will be four
face-to-face sessions of this PST. In between each of these sessions,
participants will be expected to engage two sessions from the
conference, for a minimum of eight face-to-face hours and eight online
conference hours.

Each participant will
write a two-page reflection and keep a log of the sessions attended.
The final face-to-face session will be a facilitated discussion about
what was learned, the benefits of the conference, and the next steps
for those involved in terms of taking their learning back into their
classrooms. This discussion will be recorded and released as a podcast.

I'm excited about the class because it allows me to do two things that I think are pretty important: 
1.  Introduce smart people to new tools and opportunities.
2.  Take our time and do it right.

    I think so many of the professional opportunities that teachers are afforded are races, mere dips of a toe into the waters of potential.  There's lots to do and not enough time to do it.  Time is a precious, precious resource that is in short supply.  I also think that many of the tools that are influencing my network, and , frankly, me right now, encourage haste and speed and the like.  Twitter, on the short list of my favorite read/write web tools, can be reflective, but perhaps not richly so.  I wrote a tweet the other day that hasn't left my head.  I was thinking about how busy I've been lately - racing from one really interesting project to the next, knowing that the excitement wasn't a good replacement for the lasting learning that I knew just wasn't happening for me:

   
      Not much reflection, though - just lots of doing.  That's not sustainable.  Or worth sustaining.

I want sustainability.  I want reflection.  I think others want it, too.  we don't learn by racing.  We learn by doing and reflecting and questioning.  It's a recursive cycle, and one that doesn't happen enough for me.  I wonder if it's become too easy to communicate, in some ways.  Do I get so busy communicating that I haven't bothered to say anything?  (Does that even make sense?)
    Which leads me back to tomorrow.  (Man, I really, really buried the lede in this post, didn't I?)  Tomorrow, I begin a facilitated, slow and thorough look at the K12Online Conference, both the 2006 and 2007 editions.  Over the next four months, in two hour chunks, I hope to study and learn from the presentations of the last two years.  I want to dig in to the content that I felt whipped by so dang fast in late October when it was released.   This is what the conference invites, as  all the sessions are archived. 
    So we will.  I hope to use the class time as discussion time to talk about the different presentations, as well as an opportunity to think about how these different sessions might offer some ideas for change in our classrooms here in my district.   I'll be asking participants, on a voluntary basis, to share their favorites with the group in 15 minute "spotlight sessions."  These, I hope, will foster conversation and inquiry into new tools and classroom strategies.
    I'm interested, too, in looking for ways to connect folks from all over to my district's virtual classroom.  but before I do that, though, I want to meet the class and make sure they're comfortable with that.  Stay tuned for further developments. 
    If you've any advice, or even a "must see" presentation recommendation for these first time K12Online Conference attenders, I'd welcome it in the comments - we'll share your tips during our first session.