All posts by markwcarbone

I have 36 years experience in K-12 education. I have been fortunate to work in many different roles including teacher, department head, ICT consultant, IT Manager and CIO. Personal interests include performing in the Venturi Winds woodwind quintet, the Cambridge Symphony and the KW Community Orchestra as well as composing and arranging music. Connect, Learn, Reflect & Share - make a difference today!
21st century learning, Social Media, student voice, Web20

Call to #WRDSB teachers

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Ed Doadt, Principal at Huron Heights Secondary School and I will be presenting at the Canadian Association of School Administrators (CASA) annual conference in July. The theme for this year is ‘Technology Meets Pedagogy: Hardware Meets Headware’. Our presentation will focus on how the use of web 2.0 and social media tools positively impact student learning and engagement.

If you have a great story to share about what has occurred in your classroom, we would love to hear from you.  Please  add your story/journey to our Google Doc.

~Mark & Ed

Social Media, student voice, Web20

Student Voice: social media in the classroom

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My daughter Charlotte just completed a grade 11 online secondary school course (HNC3OE) on fashion & creative expression here in the Waterloo Region District School Board.  She was recently sharing with me,  her work completed for the summative project on the topic of creative expression. There were 4 components to the work in addition to a personal reflection on the course.

The first component of the summative was a research assignment that reports on sweat shops in the apparel industry. The report is called  The Ugly Side of Fashion . Another component was to review wardrobes used in a high profile event such as a fashion show, new collection, red carpet event or video. Charlotte chose a  Costume Review.  One of the aspects of the summative that Charlotte really enjoyed was designing new clothing.  Her Fashion Design (graphic) was prepared using a drawing tablet and multi layer capable software called Art Rage 3.

The last component of the project really captured my interest. The idea was to research and explore, in a real life manner,  how personal  perceptions of attractiveness relate to how others see you.  The research methodology included comparing the subjects opinions of themselves, Charlotte’s perceptions  based on knowing the subject and input gathered from others who did not know the subjects.

Charlotte has an active online component to her life as a fan fiction writer and co-administrator of 3 blogs.  The one blog, administered with 2 online friends from Malaysia, is  kpop fans can relate, and has over 15,000 followers. This blog was used to gather anonymous input from people for the research.  I thought this was a great use of social media and crowd sourcing some feedback to provide an authentic context to research.  This also demonstrates an example of why students should have access to social media and web 2.0 tools to support their learning. The topic, research and findings are presented in this Fashion Video (12 min.) which was planned, filmed and edited by Charlotte.

Note: All noting and final documents were prepared using Google Drive. The video was produced in iMovie and uploaded to Google Drive.

I enjoyed learning how social media added a key component to this learning opportunity.

~Mark (& proud Dad!)

General, Tech

Livescribe on the Road

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Do you spend a lot of time in your car?  You might like to leverage your livescribe pen while on the go and, literally,  on the road.

Simple simple tech tip:

pen

  • bring your livescribe notebook
  • plug your pen into your car stereo system using a standard audio cable
  • start playing a recorded session you want to listen to
  • adjust volume
  • hit the road

First up for me will be my livescribed session of Audrey Watters’ excellent session at Educon on the Politics of Ed Tech on one of my road trips this week.

Related Resources

Read Audrey’s blog at  Hack Education

~Mark

Digital Citizenship, Leadership Perspective, Social Media, student voice

WRDSB Student Voice

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Each year, I look forward to opportunities to interact with our WRDSB students and have conversation about technology, learning and Board plans etc.  My recent meeting with our student trustee group yielded some fantastic discussion, so I thought I would share a few highlights in this forum.

The trustee group submitted some questions ahead of time to create a framework for our discussion.  They were interested to know more about:

  • differentiated access to resources
  • the need for wifi login
  • software licensing
  • ITS department projects for this year and Board directions

After addressing their questions, we opened up the floor to additional questions from the student trustees.  This lead to a wonderful discussion which brought together a number of interconnected ideas.  I was very impressed that students were well aware of the need to manage their privacy online. Through our discussion we extended this to managing one’s online identity and reputation.  I encouraged the students to see how ‘Googlable’ they were. Would their online reputation precede them?  As a self reflection, do they choose to use social media, communication and collaboration tools for positive purposes? – and what might they change in their typical actions? After all, “the net does not forget”.  Digital citizenship is something that must be lived, a way of being. I also took the time to talk about the expectations defined in the WRDSB Responsible Use Procedure.

In the final portion of the meeting, I was given the opportunity to ask the student trustee group questions. I chose to ask one question: Given the changes that have been achieved over the last 4 years ( access to more resources including social media and collaboration tools, wifi in all classrooms, BYOD, improved internet bandwidth etc. ), what has been the impact to their learning?
The students were very frank and open with their responses.  I have captured a few highlights in the list below:
  • extremely positive feedback on the establishment and expansion of the Futures Forum Project
  • learning and engagement is improved through blogging and collaborating online
  • like to be able to use their phones in class – looking up information in the context of a discussion is beneficial
  • excellent class projects through the use of wikis
  • technology affords many forums for peer help
  • social media tools keep students connected and focused, engagement is up
  • web based teacher resources very helpful (blogs, wikis etc.)
  • the 4 any’s: learning anytime, anywhere, anyone and anything
  • easier to work and organize electronically, paper just does not work well
  • online connections (community) is very beneficial
  • use of Facebook groups and web (fan) pages very helpful – easy to connect, collaborate and stay up to date
  • the type of environment we have created helps prepare us (students) for post secondary learning
What Next:
  • continue to promote teachers as risk takers with technology
  • continue to build more capacity for technology use (reduce fears in using technology)
  • encourage teachers to learn from students too
Finally, I was impressed that a number of the students present were aware of the learning strategy of the “flipped classroom”. My sense is that this approach was seen as beneficial in many learning situations. It was hoped the WRDSB teachers were open to exploring the benefits of this approach.
I extend my thanks to the WRDSB student trustee group for such a great conversation about technology enabled learning. I look forward to my next session with group.
~Mark
ConnectEd Weekly, Leadership Perspective

