Tag Archives: web 2.0

21st century learning, Web20

OSLA Web 2.0 Face-off

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The last month seems to have blasted by in absolute warp speed. I feel like I have been immersed in a number of great opportunities and events: Educon, OSLA, Brock Tech Ed Day and OTF session.  At the same time my usual patterns of participation in Twitter, PLP etc. have been out of routine. I wanted to take the time to capture of few thoughts even though these events are somewhat in the past.

I really enjoyed being involved in the OSLA Web 2.0 Faceoff presentation. In a true fashion, this entire event was planned online. The group did not actually meet until the setup session the evening prior to the event!

Hosted by Anita Brooks Kirkland, and modelled after a hockey format, 2 Web 2.0 teams led by team captains: Zoe Branigan-Pipe and Doug Peterson, supported by players: Rick Budding, Diana Maliszewski, Roger Nevin, Colleen Rampelt. During the first two periods team presented effective Web. 2.0  tools with details of how they linked to our curriculum.

I enjoyed the the opportunity to work with Carol Koechlin; analyzing the Web 2.0 play. During the playoff, the teams challenged each other to find best curriculum fits for new Web 2.0 tools.

Play by play action was captured by Top Tweep: Becky Rouse. I captured the live Twitter stream into an archive.

Check out the team resources at OSLA Hockey Faceoff. Special thanks to Technical Director Diane Bédard.

~ Mark

21st century learning, Digital Citizenship, Leadership Perspective, Library Learning Commons, PLP

Kicking off the 2010-2011 School Year

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I enter the 2010-2011 school year with great anticipation and excitement.  Many of the projects that were in major planning stages last year will ‘go live’ this year.

  • Effective today, we have wifi hot spots in each secondary school. These hot spots will allow staff and students to use their own equipment for Internet access.
  • Expanded use of web 2.0 and social media tools to support curriculum delivery. Staff and students now have access to Facebook. Facebook and Twitter, along with other resources will be used to extend school community and support curriculum delivery.
  • By mid month, we will role out email for elementary students. In addition to the secondary role out last April, all students fill have a Board assigned email address to support curriculum and communication needs, and identification in other online environments.  All students will be part of our FirstClass system.
  • Launching our Future Forum project (semester 2), developed as our 2009/2010 PLP project
  • Automated processes now reduce manual work to support account management
  • Redesigned and significantly improved drupal based web sites for our secondary schools
  • Moodle hosted setup to deliver Health and Safety content (launched Sept. 2nd)

Significant projects for this year include:

  • expanded development of our Library Learning Commons (LLC) project
  • a complete rewrite of our Technology Acceptable Use procedure to align with Digital Code of Conduct, Digital Citizenship, and Character Development programs
  • iPads & netbooks in the classroom
  • continued involvement in the PLP program
  • a look at e-book strategies
  • expanding our wireless project
  • building on our Digital Citizenship program

Day one went well. We hit our startup targets and hit the road running. It is going to be a great year!

~ Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

Strategic Planning for 21st Century Learning

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A typical Sunday morning for me includes catching up on blog reading, and this one was no different. While the reading is always interesting, what intrigues me is the way in which things link together and stimulate new thinking about things. Topics today made me think back to comments I made in a presentation to our trustees as part of my technology strategy update. 

There are many things you could do with technology in education. The real question is: what are the right things? Choices and decisions have to land on some key areas including: impact on student learning, investing in the future and a key one in my mind – sustainability and supportability in terms of both human and financial resources. This last point can not be overlooked, as I believe it is the fundamental reason many initiatives/projects fail. A final area looks at focus vs fragmentation. It is not possible to do everything, do it well, support it and sustain it. Strategic planning is about doing the right things for the long haul. 

Here are a few highlights from recent reading.

Angela Maiers – Mission to Transform
David Warlick – Teaching and Technology
Doug Peterson – A Plan Needed (netbooks, cloud computing)
Howard Rheingold – Attention Literacy
Will Richardson – If Every Student Had a Computer

The content covered in these articles embraces many of the significant issues in K-12 education today: technology available to every student, netbooks, cloud computing, student learning, literacy in the 21st century and teacher training (changing instructional practices). From my perspective as a K-12 CIO, these articles are all right on the money. I will throw IT infrastructure planning into the mix.

How do we best move ahead? Based on the validity of each of these key areas, none can be ignored – each one needs to be addressed. I believe the key to success and system level strength, is to work at these areas with an eye to alignment. Achieving major successes in some of these areas while others are excluded will not yield the best overall results. I believe the answer lies in alignment – the ability to drive each of these areas forward in a planned way at the same time. We are having these discussions in our Board. I am impressed with the dialogue, thinking and collaborative approach to date. It is early in the process, but I believe we are solidly headed in the right direction. We will keep dialoguing, learning and collaborating about best to move forward. I will continue to share thinking, dialogue and questions.

In the meantime, more thinking and learning to do.

~ Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

Upcoming changes to Facebook privacy rules

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I was cruising through email notifications this afternoon and noted a new posting re upcoming changes to privacy settings in the Facebook environment. For interested readers, the article may be found at:

http://www.cio.com/article/496742/Facebook_s_Upcoming_Privacy_Changes_What_You_Need_to_Know?source=CIONLE_nlt_leader_2009-07-09

I hope this helps keep you up to date with your online safety and security knowledge – all part of Digital Citizenship development!

~ Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

Facebook vs. Face-to-Face

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Can Facebook replace face-to-face?  This interesting question was recently posed in the ISTE forum hosted at

 http://www.iste-community.org/group/landl/forum/topics/pointcounterpoint-can-facebook

ISTE will be selecting two responses from submissions to publish in the Sept/Oct. Leading & Learning with Technology journal. The response I decided to submit to ISTE is included below.

:::

Can Facebook replace face-to-face?  

Given the revolutionary change in the internet since its inception and the current capabilities of web 2.0 tools, this is certainly an interesting question to pose. As an avid technology user and life long learner this question has prompted a lot of pondering on my part.

In my view, life is fundamentally about people and relationships. Relationships provide the foundational connection between people as they foster many emotions: love, trust, comfort, sense of well being, caring and personal value. Relationships contain a core ingredient of real time interaction as one of many important components. I do not believe the essence of human interaction can exist in complete isolation. Social networking applications such as Facebook function in an asynchronous communication patterns. I do not believe fully functional relationships can exist with this interactive pattern only.

Based on this thinking, I would have to cast my vote as ‘no’. Facebook can not fully replace face-to-face interactions.

However, I do see an exciting future where people will have more and more opportunities to live in a blended world that maximizes one’s experiences that embrace face to face interactions and relationships, effectively use Facebook, other social networking tools, and other web 2.0 tools, as a way to connect with people, learn and work in a rich and collaborative manner.

As we continue to develop and refine our notions of the meaning of digital citizenship and learn how to embed these fundamental values in each of us, I believe we will have impacted human communication in a truly positive and global way.

~ Mark