What I Learned at the Learn 21 Conference

First, let me say that it was going to be so perfect, so relaxing.  Shannon and I had prepared our presentation Teaching in Beta: How Video Killed the Red Pen, and we were going down to Columbus early so we would be fresh and ready to deliver at the Learn 21 Conference the next morning.  This was our agenda:

1. Leave school
2. Go directly to Starbucks (Frappucinos!  Yes!)
3. Drive ninety minutes to Columbus
4. Check into the hotel
5. Go to a nice place for dinner
6. Rehearse the presentation
7. Early bedtime

   

   You know you want it!

When the car behind us on the highway slammed into us and pushed us into a water-filled ditch, we realized that everything would not be going according to our agenda.  Luckily, nobody was hurt, and we live in the age of cell phones, so we were able to get help.  Lots of help.  Three hours, one policeman, one firetruck, one EMS attendant, and two tow trucks worth of help.  This wonderful team made sure we weren’t in danger, reassured us, investigated the situation, protected us from the cars whizzing by on the highway, and finally pulled us out of the ditch.  It took three hours.

Getting in and out of the car was fun.  It was even more fun for the tow truck guy.  Photo credit:  Shannon Conley-Kurjian

Flash forward to the next morning:  We arrived at Ohio State University’s Student Union with plenty of time to spare, and we started to boot up our devices and plug them into the wireless connection.  Between the two of us, we had brought a Dell, a Chromebook, a Macbook, two iPads, and two iPhones, and NONE of them would connect.  I started sweating as I texted Christina, our tech integration coach, to leave her session and come help us, which she promptly did.  Of course she did the same thing I had been doing for ten minutes, but it worked for her.  Grrrr.  

We plugged the working laptop into the thingy with the cord (sorry for the technical jargon), did a test run, and realized that the sound wasn’t working.  Our room started filling up as flop sweat gathered on my upper lip.  Shannon found some help, and once again a team came to our rescue.  

After all that, the presentation went really well. Click here to see our slides about Teaching in Beta.

I started this post with the intention of reviewing the sessions I saw at Learn 21, but now I realize that those sessions weren’t really the focus of what I learned at Learn 21.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m still going to write a post about Gamification, but that will be for another time.  The most important thing I learned from my two days is the importance of a team.  Shannon, Christina, and I are a team, as you can see from reading our previous posts.  Shannon and I supported each other not only through planning the presentation, but also during the car accident and its after effects.  We found a way to laugh at ourselves and our situation when we had to stop to buy duct tape to keep the back end of the car together on the way home.

Classy, right?

We assured each other (and the other driver) that we were very, very lucky.  Christina offered to pick us up off the highway and stayed in touch with us when we said we’d stick with the car.  I’m not going to mention the fact that she was eating a giant cream puff from Schmidt’s while we were standing in the rain by the side of the highway.  Oh wait. . .

I guess I did just mention it.  Photo credit: Christina Hamman.  Ahem.

When we had trouble connecting at the conference, Christina was the first one there to help, and her calm demeanor kept me from gouging out my brain.  

Danielle Tymitz from Learn 21 hooked us up with fabulous chair massages, which honestly kept me from having to go to a doctor after the accident.  All that tension melted away as the massotherapist kneaded my neck and shoulders.  

The teams of people who took care of us before, during, and after the conference (our techie sound-guys, the tow truck drivers, Medina people, Learn 21 people) turned what could have been a frightening situation into a lesson on support.  

We all need a team.  We need to work together to move forward and sometimes just to hold on to each other to keep from slipping backward. How many times have you decided you were going to give up on a project/student/lesson/administrator and someone talked you off the ledge? Living in Beta means taking risks and being uncomfortable. I feel a lot better knowing that I can take risks in my teaching when I have a team at my back.  I’d like to thank all the members of the teams who helped us to realize this at Learn 21.

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Digital Storytelling through YouTube Tools

This summer I attended the ISTE conference in Atlanta.  Besides experiencing the Bucket of Love at Sway Restaurant and singing "Love Shack" to hundreds of people, I came back with lots of ideas to try in my classroom.

