Innovating around mono vision - The School CIO Summit

I was lucky enough to be invited to the Tech and Learning SchoolCIO Summit in La Jolla, CA on June 22-23.  I have to give a shout out to my boy Carl Hooker for helping me get the invite (he is a pretty big deal around here in case you didn't know - http://youtu.be/HRJ6I0X0BKg).  This was one of the most enjoyable events I have attended in recent years.  The attendees were made up of CTOs, CIOs, Technology Directors, Superintendents, and even a few Curriculum Directors from across the nation.  Texas, and Illinois spawned the largest groups of attendees, and yes it did turn into somewhat of a competition.

Our first stop was at the Calit2 facility on the UC San Diego campus.  This research team is studying innovative commodity technology.  These are technologies that will eventually be brought to the masses, but are still in development/testing.  The first demo we saw was video in 4K vs. DVD quality.  The difference was amazing!  4K is basically 4 times the quality of 1080p HD.  Wrap your head around that!  4K is for kids you say?  Good news, they are working on an 8K standard too!  They showed us recording of a  vocal performance that was recorded live in 4K.  The definition was amazing.  It looked (and sounded - but that is a different standard) as if you were actually sitting there at the performance.  One of the attendees suggested that if there was a way to produce the sound as if it were coming from the location of the performers mouth that would make it just as good as being there live.  This vocal performance was being streamed from disc, and it required an 800mb+ stream to send the data.  Talk about truly needing a gigabyte connection!

If you want to get started on filming in 4K, you are in luck.  If you can afford it, you can pick up one of these cameras from Red.  These are the cameras that were used to film the Hobbit, and Prometheus.

Next we got to see live demos of their 3D virtual cave, which uses a combination of angled screens/projectors all connected together with a software package that allows you to explore in a world in 3D.  Now, I have to add here:  For those of us in the world that can only see in 'mono' vision, this isn't all that exciting.  You need to be able to see in stereo (using both eyes).  However, as it was bluntly pointed out, only about 10% of the population can't see in stereo (as you can tell, I'm not bitter at all).  The education aspect of this was thinking about how your students could explore a location that they can't physically get to.  Such as the great pyramids, or an archaeological dig site. You could also use an augmented reality browser (like Argon for example) to markup the physical world.  One attendee wanted to know how using hologram technology would fit into this realm.  He cited hologram Tupac as an example.  He was met with very confused looks.  And the rest of us Texans just had to sigh...

The other aspect of this demo was a room with LCD panels all connected in series.   We were shown a gigapixel image of a mountain.  What was amazing was the ability to zoom in on specific areas of the image (even a child playing soccer) without losing resolution or clarity.  They also showed us a picture from a microscope of actual brain fibers.  The discussion around this topic was pretty amazing.  Having a screen this size, with this resolution allows for the collaboration of video/image analysis.  Imagine being able to stand with a group of peers in front of an image on a wall, instead of huddling together around a laptop screen.  Then take it a step further, add in the ability to interface directly on the screen with tactile input in order to manipulate and adjust the video/image.  This would be an amazing collaboration experience for students.  While the Calit2 team didn't have the tactile input features available, they were working on it.  They actually had the cameras setup to begin testing a feature similar to the Xbox Kinect.

I also decided that I wanted to order a set of these contact lens!  WiFi enabled with a 16 megapixel camera!  That is what I'm talking about it!

The following day we came back together to listen to our keynote speaker Jaime Casap from Google.  We spent the day discussing four key areas in break out groups, and addressed concepts that Jaime had us think about.  Some of the key questions that came out of those discussion were:

1. Can we create a 1:1 for the user experience rather than for the device?
2. Why is collaboration cheating?
3. How do we better use technology to create individualized learning?

However, the biggest 'aha' came after the break out groups presented and we were discussing the presentations.  We started talking about 21st Century Learning, and the four Cs (Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity).  Someone mentioned that it was time to stop talking about the 21st Century aspect (something that has been driving me nuts for the last few years).  And finally a solution to this problem was suggested!  Henry Thiele from Illinois proposed that we just drop the 21st Century part and call it Learning!  Bravo Henry!  I love it!  He wrote a great blog post about his suggestion here.

This event was amazing, and very thought provoking!  I want to say thanks to Tech and Learning for inviting me.  I have also created a Twitter list of all of the amazing leaders that I met at this event.

