#tecsig

[holtthink]

From the TCEA 2014 TECSIG Luncheon in Austin Texas. "Leadership in the Digital Age." Approx. 45 minutes.

[holtthink]

Five Videos from the October TECSIG meeting in Austin

Sheryl Nussbaum Beach Keynote: http://youtu.be/q576qV1dutg TEA Update: Project Share http://tinyurl.com/nxsvelf TEA Update: Erate, iTunes U, http://tinyurl.com/ktg6cls TEA Update: TSDS http://youtu.be/62_fSQjKWcA TCEA Update including listserv announcement http://youtu.be/M6rtRHhoSIY

[holtthink]

Dean Shareski and Steve Dembo address the TECSIG 2013 TCEA Luncheon with an amazing talk on Social Capital: What it is, how to improve it, and how schools can use it. Even though this talk is about an hour long, it is WELL worth the time. Every building principal everywhere should watch this.

Tim Holt is the author of 180 Questions, an international worst seller on Professional Learning Communities. Check it out in the iTunes Bookstore for iPads.

[holtthink]

David Jakes presents to the Fall 2012 TECSIG meeting in Austin Texas.

"Learning at the Speed of Technology"

[holtthink]

Karen Kahan from the Texas Education Agency presents to TECSIG, April 2012 in Austin Texas.

[holtthink]

A PLN Test: Is the Room Really Smarter?

This is only a test.

I love it when someone gets my brain juices flowing, which is what Dean Shareski certainly did last Thursday at the Spring TecSig meeting. His talk on what happens when you are not the smartest person in the room really got me thinking about the value of PLN, and whether or not the hype by the gurus is reality-based, fantasy-based, or  based somewhere in between. My thinking is that PLNs work best, as advertised, when they meet some critical tipping point of either the number of connections, number of tweets, number of blog entries/papers published, etc.  Certainly a person with 100 connections in their PLN would have a hard time replicating some of the things Dean described, although I know it is not impossible.  I don't know what the critical tipping point is, as there are examples of a kid getting a million Youtube hits having never asked anything before, and there are people that give up on social networking because no one responds and they never see the value. 

I was not the only one that thought about Dean's talk! Miguel Guhlin Blogged here  and responded to my blog on Dean here. Both Dean and Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis responded back to my post. 

Most people with really good PLNs will probably say something like they aren't really in it to make connections, that they are putting their thoughts out there for anyone to take, and they are using their blogs or podcasts or whatever as some kind of cloud storage. Miguel says that he has 6 reasons for doing what he does:

Allow me to share the PLN Process--or, Six Steps to Self-Reliance--the way I've observed it from my own experience:

Problem Awareness - In my learning, I've encountered a problem that I desperately need to solve. This could be just about anything, whether technical, procedural, or informational. Having learned from my pantry searching experiences that you don't find what you're looking for until you admit to everyone in the house you can't find it, then it magically appears (this is why public embarrassment is a blessing for politicians, right before they recant or make amends, and run for office and win in a landslide victory), I decide to take the next step.

Ask for Action - Encapsulate the help request into 140 characters, and post it on a social network (e.g. Twitter, G+, Plurk, Facebook) and hope for the flash of insight that will point one in the right direction.

Experience Benign Neglect - Wait, wait, wait...perhaps neglect isn't the right word...it's more about being ignored by those who aren't interested in what you've asked. Hence the, "When the gods ignore you" title of this blog post. The gods? Oh yeah, that's you, who know all about this...you know, the "node" on the network that serves as an online storage device waiting to offer me help at a moment's notice from anywhere, anytime provided you're awake and "tapped into the stream."

Re-dedication to Problem Resolution - Begin again to search, but this time, with renewed vigor and determination after having re-focused my query. After all, getting complex questions down into 140 characters focuses your search to laser beam intentness.

Share Your Discovery so you can never forget it. You share the results of your research with a global audience, which, by the way, has been successful or an utter failure. By blogging it, or tweeting it, you put it out there so that someone will find it useful and remember, "Hey, this person solved that problem I had just begun to notice but hadn't decided to do anything about."