Believe it or not, this happened BEFORE I sang "Love Shack" in front of hundreds of people.

The most intriguing (and entertaining) hourly session I attended was "Digital Storytelling through YouTube" by Steve Dembo (@teach42).  Steve is an excellent speaker, and he kept the crowd engaged for an hour with his rapid-fire narrative delivery and his videos of goats.  He had me at goats.  Here is one example of what kept my attention: 

I was very excited to try Steve's ideas for digital storytelling through YouTube.  There were so many great projects, but three particularly resonated with me:  Draw My Life, Swede It, and One Minute/One Take.

Anyone who is around children knows about Draw My Life, where an artist draws scenes from the voiceover narrative in fast motion on a whiteboard.  Click here for an example.  Better yet, do what I told my students to do: spend some time browsing YouTube for good and bad examples of Draw My Life.  What made the good examples interesting?  How did they keep your attention?  What were the themes that you took from them?

Swede It is a little more difficult to explain, especially as I am not a Jack Black fan, but here is how I understood it:  There is a movie called Be Kind, Rewind that stars Jack Black, whose character runs a video store.  For some reason the video tapes are damaged, and the owners need some money, so they re-do some of the movies using the cheap materials and equipment they have on hand.  A customer rents Star Wars from them, and upon returning it says that it was the most bizarre version he had ever seen.  Jack Black responds, "It's the Swedish version."  This is a long way to go for a YouTube fad, but there is a Swede It trend where people try to copy scenes from major movies in the same manner (cheaply and probably in a silly manner).

One Minute/One Take condenses major movies into--you guessed it-- one minute done in one take of the camera.  Click here to see one version of Forest Gump.

Steve presented these projects as remakes of movies, but he immediately put them into a digital storytelling perspective:  How would your students present the Fibonacci numbers as a One Minute/One Take?  They must condense something very complex into one minute.  What do they consider important in that minute?  What about the Cold War as a Swede It?  What version would the students re-enact with the materials they have on hand?  How can students convey the concept of Absurdism through a Draw My Life?

Inspired by the creativity in the project, I decided to jump right into a project of my own about. . .you guessed it: Absurdism.  My Advanced Placement Literature and Composition students had read Albert Camus' The Plague and Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle for their summer reading, and we had tied those works into Camus' treatise on absurdism, The Stranger.  I was tired of assigning papers (almost as tired as my students were of writing them), and I wanted to know what my students understood about absurdism as it applies to these three novels.  This is what I came up with after much discussion with my Blended Learning Colleagues:  Click here for a view of the whole project, including the rubric.

The Big Picture

You have read three novels that share the philosophy of absurdism.  Your task is to portray absurdism in all three novels using the lens of nonconformity, religion, or human suffering/endurance.  You will work in groups and present your project as a YouTube video.  Here are the details:

The Questions:   What is absurdism? How does the authors’ use of one thematic concept convey absurdism?

Thematic Concepts (choose one):   Nonconformity, Religion, Human Suffering/Endurance

The Vehicle:  Choose one of the three:

                           Draw My Life                  One Minute/One Take               Swede It

The Method:

Day 1:  Choose teams.  Explore examples of the YouTube tools from the embedded links on the webpage.  Discuss strategies.

Days 2-3:  Research and gather evidence of the portrayal of absurdism through one of the three thematic concepts.  Use Google Spreadsheet (Create-Spreadsheet) or insert a table in a Google doc (Insert-Table) to track your page numbers for the references in each novel.  Share the table/spreadsheet with me through Google. (20 points)

Day 4: Storyboard.  Use paper or a tool or app:  Powerpoint, Google Presentation, Prezi, Lucid diagrams (Go to Google Drive, Create, Lucid), or any that suits you.

