According to the article in the Columbus, Ohio newspaper titled “Government teacher conducts class from home basement“,

With the support of Watterson administrators, class was in session live from Wilson’s basement.

The Web cam allowed Wilson to see, teach, and carry on discussion with his students from his basement, Winters said. They could see him on the projector screen, and he could see them on his computer.

“My students all have Tablet PCs, and our government classes are almost paperless,” Wilson said.

“We use the computers for everything, including testing online.”

“To be honest, this program has allowed me to continue to teach,” he said, adding the classes went well with minimal disruption.

“I could not have done this without the support of our technology department and individual staff members who were willing to sit in the classroom and take attendance for me.”

For liability purposes Wilson had an adult in the classroom at all times but I can certainly relate to being concerned that your students will not progress or lose direction whenever you out. Twenty years ago when I  first started teaching we were out of the classroom for staff development quite often. It was always difficult to pick up the pieces upon my return and leave meaningful instructional activities while I am out. Several times throughout my career, I have been asked to step in and take over a class while a teacher is ill or on maternity leave. A teacher cannot risk not having students adequately prepared for performance on high stakes tests and trust part of the preparatory work  be done by a substitute teacher. We all know good subs are out there although they are hard to find and keep for an extended period of time. The idea of using webcam to minimize a loss of instruction is a novel idea, although not brand new.

Teachers/trainers have been using webcam/videoconferencing equipment to provide distance education for a number of years. The number of virtual high schools is growing by leaps and bounds and the use of this technology greatly benefits small, rural districts that have limited funding and a lack of teachers specializing in the math/science content areas. I have become a huge fan and proponent of using this medium to enrich instruction and started a wiki to serve as a repository of resources, training and discussions at http://caisefiles.wikispaces.com. I would love the opportunity to teach or facilitate a class online – certification issues and not having a master’s degree have hindered me personally in this area but the opportunities are out there.

While Wilson finishes recuperating at home, his students are benefiting from the interactive technology he is  using to deliver his government lessons online. The success of this venture comes from the support of the administration, network infrastructure to facilitate this endeavor and the dedication of the teacher and students. A deficiency in any one of those areas will severely impact the project but when each piece comes together to provide interactive and quality instruction to students there is no finer instrument to provide distance education.

Miguel Guhlin shared on his blog the response he received from Leslie Conery, Deputy Chief CEO of ISTE. Portions of Leslie’s email response in listed below in italics and bolded for emphasis with Miguel’s personal comments below Leslie’s.

• We …have had great internal conversations in the last 24 hours about how best to respond. We needed to listen to and address the valid concerns of ISTE members while also protecting the rights of the people who have agreed to present at NECC. What valuable admission is this from the ISTE Organization and what a powerful message it sends to the membership.

• Post NECC2008, we are planning to convene a discussion around the issue of broadcasting presentations and to work together collaboratively with podcasters, bloggers, presenters, and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for NECC2009 that meet the needs of the education community. We’re invited to participate in a discussion about our content. While it’s obvious that such conversations are necessary, how many organizations do you know that seek to work collaboratively to develop guidelines? This is the ISTE I’m proud to be a member of!

• For NECC 2008, ISTE’s permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops.That takes care of the education podcasters I was concerned for. Great.

• …for NECC 2008, written permission from the session or workshop presenter is required prior to capturing a video or audio recording. Any permitted recording should respect the presenter’s rights and not be disruptive. Not a problem. Does anyone have a form they would like to share?.

Feel free to visit Miguel’s blog read the entire response Leslie sent to Miguel shortly after he emailed her. Response time was quick – less than 24 hours.

What I found extremely interesting is a comment left by ISTE’s Donella Evoniuk (Email:devoniuk@iste.org) on Charlene Chausis‘ blog,

I must add that it is unfair for the blogosphere to unload on ISTE over this. We are so sososo supportive of the amazing sharing and communication AND collaboration that is possible with 2.0 tools. The response at NECC 2007 blew our minds and reinforced all of our beliefs about the power, potential, and excitement that is generated by facilitating educators-as-creators-of-content.