Achieve a Self-Reliance - This is the step where you realize while it's nice to have a PLN, you're the one who has to slog through your mind's muck to achieve enlightenment. A million people retweet your discoveries, and you wonder, why the heck, if these people had questions about what you were also trying to find out, they didn't speak up sooner, if only to help eliminate some of the dead-ends you had to knock your forehead against in the great maze of life. The problem is, you realize they were probably in the same situation you were--you didn't know what you had until after you slogged through it.

I agree with Miguel, for the most part, but wonder if he would still be doing what he does if he wasn't at over 1.5 million hits on his space over the course of the years. (Personally, I think he would be, he is that kind of guy. But I wonder how many of the other gurus would still be in the PLN game if the PLN wasn't buying their books, or hitting the ads on their sites, or booking them to speak? (Of course, most people are not selling books, but the heavy hitters usually are selling some kind of service, whatever it is, and the more people connected to them, the better the chance of getting a sale.)  My site gets nowhere near the hits of the Warlicks and Richardsons of the world do. Yet I still do it, not even thinking too much about impact. I have written far more entries that have gotten no response than I have that have gotten response. Would they still be doing it if no one was paying attention? 

Which brings me back around to the PLN Test: While I was on a panel discussion about social media, I did something that I do when I am trying to demonstrate how far your reach is in a short period of time: I asked my network on Plurk to say "Hi" and tell the group where they are from. As usual, my PLN responded and gave me answers from 5 feet away from me to Finland. 

After the panel, someone came up to me and said that I got so many answers because saying "Hi" takes no real effort. If I had asked a really difficult question, the responses would have been much less. 

That left me with the question of how often my PLN answers when I need help. So I asked them and got anywhere from 25% to 90%. I was amazed that no one had less than 25%, because I have noticed that when I ask something pretty specific, I usually will get no replies...

Anyway, so I thought that this week, I will try a little experiment with my PLN:

I will make different kinds of posts, and see how my PLN responds. 

I will post the results at the end of the week.

Usually, my posts fall into 3 categories on my PLN when I am asking questions or soliciting feedback:

There will be several kinds of posts:

Ones that require no knowledge of a subject and are simply social. "Good Morning, how are you?" and that sort of thing. 

Ones that require some thought, but are sort of general knowledge. "Does anyone have a good link for Online math manipulatives and that sort of thing.

Ones that require a very specific knowledge base: What is the setting on an iPad that does this or that?

I will also count replies to my blog. 

Let's see that how the PLN responds. It might be interesting to see how other's PLNs respond as well. 

We SAY that having a PLN is a valuable thing. Let's prove it.

[mguhlin]