Day 5:  Storyboard.  Embed your storyboard in the discussion board by the end of the day.  If you used paper, take pictures and embed them. If you used a Google app, share it with me. (30 points)

Once your storyboard is ready, you have one week to make your video, submit it to YouTube, and embed it in the discussion board.

The students enjoyed this project, and I heard some very insightful discussions during their collaboration time.  The timeline was perfect; what I like best about it is that I turned the students loose to make their videos on their own.  I find that when it comes to tech, it's better that I give the students a goal to reach  without telling them how to get there.  In this case, I knew the students would find the resources that worked best for them to create storyboards, load them into a discussion board on our LMS, film the videos, load them to YouTube, and embed them in the LMS.  It would be counter productive for me to require them to use any certain tool or format to achieve the end result.  I did spend some time teaching the concept of storyboards, and I think with younger students, it would be a good idea to give them some examples of storyboards or maybe create some together before letting them work in groups.  Here are some of my students' projects:

Absurdism through Religion:  Draw My Life

Absurdism through Human Endurance/Suffering:  Swede It

What I like about using these three tools is that you can do this without technology.  No access to storyboarding digital tools?  Paper or posterboard will work just fine.  You don't have the means to make a video?  Why make one at all?  Challenge your students to a live session of Swede It, One Minute/One Take, or Draw My Life.  It beats the heck out of listening to the same speech over and over, and I bet your students will get just as much out of the collaboration and presentation as they would doing the project digitally.  Plus, you don't have to grade papers!  How genius is that?

While I truly believe in the value of sustained analysis (yes, my students still have to write papers), I think that condensing information down into its true essence (which may be different for everyone) is a valuable skill to teach our students.  YouTube Digital Storytelling is one way we can use the tools they often already play with online to allow them to create meaning from complex ideas.

Plus, it generates funny bloopers.

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ISTE: Finally, the Ugly

You've had the Good, the Bad, and more Good again.  I needed a break from the commotion inside my head before I could come up with the Ugly.  This conference was definitely intense, and I have so many links and notes to look through so that I can organize everything that I learned.  Of course, at my house the best way to get one's head straight is to do the five days of freaking laundry that had spilled over the baskets and onto the floor in my absence.  Seriously, did nobody see that?  Also, my kids had not touched a bar of soap while I was gone.  While I was glad to see them, I knew I had my work cut out for me before I could even get back to my reflections on ISTE 2014.

[caption id="attachment_341" align="aligncenter" width="300"] This is EXACTLY what the laundry pile looked like in my house. I guess if you don't EVER SHOWER it is necessary to change your clothes five times a day.[/caption]

 

 

 

At first, when I wrote the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I thought I was just capitalizing on a known movie in a cute way.  This is usually how I write my race recaps on my running blog, Run away from Trouble.  After writing three posts (with more good than bad), I thought about the Ugly, and it turns out that it is much uglier than I imagined in the first place.  So, drumroll, please.  What is the Ugly?

It is the inability of ISTE to accommodate so many people at the venue.  It was the lines and the waiting and the crowds and the lack of everything.

Right now you are saying, What?  Seriously?  That's all you've got?  Just bear with me.  I'm going to take you on a bit of a journey, so fasten your seatbelts.  If heights dizzy you, close your eyes when I get on my soapbox.

I was horrified when I arrived at ISTE on the first day.  The crowds were huge, and the lack of space in all available rooms made it difficult to get into sessions (even ticketed ones) or to get within hearing and sight distance of any of the poster sessions.  I had favorited many sessions on my app in order to have many options.  I looked at the poster offerings, and I favorited those, too, so that I could remember to find them at the right time.    I learned that it didn't matter what I favorited; I would not be able to see any of those presentations.

I also would not be able to go to the bathroom, sit down, drink water, or purchase any food or beverages during a normal meal time.  Twenty thousand conference attendees meant long, long lines to get up and down stairs and escalators, get into sessions, and God help us, get into that first awful Keynote.  The few times I did try to purchase food and water, I found after standing in a long line that there was none available.  I am not exaggerating.

