Summer break is here for most of the schools in the Northern Hemisphere. Carefree summer months of vacation time jealously come to mind of most non-educators when they think of the teaching profession.

Summer Break for Teachers

If you are a teacher, you KNOW though that summer break is not all fun in the sun, but it means Professional Development opportunities galore. Many conferences, workshops and seminars are being offered during the time, teachers are not contracted during the summer.

Professional Development

Going to and participating in these professional development opportunities is changing rapidly. Not only are many teachers attending virtually, but the way physical attendees are experiencing, sharing, digesting and documenting their learning is changing too.

21st Century Skills, 21st Century Fluencies and learning are not only happening in theory as the topic for professional development, but are being lived and applied in teacher learning and education at these conferences.

21st Century Skills, such as

• collaborating
• communicating
• connecting
• creating

are important to get the most out of your conference experience.

21st Century Fluencies, as described on the 21st Century Fluency Project‘s site are in demand.

The 21st Century Fluencies are not about technical prowess, they are critical thinking skills, and they are essential to living in this multimedia world. We call them fluencies for a reason. To be literate means to have knowledge or competence. To be fluent is something a little more, it is to demonstrate mastery and to do so unconsciously and smoothly.

These fluencies include:

• Digital Citizen Fluency
• Media Fluency
• Information Fluency
• Creativity Fluency
• Solution Fluency
• Collaboration Fluency

Attending a conference in 2o10 is putting the above mentioned skills to use and demonstrate that we, as educators, posses the fluencies of our century to create a different learning experience for ourselves and students altogether!

Before you physically arrive at the conference center, your experience already begins.

The conference organizers will have established a website with information about the conference, presenters and workshops. It is a good idea to familiarize yourself and explore the virtual setup:

• Explore links to presenters’ blogs, websites, twitter usernames and resources
• Take notice of scheduled video streamed events
• Bookmark and participate in presentation forums set up for pre- and post- conference discussion
• Take a look if the presenter has created a wiki with presentation materials
• Find out the official Hashtag used for the conference

Going to the conference

In the past , conference attendees used to bring a notepad, a pen and possibly a highlighter to presentations. Paper handouts were popular to take notes on and record the presenters contact information.

Image licensed under CC by dblstripe

The conference attendee in 2010, will most likely have one or even several electronic devices to write, record and connect with. Laptops, iPads or Smartphones make connecting with resources, a backchannel, virtual conference attendees, links, notes possible, easy and instant.

In 2010, conference attendees are taking online notes, recording the event via audio or video and sharing them digitally with colleagues, readers and listeners from around the world.

The old fashioned “notes” are now being recorded in form of a blog (journal type entries), on Twitter (microblogging in 140 characters or less), via digital images, audio or video. Instead of uni-dimensional, isolated notes, never to be looked at again, conference attendees are creating summaries, multi-media connected documentation of presentations and events, that collectively represent a variety of learning opportunities that do not end when the conference is over, nor is limited to the physical conference attendees.

Blogging:

When in a presentation, attendees can take notes directly into their blog to document what the presenter is sharing. They are able to link to resources and embed videos mentioned in the presentation. With a Smartphone, they can easily take images live at the presentation and insert into their blog post. Once the presentation is over, the post can be immediately published to invite others to leave their comments.

Blog posts can be:

• simple documentation by note taking
• extensions to the actual presentation by adding additional resources, such as links, embedded videso, audio and images
• your own reflections and reaction to the material, ideas and concepts presented

You can easily create your own blog for free by signing up with a blogging service, such as:

• WordPress
• Edublogs
• Blogger

Tweeting:

Twitter is micro-blogging, since you are limited to writing text to 140 characters or less. It is instant though. While a blog post might wait to be read, until your readers choose to visit your blog site or it appears in their RSS reader, a tweet is seen by your followers the second you post it (Similar to a text message). As you tweet and use the conference Hashtag, your tweets are added to all the other tweets using the same Hashtag, contributing like this your thoughts, ideas or summaries to a collective documentation of the event. Your tweets can fulfill the following functions:

• chronological documentation of what you are seeing and hearing
• precise summaries of concepts and ideas presented
• being the ears, eyes and voice for virtual attendees
• become part of a team that is covering the event and connect with other physical attendees face to face

Sue Waters wrote an exceptional blog post on how to get started with Twitter. Learn about:

Tips for signing up for your Twitter account

Before you start following other people make sure you

Tips for who to follow

Tips for engaging in the conversation

Getting more out of Twitter by Using a Twitter Client

Connecting using Hashtags

Don’t forget how we can use Twitter with our students

Flickr

Take images with your digital camera, then upload them to your Flickr account. If you are taking images with your SmartPhone, you can directly upload them to your Flickr account by e-mailing them to a specific e-mail address that Flickr provides ( Go under Your Account > E-mails & Notification).  Tag your photos with the conference hashtag. Don’t forget to embed images into your blog posts or tweets.