The Smartest Person - @shareski #tecsig

One of Dean Shareski's session titles that always left me wondering, "How did he come up with that title? That's ingenious!" includes the one he shared with the assembled audience of technology directors at the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) Technology Education Coordinators Special Interest Group (TEC-SIG) Spring Meeting (view the agenda) earlier today! The title? "When You're Not the Smartest Person in the Room." Below, please find my imperfect notes (I was trouble-shooting a problem back at work while listening to Dean, but I was happy to find that as work allowed me to be present, Dean would share an engaging tale or quote!): Contact Info: Web: shareski.ca Email: [email protected] Twitter: @shareski When  you are thinking PD, it's not done at 3:30pm when you leave the building. Hashtag #tecsig "If you're comfortable with education today, you're not paying attention." (Source: Will Richardson) In 90 seconds, write down 3 things that you're not completely comfortable with (doesn't have to be negative): * iPads in education * The idea that technology isn't everyone's responsibility * Learning isn't 24/7 Others: Privatization of schools through vouchers Teacher as a customer service provider isn't respected and supported. Technology is a disruption, that says to us we can't continue doing the same things we've done before, just better. How can we change things and do things in a fundamentally different way, in a disruptive way? When I hear the word reform, it doesn't mean the same thing as what educators mean. A few examples of disruption around the world: Business:"When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you've got a problem." (Gordy Thompson) That idea is...how do we rethink this. He really likes what we do, but what he's doing doesn't work with what we're trying to do. How do we do our business? That's the question that's being asked in Board rooms. Government:Sharing what happened in Egypt, Khaled Said, posting of internet videos...primary interaction is online. "If there's no social network, there never would have been a part. Without facebook, twitter, google, youtube, this wouldn't have happened." Technology has the paper to democratize knowledge and power. These are the kinds of conversations that high school civics classes are having. Personal:Publishing isn't a thing anymore...you click "Publish" and you're done. Dean shares his journey, his gateway to finding a whole bunch of people in his journey.Dean is sharing how Casey Hales--in New Braunfels--was commenting on his work in Moosejaw in Canada. How does this happen? [Wow, it's been 10 years since I started blogging at least. Unbelievable.] smart people = magic happens = you Dean asks, "Can I find your best work online?" I challenge you...why isn't it? I find it frustrating, and that's my expectation. Who do you know? Answers to the people on Dean's Chart: Condeleezza Rice, Roger Staubach, Julian Assange, Krypton, Adam Strange , Rosa Hadwen (Dean's mother in law) (hehe...) Mind Your Own Business Learning ...where kids sit in rows. ...where you hear, "eyes on  your own paper, no talking" Is the kind of learning you want? Is watching screens really what we should be doing? It's a precious moment to have all these people in a building. 1 to 1 computing is great but not if it's kids sitting by themselves. Maybe 3 kids to 1 computing device is better because of the conversation. Unwrap what people mean. . .it all goes back to the idea of social learning. Chris Avenir, student in Ryerson Univ. in Canada. Started a study group for chemistry group. They kicked him out of school. It was a prime example of disruption. It's just a study group. Some of the reasons why he was told he couldn't have one: 1) Learning should be hard 2) There is no structure of regulation for online behavior and that makes it incompatible with academic work. 3) It is our job to protect academic integrity from any threat. "Bringing smart people together is an ancient and effective technique for developing ideas. The Net also lets smart people connect and communicate. But the Net brings people together in new and occasionally weird configurations--a weirdness." There's not that much controversy with Wikipedia.... "The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work." The interesting part of Wikipedia are the discussion tabs. Find out how did they get there, negotiate the information. At the very top of the page, you'll see warnings about the content. Does your newspaper do that? "The smartest person in the room, is the room." -Dave Weinberger _The big shift isn't that content is digital. It's that learning culture is participatory. _(Source: Angela Maiers). The best way to learn is to teach it...now we have many opportunities to do so online.  The Ukelele Project  Strangers - We have to get over the notion that strangers are bad. "If your students are shring their work with the world, they want it to be good. If they're just sharing it with you, they want it to be good enough." Rushton Hurley What do we mean by learning? What are we talking about? "The need to know the capital of Florida died when my phone learned the answer." Student Dean teaches "Smart Folks I Know"...I'm connecting my students to these people all the time. You need to be able to have these connections. your talent is important, but your connections are so much more important. Community as Content (Dave Cormier) "The community is not the path to understanding or accessing the curriculum, rather the community is the curriculum." (MG: This reminds me of Wes Fryer's point that people are the curriculum). Obvious to you. Amazing to others. from Derek Sivers on Vimeo. "Obvious to you. Amazing to others." Derek Sivers...watch the video above. Are you holding back something that is too obvious to share? Great stuff, experience! Thanks, Dean! --- Get Blog Updates via Email! Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner Subscribe to _Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org_ --- Visit the Texas for Technology Enhanced Education --- Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure http://dlvr.it/1SR6bV

[digitaleducatorpaul]

Lisa Johnson Appy Hours and TEC-SIG Conference

Lisa Johnson and her Appy Hours mentioned at the TEC-SIG Conference ...her blog techchef4u: http://ping.fm/uZb9Y tecsig