Related Links:

http://www.schoolcio.com/article/schoolcio-technology-summit-2012/52640

http://hookedoninnovation.com/2012/06/27/leadership-in-4k-its-beyond-smell-o-vision/

What Content Are You Filtering? #TCEA2012

Here are the resources for my presentation today at TCEA2012.
I am presenting on Content Filtering and what the requirements of CIPA are.  Hopefully we will have a great discussion about what we are required to filter, and why we might think about the positive aspects of opening up certain types of content.  We will also discuss the need for teaching our students responsible use.  The shared notes is an editable google document that you can use to take live notes (and even ask questions) during the presentation.

Prezi

Shared Notes (Google Doc)

Poll

Let me know what you think!

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in your district? #edtech

Has anyone successfully created special interest groups (SIGs) for the teachers in their district? This is a project I want to try this year, but I am wondering if anyone else has tried it already. And if so, how did it turn out?

I would like to create different SIGs for specific technology topics. Like say an iPad SIG, or a collaboration SIG. The SIG could meet monthly, or every couple of months. Not so often that people get burned out, but enough that people can get regular information on the topics.

I want to run the meetings in an 'un-conference' style. Where we can run short concurrent breakout sessions which are driven by the requests of the crowd. I think we could start out with our technology specialists running the breakout sessions, but my hope would be to eventually have the teachers (and possibly students and community members) take over the presenting.

Is anyone already doing something like this? How would you feel about participating in district PD run this way?

Merit Pay: What should it be based on? #education

Merit pay is a constant thought that is always bouncing around in my head. Sometimes I think it could be the key to education reform, and sometimes I think it could very well destroy the education system. With all the news coming out of Atlanta with their cheating scandal, it seems to look like the bad guy right now. However, I have always believed that merit pay, when tied to test scores would ultimately lead to cheating. Why then are we still talking about tieing pay directly to test scores? Because the question remains: What else do we tie it to? I have thought about this for years, and I have never come up with a good answer.

However, today I had an idea. I haven't decided if it is a good idea, but it is an idea none the less. I am wondering if it would be possible to tie merit pay to student projects. We want our students to create. We want them to learn 21st Century skills and become responsible digital citizens. We also know that by participating in exciting projects our students will be more engaged. And we know that anytime there is a story involved (which a project can become) it is easier for our brains to recall information. All this leads to the fact that quality projects are good for students.

So what if we create a way to measure the quality (not quantity - we don't want to just give out rewards for volume) of student projects that are produced throughout the year. Is that even possible? Does anyone do that now? Educators could create a portfolio of the work that their students produce, and submit that for review at the end of each year. We could build a review process that encourages improvement through the creation of student projects, and rewards those that are succeeding in that area.

In theory this style of learning should lead to improvement in student performance. But would it? What are your thoughts?

Proactive Network Monitoring - Ensuring Education Comes First

I got to give a presentation yesterday at TCEA2011 in the Systems Administrator Academy. The session was titled: Proactive Network Monitoring - Ensuring that Education Comes First.

Here is the link to my Prezi: http://bit.ly/gPNxGP

The first part of the session was discussing the following tools:

FireGen - A syslog analysis tool (review your routers system logs in a more visual format)

PRTG - A network monitoring tool that will allow you to create ping sensors as well as bandwidth monitors (via SNMP) to proactively monitor the status of your circuits.

Then we moved into a discussion on Content Filtering and how your filter works.

The final section of the discussion (and the most important in my eyes) was based on how you are using all of this information to make more educated discussions about how you are filtering and allowing for more flexible use of the internet. This is an aspect that we must continue to fight for! Our students and teachers need to have access to web 2.0 tools and social media at school in order to learn how to use these tools responsibly.

I also took a few minutes and showed a clip from Alec Couros' TEDx Talk which you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxSyqa6Hpq8

The clip I showed was from the 14 minute mark to about the 17 minute mark. I was hoping to show some of those in attendance the types of things teachers can create when these types of tools are open.

The last thought in my presentation was:

Let's make sure that WE are not the limit to our student's learning!

Apple Purist or....

Recently we had quite a discussion (argument is probably a better term) about Windows vs. Mac (and the hardware underneath) on our tecsig listserv. It started out a simple question of what to load on an Apple in terms of an office productivity suite (among a few other things). As I read the initial question I saw a few similarities in some of our district's recent experiences. Our district had gone through some similar discussions last year when we decided to move from a nearly complete Windows 'shop' to recommending MacBooks and iPads as the student devices in our new high school. I decided to reply to the question and to lay out some of the rationale behind the decisions that we made, and how we ended up feeling comfortable with this move. Initially, I only had the writer of the question listed in my response, but ultimately I decided to include the listserv thinking that others might be interested as well. I ended up opening quite a can of worms, which I wasn't really expecting.