Audio- Podcast

Using an mp3 recorder, your SmartPhone or laptop’s built in microphone, you can record the entire or snippets of a presentation (with the presenter’s permission of course). Later on, these audio files can be edited in GarageBand (mac) or Audacity (PC) to then be uploaded and shared on your blog or conference website.

Ex. On the iPhone there are several apps available to record audio: Audio Memos and Audio Boo

Video Podcast

Flip Cameras or the built in video camera from your SmartPhone are great ways to record snippets from a presentation or interviews with presenters or other attendees about a specific topic. You can also use your laptop’s built in webcam to record diary type reflections about your presentation take-aways.

After the Conference

Once the conference or workshop has ended, the learning is not over yet. Presenters will have or are uploading digital handouts and presentation slides (Ex. Slideshare) Virtual and physical attendees take some time to digest what they have seen and heard before sharing their own reflective blog posts. Other educators around the world continue to add to the conversation that began at the physical conference by linking to presentation posts, tweets, audio or video from the conference.

Your Contribution and Your Learning in 2010?

If you are attending or have attended a conference or workshop this summer, what has been or will be your contribution? What will you add to the global conversation? How will you connect your learning to the learning of others? How will you demonstrate competencies in 21st Century Skills and Fluencies?

• My TEDxNYED Talk – Creating School 2.0 – Practical Theory
  Chris Lehmann
  (tags: school_2.0)
• Illuminations: Shape Sorter
  What other relationships can be described using Venn diagrams? Use this tool to explore many different geometric properties and shapes.
  (tags: geometry math interactive smartboard)
• Top Ten Reasons You Should Attend a Barcamp
  Description of new kinds of conferences for teachers.
  (tags: conferences)

Cross posted on TechLearning Advisor Blog
I believe in sharing. Really I do… I would like to propose a Challenge to Share…for two reasons…

I believe in sharing...

Sharing is defined on Wikipedia as:

Sharing is the joint use of a resource or space.

Reason 1:

Many in the blogger- and Twittersphere are realizing and understanding that their PLN will give them back what they put into it. Sharing resources, ideas, and help is part of something bigger and only contributes to our own learning and growth as educators.

Back in November 2008, I wrote Sharing in Education. Is it changing?

There is no doubt, that we are in the process of changing the culture of sharing in education. The online version of sharing among educators seems to be at the fore front. We are learning about the power as more and more people are joining the network to take but also to give.

Great examples of sharing are Tom Barrett’s collaborative “Interesting Ways” slideshows on Google Docs. They exist because of educators who share their best practices for different types of tools in their classroom. Another example are blogs like Kim Cofino’s Always Learning, Brian Crosby’s Learning is Messy, and Chrissy Hellyer’s TeachingSaggitarian. They are teachers…in the classroom…in the trenches…daily…with students…choosing to share…

Reason 2:

We need to share what we do in the classroom, not only to give other educators fresh ideas and new ways to look at teaching and learning, but also to collectively show that schools and individual classrooms ARE changing and preparing students for a different future.

Just think, what if…  Chris Lehmann and his Science Leadership Academy would have taken the “quiet” approach and do what they are doing WITHOUT sharing their ideas, process and successes. We would not have someone to look up to, we would not have a leader as an example to point to and say: “If they are doing it… it is possible.”

We need to reach out and get “traditional” media involved like the local newspaper and television station to report what is going on in our classrooms. That might be the only way to reach “the rest of them” who are not reading blogs and who are not on twitter. We have to reach out and share examples of projects, learning examples and opportunities with other local schools to allow them to realize that teaching semester long keyboarding lessons to second graders might not be equivalent to bringing in 21st century skills. Sharing what we are doing in the classroom might wake up other schools and make them realize that they no longer can sit still and rest on their laurels of having students prepared the same way for the last 50+ years.