‘Unfair for the blogosphere’ to unload on ISTE? If this was unfair to ISTE then I don’t have the correct definition of unfair. Unfair is how this policy was announced to the blogosphere with little time to meet their conditions to record audio/video of presenter sessions. ‘Blew your minds?’ This policy announcement blew the minds of the authors of the blogsphere that a policy like what was originally suggested wouldn’t cause a negative reaction.

Many educators rely on the podcasting from the conference to attend virtually and with the previous policy that would have been severely limited if not nixed altogether.

My question is this: was the timeliness of the notice sent to presenters knowing there would be very little time to seek permission from presenters much less from ISTE personnel who was and is currently traveling to San Antonio and would be unavailable for several days? I would like to think it was merely a coincidence and a decision not properly thought through versus a deliberate decision made late so that permission from presenters and ISTE would be so difficult to obtain PRIOR to NECC people wouldn’t even bother? That’s what I would like to believe. But the fact that they changed the audio/media coverage policy indicates that 1 of my 2 suppositions stated above is correct. Which one remains to be seen since the policy will be readdressed by ISTE post NECC 2008.

So for now, the score is ISTE = 0, Podcasters/Vodcasters 1. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that the ISTE members have won the battle but not the war.

“For their first project, they created a Webquest about the 1980’s rock and roll scene. “Students were required to research about music in the 1980s and design a rock exhibit for a rock and roll museum. Students worked in groups to create various products – feature articles, press releases, teaching and student guides, and museum calendars – explaining the exhibit highlights.”

This project led to a project on the 50 greatest rockers resulting in the creation of a project wiki. The “RockWriteListen” wiki is laid out well with an introduction to the project, a webquest and student products. This was so awesome to see the extent and detailed length the wiki was utlized to facilitate this project. Initially, instruction on how to use the wiki and communicate expectations to the students took place.

“There had to be an entire mini-lesson on what was an appropriate response in the discussion section. The experience was useful. Looking though the discussions you will find that a lot of the students had great insights to add. And this insight went beyond `great page, cool graphics.”

Laying the foundation with clear expectations communicated is essential to the success of any project and as elaborate as this project became it was a necessary component that had to be woven into the instruction of the content as well. The teacher featured commented how the students had to work together to complete the components of the webquest project. Eventually, the teacher structured the 50 greatest rockers project so that each student was responsible for editing his/her own page.

Using wikis to their fullest potential is like venturing into new territory. You blaze a trail and learn from trial and error of ways to better facilitate and structure group projects such as those mentioned in the post. The teacher commented that using the wiki really expanded the learning opportunities and she also participated in the learning process.

“As for photobuckets and other widgets, the students really showed me how to do that. Once one student started it, I asked how to do it, then taught other students. We were learning from each other – myself included.”

That comment really struck with me. Students look to us to know all of the answers to their every question. Many teachers feel insecure about saying that they don’t know the answer but this is real world learning. This teacher took a risk, her students took risks and an outstanding project resulted that focused on content but provide so many rich, real learning experiences that is greatly needed for the 21st century flattened world.

“…weblin makes you and others on the Web visible as small avatars. There are others on the same page you are on right now. Weblin opens a new and exciting world on every web site.”

The name of my avatar is “Koolkat” so if you see me around the web please send me a ‘wousle’. A wousle is weblin speak for a greeting or hello on the web. You can communicate with other weblins, move your animated avatar and send/receive a variety of weblin gifts.

I found the weblin concept very intriguing. I was just saying to myself that I wish there was a way to know if someone was online regardless of whether or not I had them as a contact on Yahoo Messenger or Skype so I ventured to the website to see what the weblins were all about. If you click on the image below you can see several weblins on the on my Koolkat My Weblin page.

Earlier today I received an email update from the Web 2.0 Teachers Ning about the Weblins Meet Up scheduled for May 21, 2008. You can read more about the Meet Up after you create your Weblin avatar. Be sure and wousle me or wave if you see me around!

We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for the third annual “K12 Online Conference” for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year’s conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is “Amplifying Possibilities.” Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. Some changes in the requirements for presentations are being made this year and are detailed below. The deadline for proposal submission is June 23, 2008. Selected presentations will be announced at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, USA on July 2.