[caption id="attachment_342" align="aligncenter" width="300"] This is EXACTLY how we looked as we tried to pack ourselves into the bathrooms and the sessions. Just kidding. This is the Tokyo subway, of course.[/caption]

I talked to many people about this, and the reactions varied from furious (usually me) to annoyed to resigned.  The reaction of resignation is the Ugly in this conference.  Why did ISTE believe that it was acceptable to allow twenty thousand attendees when they couldn't accommodate all of those people?  I'll tell you why:  because it's just teachers.  If you are an educator, you know what I'm talking about.  There is a horrible culture of teacher bashing in our country, and even in the best of circumstances, teachers get the crumbs of what the corporate world enjoys.  In the case of the ISTE conference, we couldn't get crumbs or drops.  At some point, ISTE believed that the teachers who paid five hundred bucks to attend and  stood in line thirty minutes to buy a bottle of water only to find out that there was no water would simply shrug their shoulders and get on with their day.   Many (most) of them did, and that is Ugly.

Would your surgeon have endured a situation where there was no food or water available, even for purchase?  Would your lawyer have attended a conference where he had to stand in cattle chutes hoping to get into a session that he reserved ahead of time?  What about a judge?  Why do we allow this?

The answer is simple:  We allow it because we don't want to rock the boat. We play into the teacher-hating by thinking we don't deserve a normal or even great experience.  We don't want to anger people, hurt their feelings.  You know what hurts?  Not being able to go to the bathroom between sessions because the lines are too long.  You know what makes me angry?  The fact that a bunch of people in suits who took my five hundred dollars couldn't be bothered to have a conversation about whether their conference could accommodate me comfortably or safely.

What can we do about this?  Well, for one thing, I have decided to become more vocal.  I am mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore.  When someone assumes that I deserve nothing because I am a teacher, I will correct that assumption.  I will not shrug my shoulders and think, "Oh, well, I'm sure it wasn't his/her fault," because it decidedly IS someone's fault, and that person doesn't care about me or my needs.  When a well-known actress and would-be politician accepts money to speak in front of twenty thousand people and WINGS IT (I'm looking at YOU, Ashley Judd), I will not say, "Oh, poor thing.  She meant well," because that isn't true.  She meant NOTHING because in her views, we were nothing.  She is wrong.

We are educators, and guess what?  We are consumers, too.  We deserve more consideration for our money.   Wake up, ISTE.

[caption id="attachment_344" align="aligncenter" width="300"] After this post, you realize that I am the one with the devil horns. We're getting the band back together.[/caption]

 

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ISTE: This Just in: There is More Good!

I know I promised the Ugly in this post, but after today's Keynote Address, I just had to write a new post.  Don't worry, I've got plenty of snark in me; I'm just not ready to unleash it yet.

Christina and I were almost ready to skip the Keynote today after the debacle of opening day, but the Universe steered us toward getting to the conference center just in time to walk in and find a good seat.  I would like to take this moment to thank the Universe for that manipulation because HOLY SHMOLY!

Kevin Caroll opened the conference today, and let me tell you, he makes up for every minute I sat and stewed and endured Ashley Judd.  He was incredible.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Kevin Carroll, founder of Kevin Carroll Katalyst, pointing to what got him started[/caption]

 

Kevin Carroll is a consultant, the most dynamic, positive, and non-specific consultant you can imagine.   Nike paid him for seven years to just be himself.  During that time, he created his job, the position of "Katalyst," someone who serves as a creative agent for change.  I'm not going to copy his whole biography here, but I will give you the link to his page so you can learn about him yourself.

In yesterday's post, "Yesterday was the Good, Today is the Bad," I wrote that ISTE should have considered three requirements of its Keynote Speaker: 1) good public speaking skills, 2)knowledge of education issues, and 3) knowledge of education technology issues.  In my post I wrote that the Keynote Speaker should meet at least two of the three requirements.  Mr. Carroll is a stellar example of someone who was able to tailor his brand to fit the needs of his audience.  He talked about the importance of education--in and out of school.  He talked about embracing play as a way to learn.  He talked about embracing curiosity and the joy of life.  I could go on and on, but I won't.  I encourage you to check out his sources and come to your own conclusions.