My intention was to just lay out our experiences, and conversations, which helped lead us to our decisions. I was not recommending that anyone follow in our foot steps, or that our way is the only way. I was simply just hoping to share what we went through. Some how the fact that I recommended Apple devices turned into me being an Apple Purist. Huh? Seriously?

Ultimately, this 'conversation' reinforced my belief that we must continue to build more open systems. We must continue to become more platform agnostic. We must do this for our students. If we don't, we risk allowing them to venture out into the world with a closed mind towards new and different systems. Aren't we failing them by not allowing them to find the system that makes them the most efficient? Aren't we failing them if we only provide them with one option? Isn't it our purpose to teach them? To empower them to become life long learners? Aren't we supposed to be creating individualized instruction? How does only offering access to one type of system help facilitate that? By offering access to multiple systems we allow the learning to determine the technology. The learning is the focus! The technology should be transparent.

The focus should always be what is best for all of our students, and what will best prepare them to be successful in our global economy. That is what I hope to stay focused on. I have no intention of becoming an 'Apple Purist' or creating a 'shop' of any one specific brand. I hope to further embrace a more open system that facilitates creativity, exploration, and spontaneous learning.

Digital Learning Farm - Alan November #ISTE10

I had the opportunity to attend one of Alan November's sessions at ISTE2010. The session was entitled: Digital Learning Farm (Students as contributors). This was my first opportunity to hear Alan November, and I thought he was a great presenter with a great message. My main take aways from his presentation were:

1. Because the majority of students will ask their friends for help before they ask their teachers, their success is somewhat dependent on who their friends are.
2. Giving grades over time puts creativity in decline, as students will begin to do only what is required to get an A.
3. Assign students jobs in your classroom. Always have at least one official researcher for the day. He/She is in charge of finding the worlds best resources for the content that is being covered. This way at least one student is learning great research skills every day!
4. The teacher's knowledge shouldn't be the limit for a student's learning.

This was a great presentation that has left me with much to think about. He also talked about doing purposeful work, and tied this into Daniel Pink's new book Drive. Since the presentation I have also found two great videos that you can watch to get some more information.

Alan November - Myths and Opportunities

Daniel Pink - Drive Animated

And finally, here are my notes from the presentation:

Reflection on Closing Keynote for #iste10

The closing keynote for ISTE2010 was Jeff Piontek. Jeff is the head of the Hawaii Technology Academy. I thought his keynote was far and away the best of the three ISTE keynotes. He knew his audience, and he knew his presentation even better.

I thought his most powerful idea was that of re-tooling the age old idea of S.T.E.M. (Science Technology Engineering and Math) in education. His recommendation is to change it to S.T.E.A.M. = Science Technology Engineering Arts and Math. Anyone who is familiar with Daniel Pink's 'A Whole New Mind' understands the need to reinforce the arts in our students' education. However, Jeff has come up with a handy way to remind ourselves of it by simply adding one letter to a term all educators are familiar with.

How creative are the students in your district/school/classroom? Are you building an environment that allows creativity to develop? Many of our schools stifle creativity in the elementary years. As our students get older, we begin to focus more and more on high stakes testing and teaching to those tests. Yet, in doing so we neglect some of the most important aspects of our students needs: creativity, critical thinking, and analytical skills. The closing keynote for the TCEA2010 conference this year was by Erik Wahl. His entire keynote was focused on the lack of creativity in schools today. Erik is an amazing artist, yet in elementary school he was told he was wasting his time drawing and so he put down his crayon. He didn't pick up another crayon until he was in his twenties. One comment from one teacher cost him upwards of twenty years worth of art. How many students have this happen every day?

We must encourage creativity! Not stifle it. We must embrace the arts and make sure we are teaching S.T.E.A.M. not just S.T.E.M. Make sure you keep a box of crayons handy. :)

A balloon

At the TECSIG 2010 Spring meeting I had the pleasure of listening to Kevin Honeycutt speak. He made many thought provoking comments, but this one stood out:

"If you push on a balloon, when you let go it goes back to the way it was."

This idea and the conversation surrounding it made me start thinking. He was talking about systemic change. The idea being that if only one person is pushing on the balloon (fighting the status quo), you are in big trouble when they leave. How do we get the system to push on the balloon? If not the system there must at least be a core group of people who are responsible for being change agents. Otherwise there will never be any real change.

I thought this was a great piece of imagery, and a wonderful topic for discussion. I hope to use it in future presentations myself!