OVERVIEW: As in past years, K12 Online 2008 will feature four “conference strands,” two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday through Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two weeks. Including the pre-conference keynote, a total of 41 presentations will be published. Each twenty minute (or less) presentation will be shared online in a downloadable format and released simultaneously via the conference blog (www.k12onlineconference.org,) the conference Twitter account, and the conference audio and video podcast channels. All presentations will be archived online for posterity. A total of 82 past presentations are currently available from K12 Online 2006 and K12 Online 2007. If you are planning to submit a proposal, please review archived presentations from past years to determine what you might offer that is new and builds on previous work. A variety of live events will also be planned during and following the weeks of the conference.

Personally, I don’t see that a poster saying, “Be true to yourself” or the 55 Rules of Ron Clark to be testing aids of any kind but hey, you do what you gotta do. Trainings and simulations of TAKS assessments are drilled into us to prevent being notified of how to proceed in the event of a testing emergency.

The extent the educators go to that are mentioned in this fellow blogger’s post about protecting test booklets and materials is humorous. We laugh because we can relate to having to protect, monitor, count, check out, check in, lock up, pass out, collect, alphabetize and many other things that I didn’t name regarding the handling of the testing materials except looking at the test booklets.

If a student throws up or does the unforgivable thing of bending their answer document or even worse- spilling something on their booklet or answer document – all is lost and you are signing away your life on all kinds of forms to prove something bizarre happened and you weren’t just taking a peek at the content of the test. Don’t you know TEA just loves to receive answer documents or booklets inside of a sealed ziplock bag with vomit or other unknown bodily fluids dried to the pages of the student’s test booklet. I just hope the incident requiring the ziplock bag with the contaminated test materials was sealed before lunch…especially since it may be several weeks before TEA gets the special delivery of dried vomit on a test answer document. How fun is testing in Texas!?!

“Commenting has truly been the fuel that has fired readership for my blog and opportunity for me. It is also part of being a responsible blogger in general. If one is an expert, I guess they may just want to keep their “wisdom” on their own blog, but the true conversation participants are those who contribute to the discussion wherever the blog posting is.”

Davis continues to discuss appropriate ways to leave a comment on someone’s blog. Make it meaningful and relevant to the posting and let the blog’s author know that you get them, understand and can relate to whatever the author was sharing. A dialogue or conversation will spark up and give each author additional content to read, reflect and write.

Blogging enables you to create relationships with ‘neighbors’, blog authors that write about postings on your blog, and become part of the bigger picture – making a difference in the life of a reader or yourself via a post your wrote or an especially moving comment left on your blog that significantly impacts you.Leaving comments does not need to be a daunting task when responding to a post on the ’superedubloggers’ blog. Meaningful comments are always welcome, appreciated and necessary to spark the educational discourse that we are seeking to change and make a difference, leaving our imprint upon the world, one blog at a time.

In the eArticle written by Dean Shareski entitled, “Student and Teacher Blogs that Succeed“, the paragraph illustrates this point beautifully.

Blogging is mostly about reading

Blogging is way more about reading than it is writing. Many teachers don’t see this at first. Most classrooms provide a good balance of traditional reading and writing opportunities. Teachers recognize that in order to be a good writer you have to read good writing. Yet when it comes to blogging, most want to write immediately and sit back and wait for the world to pay attention. It won’t happen. Provide as much time for your students to read blogs as write. If you decide you want to blog or have your students blog, don’t feel badly about spending a few weeks or even months reading blogs. Look for exemplary work. Look for blogs that you relate to. Find blogs that have a different perspective on things you’re interested in Talk with your students about the blogs they enjoy. Before you write a post, be sure you are responding to something you’ve seen, read or heard.

I can definitely testify that following this suggestion will prove to you and your readers the truth of those sentiments. The more blogs I read, I am able to see how successful blogs are structured, created, and promoted. I can ask questions or clarification of points presented in blogs by the ’superbloggers’ and have been willing to leave an encouraging comment in return. As exciting as it is to see the red dots grow on my blog’s cluster map, utilizing tools of this type that are purposeful and aesthetically pleasing can be gleaned from other bloggers.