Mr. Carroll made me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time.  Most importantly, he made me proud to be an educator and reinforced my desire to strive to be a better educator and leader.  Thank you Kevin Carroll, and thank you ISTE.

 

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ISTE: Yesterday was The Good. Today is The Bad (and Still some Good).

Quick recap:  Atlanta is beautiful.  I love pie.  Read yesterday's post here.

Let's get right to it, shall we?

THE BAD:  I'm going to try to be as kind as possible with this one, which is so unlike me, but I'm writing this after my first two cups of coffee, so just roll with it.  THE OPENING KEYNOTE.  Were you there?  'Nuff said.  Ok, not really because apparently somebody has to say something since ISTE has NO IDEA who would be appropriate as an opening speaker.  Really, we only needed to fulfill two out of three requirements:  1) Good speaker, 2)  Involved in education, and 3) Involved in education technology.  ISTE is zero for three on this one.  To be fair, I blame ISTE for the choice of speaker, but I blame the speaker herself for that trainwreck of a keynote.  We can't fault ISTE for assuming that a professional actress would be on her A-game for a speaking engagement.  Ms. Judd did not do her homework, and I think that is insulting.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="511"] She looks so poised and professional here. What happened?[/caption]

 

By the way, ISTE, you had a Keynote Speaker right there the whole time:  Why no LeVar Burton?  Judging from the Twitter-clamoring to get into his small session (not to mention my own starstruck wishes), I'm betting that not one person at this conference would have left that hall before the time was up.  We love you, Mr. Burton.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="275"] Look at that man. LOOK AT HIM and tell me he shouldn't have been the Opening Keynote Speaker![/caption]

I am snarky, but I am not a heartless bitch, so I am going to finish this post with a bit of the good.  Yesterday I attended a double session  on using Twitter to engage students.  Adam Taylor gave us some tips on teaching students to connect with professionals through Twitter.  I use Twitter quite a bit, and while I've thought about having my students "interview" writers and other professionals in the language arts field, I've never really thought about how and why I should do it.  Mr. Taylor was very engaging and knowledgeable, and he gave me a lot to consider in teaching my students to leave a presentable "digital tattoo."  Shannon Wentworth led the session on using Twitter to collaboratively write stories, and this is something that I honestly never thought of doing.  I love this idea, and I plan to use it as part of my icebreaker exercises.  I think her session really started me thinking of ways to creatively teach students to use Twitter in my class.  I also love that both sessions emphasize that we need to model professional digital citizenship to our students.  Thank you, ISTE, for giving me the opportunity to participate in these sessions.

Next Post:  The Ugly.

 

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Days 1 and 2 at ISTE: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I had a decision to make, and it was tearing me up inside:  Should I go to Blackboard World in Las Vegas, or should I attend ISTE in Atlanta?  Before you hit me over the head and scream, "LAS VEGAS, YOU MORON!" in my ear, hear me out.

I have attended Blackboard World in 2012 and 2013.  In 2013 (Las Vegas, also) I was a co-presenter and a VIP blogger, so I felt hyper-involved in the whole conference.  I loved the conference both years.  This year Blackboard decided not to go with bloggers, and I didn't prepare a presentation, so I felt like maybe I should try something different.  I had heard lots of buzz about ISTE, and I was very interested in the posted sessions, so I thought I should attend.  After all, I often complained that I didn't get a chance to really see the sights in either of the cities because Blackboard does a fabulous job of keeping attendees busy from early morning until late at night.  I started my days at 5:30 am to work out and get to the first session by 8:00, and my nights usually ended around 11:00 pm because of Blackboard social networking events, all which were included in the conference fees.  Why should I choose the conference in Vegas if I don't get to see Vegas?

