Reflections of NECC 2007
I was fortunate to be able to attend NECC 2007 in Atlanta last week. Our Booster Club supported this trip for me and I am very appreciative, and am excited to share so much with the staff of both schools. (photos courtesy of Carolyn Foote)
I have not posted anything because I was hoping that over time my impressions, thoughts, and ideas would clear up a bit. At least enough to pose thoughtful questions about future implications for Web 2.0, Open Source Applications, and MUVEs.
But they haven’t, so I am posting what I plan to use and what I am still confused about in 2 simple lists. I will leave the higher order thinking and questioning to my 2 friends and blogging mentors, Joel, TWAIN Blog, and Carolyn, NotSoDistantFuture. I will stick to some concrete sorting out methods, which Joel’s and Carolyn’s questions have helped me begin to visualize.
Things I think we can do this year!
Blogging, wikis, podcasting, continued web presence, GoogleLit Trips, Interactive White Board Technologies, Global Learning Activities, using Picasa to compress photos for server and web use.
All of these things look like useful tools to help keep our students (and teachers) engaged, while covering the grade level content. The fact that they are exciting Web 2.0 tools is kind of the frosting on the cake…
I have had teachers tell me that they are excited to use blogging next year. Our librarian had a Bluebonnet Book wiki last year, which was very motivating and successful for our 5th graders. I think that will continue or grow next year. The knowledge that students are writing for “real” audiences (peers, parents, others around the world), tends to give them more ownership of their writing. So, stay tuned for our future blogs.
A first grade teacher and a reading support specialist stepped into the world of podcasting last year by posting stories their students read to their websites. Mrs. Roquemore and Mrs. Manzano (scroll to the very bottom of this page for her Reader’s Theaters). Their goal was to develop fluency, and the poscasts were an effective tool for this. I see more podcasts developing next year, especially since Carolyn Foote gave a hands-on create-your-own podcast workshop to teachers in June. Hopefully we can get these on shared podcast sites so they can be downloaded by others.
The Google booth in the exhibit hall was always busy and both of Jerome Burg’s GoogleLit presentations were packed. I’m glad they got the sound amplificatin issues fixed for the second session. His GoogleLit trip concept has so many possibilities for our campus. Our 4th grade Social Studies TEKS are all Texas History and Geography, and the Novels they study fit in very nicely with these. I see some of our teachers creating some GoogleLit trips for “A Paradise Called Texas”, as well as for studies of the settling of Texas. GoogleLit Trips have a lot of possibility for our 5th grade US History studies and integrated novels. Our first graders send Flat Stanleys out to the world. So GoogleEarthPro as well as EPals will work nicely with these. Our second graders study their own community of Austin, which will fit in nicely using the GoogleEarthPRO features. KUDOS to Google for providing educators with this vaulable resource.
Things I am still getting my brain around:
Second Life and the concept of MUVES, Open Source applications and uses on a practical basis for elementary school students and teachers, twitter, skype…
Memorable sessions and events and products:
FlipVideo camera that Scott Merric used in his Podcasting with Windows session. His session was great also.
Kathy Schrock’s session-the concept of webtops is fascinating, as is Second Life.
The Birds-of-a-Feather session with Steve Hargadon and more that was really too big to be BOF, but turned out to be wonderfully informative.
Women of the Web 2-very inspiring to see what a variety of women from all over the country can do with ideas, blogs, wikis and skype. Lots of great open source applications…And..it’s not just for women!
Everything about Global Learning projects. These are great ways to bring real life learning into classrooms. Can’t wait to dive into some of these next year.
Finally, the rain has stopped for long enough to get my walk in.
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July 6th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I enjoyed reading your lists. I’d like to know more about the BlueBonnett Wiki…
cathyjonelson-at-gmail.com
July 6th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Hi Cathy,
Thank you for your comment.
Every year 20 of the best childrens books/novels written that year are chosen for Texas 5th graders to read, this is called the Bluebonnet List. Every 5th grader in Texas can vote on the book they think is the best of the selection.
Here is the Texas Bluebonnet Awards site for more information: http://www.txla.org/groups/tba/
Our Librarian created a wiki for students to dialog about the books. Here is the site:
http://vvbluebonnets.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
I wonder if there is a correlation between the amount of conversation about the book Ghost Fever and the fact that it won the award this year?
Our librarian had a good experience with this wiki, and is talking about making a few imporvements on the idea for next year.
M:-)
July 7th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Margie,
Thanks
for the nice words!
Several of our librarians created blogs or wikis during the summer workshops I did, so look to see more of that.
One of the librarians created a wiki site where teachers could collaborate with her on their assignments, so there was space for teachers to post their assignments, and for them to edit them together. I look forward to seeing how that works!
I wanted to share with you that I discovered that with Google Maps(not Google Earth)–you can create a trip by setting up a directional map, and saving the kmz file.
If you email that file to yourself, and you have Google Earth on your computer, it automatically turns your Google Map into a Google Earth tour that you can save.
Since not every computer can easily run Google Earth, and it’s easier to use Google Maps, I thought this would be a much easier way to set up a Google Lit tour?
Just an idea to explore!
Thanks for sharing what you learned. It’s amazing how many different learning opportunities there were at the conference.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:40 am
Margie,
Reading this really excites me about working with you and the district in the coming year! I am like you. I felt so overwhelmed and my brain was so full after a day at NECC that it was really hard to process. Of course, then I went for a trip out of the country for a month, so the processing just didn’t get done. But as I read and think what other people were learning it does bring things back.
Thanks for writing!