What I have discovered is that most bloggers don’t post their reflections, thoughts and viewpoints for fame or notoriety. Most bloggers share their reflections in an effort to explore and refine the craft of teaching through the reflection process. As educators sharing best practices and thoughts about classroom strategies that work or don’t work true enlightenment occurs in a way that is not possible without taking a moment to reflect upon our teaching practices. Without reading literature, periodicals or blogs, professional growth will stagnate – just as the progress or success of your blog without posting your reflections of your lessons, activities or readings of literature or periodicals.

Being an experienced teacher I was asked to step in last year and teach writing to a struggling teacher’s class. The scores on benchmark tests were an average of 44% passing. After six weeks of intensive writing instruction an hour a day, those same students scored an 85% passing rate on TAKS. That was a major accomplishment. In Texas, third and fifth graders along with the newly implement eighth graders, reading and math TAKS tests must be passed. Students are allowed to take the test three times to try to pass.

Last school year we started a math rotation and for two hours a day providing intensive instruction to the fifth grade students that missed the mark the first time around. Suddenly, participation in math activities and lessons became real important and relevant to the 20 or so students as they didn’t want to be left behind in fifth grade again while their buddies went on to middle school. As grueling as the rotations were, 12 out of 20 made it the second time around.

My experience and being a national board certitied teacher prepared me to be able to step in and provide assistance planning, assessing, and preparing lessons that were meaningful and relevant by going back to the basics starting with the place value chart. We had three weeks to work with the 20 students which was daunting when we realized the students were not successful as they didn’t have the basic skills such as knowing the place value chart and performing multi step math problems. We taught math and worked on math times tables before school, several hours of rotations each day, tutoring at lunch and after school and any opportunity that afforded a math lesson. I am quite sure the students stepped it up to pass not just to go to middle school but to get away from the team of us hounding them about math computations, problem solving, math kickball, math facts before going to the bathroom, and much more math ‘fun’!

When I first left the classroom a few years back to become a campus instructional technologist and the campus scores were released I felt totally left out. Although I worked with students and helped prepare them for TAKS, teachers were celebrating with ‘their’ classes. I went through the same anticipation of waiting for the scores and I realize that my name isn’t on the line as much as the classroom teacher’s is. This one test on one day, except for the testers taking math or reading at grade levels that require passing before moving to the next grade level (third and fifth grade) determines the rating of the student, class, teacher and campus administration. The powers that be say otherwise but we all know high stakes testing is the only indicator of the level of achievement of a teacher’s class of students.

Although the waiting time for results has shortened, I still feel a twinge and hope that student A followed the campus reading or math process and did student B focus on the details of the reading passages. I could go on and on. So while I don’t have an official class of record, I still wait with great anticipation for the release of the campus scores.

In Texas, no one is immune from the world of testing. Now ‘real teaching’ can take place that is fun, interactive and meaningful without mutiple choice answers on an answer document to complete until the school year ends. Then we start the test preparation next August and repeat this cycle again. Oh the anticipation of it all!

Dear Education Blogger,

I just wanted to make sure that you were invited to our education “Blogger Summit”. We hope you can make it and feel free to share this invitation with any other bloggers in the area that might be interested. The invitation is attached below.

Alex
ED In ‘08 Blogger Summit

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Strong American Schools is excited to announce the ED in ‘08 Blogger Summit. Conference details are as follows:

May 14th – 15th
Palomar Hotel, Washington DC
Registration is Free!

An opening reception is scheduled on the evening of Wednesday, May 14th. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served before the screening of a new documentary film on education, Two Million Minutes. A Q&A session with the filmmakers is set to follow.

Then join us for an all-day conference on May 15th. Nowhere else will you have an opportunity to meet and network with fellow education bloggers, participate in panels, attend workshops, and help tackle some tough questions on the state of education in America.

Space is limited, so be sure to RSVP today!

I would love to be able to attend but have to decline at this time. If you can attend, enjoy on my behalf! Please share your reflections, ideas, and happenings from the conference!