To the beat of a 'distance' drum

Online learning tools are used in many different ways. Educators often play their distance learning drums to a unique beat, playing up their strengths, improvising at times, but always listening for subtle changes in tempo and mood. When distance learning jams come together, the community can be a powerful source of inspiration - harmonious collaboration. This week, NMSU is celebrating National Distance Learning Week with a number of different distance learning events and RETAMoodle Open House. Please extend our invitation to all of the distance learning drummers you know.

Kickin' Curriki

Julz has been promoting the idea of wikified curriculum for, gee, ever? "Why must we reinvent the wheel?" Well, someone finally put the words and ideas together and so voila:

Curriki (http://www.curriki.org/)

Browse and smile. Become a member...hey, while you're at it, apply for a grant ($500-$5,000) to create master content and make the world a better place!

A great widget for teachers, learners & just about everyone...

There is always some amount of excitement that comes with finding a new cool little tool or widget. Of course, as soon as you think you've seen what's out there you come across a list like that at:

Learning Activities

And then you just find something new (to you) ...and the ideas flow... Check out Voice Thread...widgets for your blogs, MySpace, Facebook...How fun!

Go meditate @ church of the customer

Jackie Huba rocks - check her out. She has brought the message of customer evangelism to the VSS conversation. The way that social media is changing marketing must inform educators or we risk making some major mistakes. My concern? When Jackie asked who knew the term social media, there were really only a small group of hands raised. No doubt people know the tools, but it is Julz & I who (as we co-mo-blog) have relected throughout our work on how there is no social network to connect all of these people who are supporting the vision of NACOL! Where is our online evangelist community?

Keynote with Susan Patrick

The future is now - virtual schools are transforming education worldwide. It is our job now to get it done here.

NM eLearning Roundtable

Our VSS experience begins with the New Mexico eLearning Roundtable.

Dr. Carmen Gonzales introduced us to a variety of advocates to eLearning from Kentucky, New Mexico, Hawaii and other areas.

Our introduction to NACOL was provided by Bruce Friend, who shared with us an overview of the national learning trends in online learning. His background with what became Florida Virtual School began in 1996! Bruce expressed that he is pleased to see the work in New Mexico and the parterships, sharing, and collaboration that develops through events like the Virtual School Symposium. He reminded us that we are going to have to take innovative leaps toward transformational development. If you were to paraphrase his final message, you might say "If all we are going to do is replicate what already exists, we shouldn't even waste our time." Transform the system!

John Watson explained to us an overview of data from all states about the spread and growth of online programs. Right now it seems that reporting is an area where all states and districts need improvement. Overall there is so much diversity in types of programs that it complexifies the overall reporting process. Along with this was a discussion of Colorado's experiences and lessons learned through the Trujillo Commission.

Dr. Kemi Jona brought to our meeting an up to date overview of science labs and online learning. WOW. As a person with a science content teaching background I can honestly say I am amazed by the possibilities. The rapid development of remote experimentation, science data networks, and internet connected science devices. The partnerships in place at Northwestetrn in Chicago involve global parterships. He pointed out the relationships within NM that support this type of science instruction development (LANL, NASA, SNL and the universities). My own reflections on this connect to the ability for teachers to connect their students to authentic, real world science with a collaborative and global focus. Students must be able to practice the processes of science. This speaks volumes about the need for professional development in online learning which is content specific.

Jennifer Carroll from Kentucky Virtual Schools offered an overview of the statewide learning network development and where the network is now. Kentucky has extended their network from K20 into lifelong learning and established important professional networks to allow for communities of eLearning practice. She highlighted the importance of a common ground CMS as a way share resources, training, and resources. It also supports the dual-credit options and blended course development.

Wow. Great start to the conference & the conversations that must continue!

Wake up, you're in Louisville!

Killer hotel, amazing city, great food & incredible NM contingent! More live from NACOL 07 tomorrow.

Firing up my own little trail....

To learn about how I problem solve with Moodle, please view this video and trailfire! ;-) This is my first use of Trailfire.com ~ Have fun.
http://trailfire.com/hollyrae/trailview/47431

2.0 ToDo list with Todoist

I am a listmaking girl. Give me a task and it will appear on post its, digital lists, mental lists, iGoogle widgets, and in my Treo inside Palm ToDo. Yes, some day, it might actually get completed, but that's another story.

All I can say is, I have never, ever been so impressed as I am with Todoist. Found it on iGoogle homepage widgets and it integrates with my phone. In other words, I have it everywhere. It is so super smart and figures all kinds of things out for you. You must play. It's worth the 2.0 minutes it will take to set it up.

http://todoist.com/

Andele! Go!

Social Graph & Attention Economy

It's all the rage now to look at the bigger picture of social media and how all of these 'tiny' pieces fit together to inform a semantic web of human relationships. The concept seems to have gained ground in the past month, suddenly I'm seeing it in a lot of blogging on web 2.0 and hearing colleagues (a la Julz) talk about it's connection to education.