We need to support teachers who want to upgrade their curriculum content and assessments to include 21st Century skills and literacies but are facing reluctant or unsupportive administrators or districts that block tools and their efforts in moving ahead. We need to equip the willing with background data, research, examples, experiences and ammunition that “everyone else is doing this”.

It is a responsibility to share what we are doing in the classroom!

Maybe you have your own reasons for sharing ideas and best practices (feel free to add them by commenting below), but I do hope that you are willing to take my CHALLENGE to SHARE. Take the time to:

• describe a 21st Century learning project you have undertaken with your students
• share anecdotes from the classroom
• take images or video of students in action
• do action research in the classroom to collect data
• conduct a pre- and post assessment
• interview students and or other participants in the project
• share the final product or creation

Document your best practices in a public place (blog, wiki, ning, twitter, website, photo or video sharing sites, podcast etc.), share them at local, national and international conferences, work with your school’s marketing director or your district’s public relations and media coordinator. Do whatever it takes to get the word out that WE ARE PREPARING OUR STUDENTS for the 21st century!

Leadership 2.0: Who Do We Need Our Leaders To Be? with Chris Lehmann

Conversation Description:

If educators cannot successfully integrate new technologies into what it means to be a school, then the long identification of schooling with education, developed over the past 150 years, will dissolve into a world where the students with the means and the ability will pursue their learning outside of public school.

Model and exemplify the pedagogy of the Educon conference. Let’s all learn from and with each other. That is simply good leadership. If we want our schools to be inquiry driven, what do we need our leaders to be.
We need to create a common language.

1. What does this idea mean?
2. What does this idea mean for education?
3. How could this idea affect our schools and communities?
4. How does this idea inform my personal practice?

Ideas:

• Inquiry
• Technology-Infusion
• Communities of Care

Inquiry

• evolves around students set the course for learning, give the learning more relevance in students mind
• follow the lead of students
• spirit of inquiry is natural to small children
• Teachers need to model inquiry that for students
• Open inquiry vs. guided inquiry
• inquiry as mean of differentiation
• Find your “unknown” and learn about it (very different than “what do I need to do to get that “A”)
• Inquiry gives permission to infuse curriculum with creativity.
• Inquiry is a process is getting to “an” answer, not necessarily to the “right” answer.
• Inquiry is a creative process. how can we align with state standards/Standardized tests

Technology-Infusion:

• part of what you do every day
• can’t be an add-on. The same school it has always been plus technology
• invisible but present everywhere
• learning experiences that demand technology, without the tech, the experience would not be possible
• does not have to be part of EVERY lesson
• not about the bells and whistles, it is about the skills
• technology is a tool and layer to help teach all the other layers of teaching.
• how can the social network in students life can have an academic component?
• analogy of blood infusion- can’t live without blood. Take something out that is not working for you and replacing it with something that is.
• Tech tools should be TRANSFORMATIVE

Communities of Care

• How do you define community
• Model the care as a leader
• The care of students, but also teachers need to be apparent
• Character Education has to go deeper than hanging posters around school
• Mutual transparency. Kids understand that teachers are there to help them achieve. That leads to accomplishing a goal.
• Care is at all levels. The teachers also have to feel cared for.
• Caring is also setting boundaries
• You have to carve out space and time for a community of care
• There is an increasingly social aspect to our students’ life

A leader needs to ask their community:

• What are our strengths
• Listen to a consensus
• Make meaning out of it together
• Take the ideas, synthesize them and then lead

Leadership:

• Build a vision that is powerful enough to attract the right people, broad enough to own it and flexible enough to lead it.
• Articulate values to allow a conversation to happen

Visioning:

• Developing Ideas

Modeling:

• How can leaders publicly live these ideas?

Servant Leadership:

Top Down Support for Buttom up ideas

Leading:

• How do we get everyone on board

Quotes from Chris Lehmann:

Top down support for bottom up ideas

Leadership is to be able to get people on common ground, then move ahead

As a teacher don’t say that you teach “Math” or “Science”, but that you teach students!

Care is a transaction… a give and take…

You can’t bully teachers into caring for their students

Days of top down mandates will never get us to a community of care (trust)

Every good teacher knows how to outlive a mandate

Melanie Holtsman blogged about another fun Twitter site, that allows you to make a Mosaic of your Twitter friends or followers. She is right on when she says:

I learn from my “twits” through their “tweets” and I have over 300 people all over the world that I can ask questions…..AND get answers!

So THANK YOU to the people in the mosaic of my Personal Learning Network.

Get your twitter mosaic here.