Anyway, I arrived in Atlanta yesterday, and I've experienced two days of ISTE, so I have some ongoing observations, which I have sorted into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  In today's post I will focus on my good experiences in the first two days.  Let's get to it, shall we?

The Good:  First of all, Atlanta is a beautiful city.  Last night I strolled through Centennial Park where I saw the Olympic torch and a gigantic Ferris wheel.  Children laughed and splashed in the dancing fountains.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640"] Centennial Park[/caption]

 

My sessions were informative and engaging.  I learned how to use games to engage my students (Brain Pop and Minecraft), Twitter to link my students to professionals and each other, and video to tell stories.  I will write about what I learned from these sessions and others in future posts.

The best part of my first two days in Atlanta has been a surprise.  Christina (the Technology Integration Coach on this blog) and I were tired and cranky, and we wanted pie a la mode.  After walking to a diner to find out that it wasn't a diner but a bar, we came back even crankier than before. . . until we saw the counter of pie in Sway restaurant at the Hyatt Regency.  Sway is a nice place, and we weren't sure they would want to sell us pie a la mode to go, but boy, were we wrong!  The hostess offered us the Bucket of Love, which was a box that we could fill with any dessert we wanted.  It was only nine bucks and it came with enough ice cream for both of us.  Click on the link to see  our Bucket of Love .

While I have enjoyed the Bucket of Love, and I highly recommend that you get one if you ever come to Atlanta, the absolute best part of ISTE so far has been spending some time with Christina, whom I don't get to see as often as I would like.



I will leave you with a happy thought because remember, today is The Good.  Tomorrow I review The Bad.

 

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Get Kahoot!

No, I did not say to get "in Cahoots;" I said, "Get Kahoot!"

Kahoot is an online game quiz that I learned about at the Learn 21 conference this year.  Gamification is the new buzzword in Blended Learning, so there are many apps and websites that incorporate gaming into the classroom.  I try many of them when I'm not overwhelmed with life and work, and Kahoot is a new one that has great potential.

There are many apps that use a quiz format for kill-and-drill.  Quizlet is an early app that my students and I use to create online flashcards that students can study through quizzes like Space Race.  My students and I like the app because they can share their flashcards online.  One possible drawback to Quizlet might be that the quizzes are always individual.  I believe that group activity in review adds excitement and relevance.  This is where Kahoot comes in.

Kahoot allows any user who registers for a free account to create, save, and possibly share online quizzes (multiple choice format).  It is important to note that a central screen/projector is necessary to play this game.  The teacher goes to getkahoot.com to create and access his quizzes (or Kahoots).

This is the screen shot of my collection of Kahoots.

He launches the Kahoot, and the students see a PIN, which they log into their devices after going to kahoot.it.

This is what the students see when they receive the PIN for the Kahoot.  They enter this in their devices.

Students log in with the PIN and they create user names to join the game.  Note:  if a student uses an inappropriate handle, the teacher can boot her with a click of the mouse.  When all students have joined, the teacher starts the Kahoot, and the fun begins.  Students read the question and possible answer choices off the main screen.  Each answer choice is linked to a color (yellow, red, green, blue), and the student simply taps on the color of the correct answer on her device.  The interesting part about this game is that the answer choices do not appear on the students' devices; they must look at the main screen to access the questions and the choices.  This creates a group dynamic that is often missing when students use their devices for quizzes.  Students must focus on one point together rather than look down at their screens individually.  To reinforce this group dynamic, Kahoot flashes a leader board after every question.  Students get points for the correct answer and for speed.

I have used Kahoot many times this semester, and the students have loved it every time.  They discuss the questions and the answers, and I see a real motivation to get the correct answer and get on the leader board.  The best part is that I have the students create my Kahoots after we play the initial game.  They work in groups to create questions and answers for future Kahoots, which strengthens their review of the material and makes less work for me!

Give Kahoot a try--you may decide to replace some of  your Jeopardy-style review games, and your students may be more motivated to learn together.



Stephani Itibrout

Blended Learning Rhetoric and Composition

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