Take a start by reading this article from Read/Write web...
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_graph_concepts_and_issues.php

Of course what really cracked my thinking open was this reference to the Attention Economy -
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/attention_economy_overview.php

I think it's definitely related to the 'Fakebook' phenomenon...
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/opinion/06mathias.html?ex=1349409600&en=2da1c3f706197a55&ei=5124&partner=delicious&exprod=delicious

We want people to see our profiles...but we find it disconcerting to think that anyone knows which profiles we're actually looking at...Our attention, where we spend our time, what we read, what we look at...it's valuable marketing information and the basis of an economic force.

Another cool stream I got from this article is my newest fave feed...
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

Wow...now go play and check out these sites, they will really get you thinking!

Guns & Fun & Chuckwagon Dinner

@ Flying J Ranch-!

Just the essentials

What is in this pile of stuff? Only the essentials for tech divas at a tech conference....Laptops, projector, diet coke, h20, extension cords, gum, starbucks, handouts, prizes, Internet access, Treo 650, Blackberry Pearl, TIE schedule, lipgloss, and the RIGHT clothes (killer heels optional).

Womanning the table

We strongly suggest you enter our drawing!!

We try to attend our webinar

Julz and I are trying to attend our Social Networking in Higher Education webinar. It looks like it's just what we need to know for our Thrive project. This presentation with Catherine Serrin Niekro of U Michigan is going to be about using a vendor to create the network. It has been rescheduled to to issues with WebEx!!!

ITEA vs. ISTE Standards

Our next speaker, Dr. William Dugger, is going to present about technology standards. Wow, I'm so excited about this because I actually did a policy analysis on standards in 2006. Now things have changed but the fact that there is confusion about techology standards is not a surprise to me.

He brings to our attention the ITEA Gallup poll where Americans tell us that technology is COMPUTERS and INTERNET. Now that is correct but reflects a very narrow view of what technology is. The definition I always used with my 6th graders was 'technology is the study of machines and tools' - it's simple but it lacks the emphasis on process. To quote our speaker, "Technology solves problems but it also creates problems." It is not just our innovations of our technology but the impact and the design of the technology that is truly lacking in many of our technology in education efforts.

There are so many types of technology literacy - and they are not equivalent with technological competency. I think too often teachers are focusing on competency and missing the literacy component.

Btw, I am now going to have to attach my paper and powerpoint on that but I can't do so through mobile blog (note to self).

ITEA standards actually focus instruction on how technologies are engineered and how they affect and impact society and the environment.

So Julz and I sidebar about how this is achieved. Students don't just work within the network, they play a role in the construction and administration of the network. Students don't just use a tool, they evaluate the usability of the tool and the impact of said tool on themselves and their envirionment. Where does this 'student as programmer' role originate? In my mind, it's from Seymour Papert. But these constructionist roots came log ago, and for the large part are still missing in our classrooms. Aside from innovations such as ThinkQuest and SuperComputing Challenge (which only a few kids actually do) the student as programmer role is missing - ESPECIALLY as accessed by low-socio-economic categorized students.

If students are programmers, does that mean they all have to know programming languages? Not necessarily. I would argue that Web 2.0 is the perfect launchpad for this student as designer and programmer role.

So as Julz and I talk about our Standards project (incorporating the best of online teaching and learning standards) we must now devise the Pedagogies of Web 2.0 standards....and you can bet your bottom dollar we will focus our attention on the true technology literacies - the abilities of students to design, evaluate, and improve technologies for self-development and improvement of society. Our kids need to be prepared to evaluate the safeness of technology as they are sure to live in a time where change is certain....if they're not able to decide for themselves what is healthy and safe, who will decide for them?

NM TIE Keynote

Dr. Reed Dasnbrock - Cabinet Secretary of Higher Education discusses the changing scene of lifelong learning. He's actually in Singapore and presented via prerecorded video.

He spoke of the challenge of the need to do what we want to do with such rapid changes in technology. We are falling behind on an international scale when it comes to percetage of people with advanced degrees - NM is 47th in the US and the US is far behind other advanced countries ! Clearly the system is not working very well. He asked us to help us answer the question - what can we do?

We need to make the roadmap & test the effect - not just try for the sake of trying. How can we help NM citizens get the education they need to have jobs in the 21st century?

CoMoBlog w Julz

We cooperatively blog our post pre-con walk @ NM TIE!

Will my phone work?

Testing testing

***Attachments excluded by request.***

Action Research Conference Rocks

Now that I'm back and not dependent on travel internet access, I can finally post some images from the conference. Unfortunately my verbosity peaked long ago. What I can tell you without working too hard is that there were some awesome presentations and we were lucky to raise a bit of excitement over Moodle. I'm happy to be back and home, but now the journey is my PDD, so I'm off to work again. Next conference, I promise I'll do a better job.

Projector vs. Projector

Well our More about Moodle session went just fine. We could see the wheels turning in the heads of the attendees...as if they were thinking "hmmm now how can I get Moodle running in my school/district.."

We were trying to plant seeds. Wanted to do the live demo but tech problems struck again.

BTW, just remember when a you see the word "projector" some people think this:



and then some people think this:




One can never underestimate the power of semantics. ;-) We were lucky in that most people at this conference are using the first kind so that meant we didn't have to compete for the second kind. Just a minute and a laugh. We'll get back to you with more later.