The ConnectED Leaders Weekly: 1st 1/4 highlights

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I am celebrating 3 months of publishing the ConnectED Leaders Weekly by sharing a some highlights of each issue.

Issue             Article

Aug. 31, 12   What if you flipped your staff meetings?

Sept. 7, 12     Technology Enabled Learning: leadership, change and capacity building

Sept. 14, 12   Start the year by teaching search

Sept. 21, 12   The most powerful word in leadership

Sept. 28, 12  Strong School Leaders Key to Solving Digital Age Education Challenges

Oct. 5, 12      7 Ways to Transform Your Classroom

Oct. 12, 12    Principal evaluation systems, do they help us grow?

Oct. 19, 12   Classroom Strategies to Foster a Growth Mindset

Oct. 26, 12   How Twitter is reinventing collaboration among educators

Nov. 2, 12    Technology Resistant  and  Parent Teacher interviews Ms. J. Weir style

Nov. 9, 12    Schools are using social media to involve parents

Nov. 16, 12  Write Now

Happy Reading!

~Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

ECOO12 – BYOD Panel Discussion

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At the recent ECOO12 Conference held  Toronto ON, I had the opportunity to co-host a panel discussion with Ed Doadt, principal at Waterloo Oxford District Secondary School. The panel discussion, which was scheduled at Friday October 26th, 2012   9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.  (EDT), focused on the topic of “bring your own device” to school (K-12). The panelists covered a broad range of roles from school administrator, CIO (IT), teacher, student, and Education Officer.

Panelists (listed in seating order)

  • John Shanks, UGDSB
  • Urs Bill, Ministry of Education
  • Tim Hawes, OCDSB
  • James Bond, WRDSB
  • Liz Arbuckle, WRDSB
  • Charlotte Carbone, WRDSB
  • Lisa Unger, UGDSB

Guiding Questions for the discussion

1. Panel Intros: name, role, where is your organization re BYOD  0=leave device at home, 10 = widespread use by students and speakers

2. All – biggest pro, biggest con OK

3. All – Responsible use, digital citizenship promotion

4. IT comment – privacy, infrastructure, bandwidth, some – device management

5. All – How do you feel about open device testing? Where do you see this going?

6. Admin, Student – What skills do you look for in a new hire?

7. Time permitting, audience questions/comments

8. Wrap up

Resources

The session was well attended, the discussion interesting and the audience participation in the back channel was great!  Resources from this session are linked below.

BYOD panel discussion audio recording from the Quest Radio 1-24  broadcast.
BYOD panel discussion  participant back channel transcript   from  www.todaysmeet.com

~Mark & Ed

21st century learning, Technology in Education

ECOO12 Chromebook Treasure Hunt

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Chromebook  Treasure Hunt

Presentation Slides

~Mark & Ron

21st century learning, Social Media, student voice, Technology in Education

Resources: Apple Institute Presentation 2012

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Presentation slides

From Idea to Reality

From the Field: Educators in Action

Additional Resources

TPACK: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The WRDSB Responsible Use Procedure (RUP)

The WRDSB Library Learning Commons

~Mark

21st century learning, Social Media, Technology in Education

Resources for Pre Service Teacher session

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From Idea to Reality

Administrator Perspective

From the Field: Educators in Action

Ontario College of  Teachers

OCT Backgrounder
OCT Advisory
OCT Social Media video
My View

Session Notes

Todaysmeet chat
Panel Discussion Notes

Additional Resources

TPACK: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The WRDSB Responsible Use Procedure (RUP)

The WRDSB Library Learning Commons

Book: Stratoshpere by Michael Fullan

Book: from Fear to Facebook by Matt Levinson

Book: Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey

Book: The Connected Educator – Learning and Leading in a Digital World by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall

~Mark

21st century learning, Social Media, student voice, Technology in Education

Fan Fiction For Class?

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Here is a simple, yet powerful (Facebook) comment from my daughter, a grade 11 student.

What I know as a parent: My daughter is very passionate about this. She spends hours thinking, planning, writing and revising. When all is well, the posting moment happens with great excitement. Next there is the monitoring: who of my followers  read it? any new readers or followers? Throw in a little advertising via social media tools (twitter and tumblr in this case). Wow! a few new readers and some great feedback. Well – better get going on my next post!!!

Lots of great enthusiasm here – passion, creativity, motivation, self directed learning, standards, authentic audience, and a social element to learning.

And now, to call the question: is there a spot for fan fiction writing in the curriculum?????

~Mark