Bud Hunt :: Blog

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/320216318/

The conversation I did last week with Teachers Teaching Teachers is now up as a podcast.  Plenty of great information about some interesting summer professional development.  You should listen.  After some gentle nudges in the chat room, I’ll be talking more about CyberCamp at a NECC Unplugged session at 3:30pm on Tuesday in the NECC Blogger’s Cafe.  I’ll make sure there’s a stream and will share the link when I know what it is.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/319760790/

Good morning from TIE.  This morning, I’m in live blogging a session on data driven decision making facilitated by Chris O’Neal.  Join me!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/318998571/

Good morning.  I’m live-blogging today’s keynote presentation.  The speaker is Jason Ohler.  Join us!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/318157362/

Good morning.  I’m live blogging today from the CASL Kickoff to TIE 2008.  Christopher Harris is the keynote speaker. Please join the conversation by asking questions and sharing comments.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/316536127/

I guess the biggest frustration to me regarding the “Oh no - we didn’t realize the policy and now we’re certain that ISTE’s out to get independent media and citizen journalists and quash the edupunks and destroy any chance of education reform ever in the history of forever!” hysteria over ISTE’s NECC audio/video policy is that so many of my colleagues, people whom I respect and value, are probably going to end today or start next week thinking that this conversation and its tone was/is/shall forever be a fine example of the power of blogs and new media to make change.  And that would be wrong.

The problem I have with seeing this as a victory is that the bloggers in this one come out looking like a cross between Chicken Little and Tony Soprano.  And that’s not a good thing.  In the past 24 hours, I’ve read misstatements, threats, assumptions, and lazy research.   “I’m taking my ball and going home” lines, too.  From educators.  Attempting to solve a problem. It’s disappointing.  A rational, responsible, and patient tone would have been much better than some most of what I’ve seen and read in regards to this issue.

I’ll be the first to say that I’m pleased to see the policy changed, albeit temporarily. It was an old rule that didn’t fit the current media landscape. ISTE, I hope, would be the first to say that. And I’m pleased that so many bloggers felt compelled to address the issue. But I’d like to think that some more patient and questioning language might have been used in the “investigation.”  Questions inviting dialogue, perhaps, rather than assumptions and anger.  I felt like we were headed up the mountain to the monster’s castle, pitchforks and torches in hand.

We’d never let our students get away with this type of conclusion jumping and invective.  And so, we shouldn’t be happy about the methods, but we should be pleased about the outcome.  I hope the folks who make it to the table in future conversations on this and other matters of policy and disagreement are those who approach with patience and kindness, checking their assumptions at the door.  And I hope that, if I’m ever guilty of such poor choices in language and attitude, that you’ll be quick to call me on it.

My goal here is not so much to place blame - but to suggest that perhaps we could all do better.  I know I’ve been guilty of getting excited and forgetting to do a gutcheck in the past.  Let’s all try not to do that.  There are too many rules and policies and issues and problems and situations that need changing and will require our best work.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/314559627/

I’ll be talking about CyberCamp on Teachers Teaching Teachers tonight at 7pm Mountain Time as a piece of a show about summer professional development.  I’ve invited all the CyberCampers, too, so I hope to include them in the conversation.  I hope you can join us, too.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/314310866/

Today’s podcast is a short reflection on my learning experiences today, as well as some seriously first draft thinking about information and knowledge.  As always, I hope the conversation continues.

Links

The Colorado TIE Conference

Tom Woodward

The form - share your presence tools!

Chatterous - TwitterChat

Dave Cormier - “Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum”

Sarah Heller McFarlane - “The Laptops are Coming”

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/311899728/

The more I work as a professional developer and teacher of teachers, the more I am resolved that I will do my best to never create a resource for one situation that cannot be useful in another.  There are too few of me and too many needs in my district to do otherwise.

I think, though, the careful consideration of audience and purpose that I engage in before creating a resource is a valuable one for all readers, writers, and creators.  Perhaps there’s value, in a connective writing class, in spending some time on rhetorical analysis, specifically in the vein of thinking about multi-purposed work.

This isn’t a new statement for me to make, either here or in my classroom(s), as I’ve always operated under the assumption that the best writing happens when writers consider their audience and their purpose for writing, allowing them to determine the focus they should take in a particular piece.  This idea (often called the rhetorical triangle, with each of the points defined slightly differently by the person(s) doing the defining) can and should be expanded to include all kinds of composition and writing, not just print texts.  This leads me to the teaching point that I would want to include in my connective writing work:

As much as possible, all texts should have a life outside of the classroom.

This “extra-curricular life” can take multiple forms, and won’t make sense for all types of writing and creation, but I strongly believe that we should never create something that will die after a teacher has blessed or cursed it with a grade.  I’ve always believed that, but the more I learn, the less I’m willing to suggest that such multi-purposed work should only happen at the end of a course, after all the practice work is completed.  Project-based learning, too, embodies this philosophy, as projects should have a life outside of the classroom.

What does “extracurricular life,” or multi-purposed work, look like in a professional learning experience for teachers?  One way I attempted to create a multi-purpose-able resource in CyberCamp was through the series of Works in Progress (WiP) presentations that we asked every participant to do.  As I explained at the beginning of CyberCamp:

One of the values of CyberCamp is sharing.  Talking about what we’re up to is a good way to better understand our own work, and the act of sharing it with a group is useful, too, because it allows your fellow CyberCampers to help you out, be it through good questions, suggestions, or becoming an extra set of eyes and ears in the world seeking resources to help you with your project.

Because sharing is so essential, we’ve set up time here at CyberCamp for everyone to have a 20 minute block of time in which to share their work.  Each day, we’ll ask two of you to share what you’re working on and then we’ll give ten minutes to the CyberCampers to give you some constructive feedback.  We’ll be talking more about what “constructive feedback” looks at CyberCamp, but know that you’ll be getting help - not criticism.

Again, because sharing is so essential to what we do, we’ll be adding an extra level of sharing to your process.  We’ll literally be sharing your Work in Progress conversation with the world and archiving your presentation here on the blog using a tool called Ustream.  This will allow you to share your work with, and to learn from, the world.  While that can be scary, trust us when we tell you that your work is important and worthy of being shared.

Not to toot our own horn (or whistle, to stick with the camp metaphor), but it seems to me that a twenty minute investment of class time here (thirty minutes if you leave time for some feedback) leads to an excellent archive/snapshot of a work in progress, a chance to get very specific feedback, and a permanent record of the event that is available for further scrutiny, reflection and commenting.   Not bad, as far as multi-purposing goes.  Add in the fact that these presentations also become resources for other people working on similar projects as well as models of our activity for future CyberCamp experiences, and we’ve got some handy multi-purpose resources.

Other examples of multi-purposing in CyberCamp include our project proposals as well as our blog.  Pretty much, any well-written blog (as a whole, not each entry) is a fine example of multi-purposed writing.  But perhaps that’s another post.

One of the struggles, of course, with trying to build multi-purpose resources, or to find ways to ask learners to do so, at least one that I worry/wonder about, is making sure that I’m never putting the needs of future learners or secondary audiences ahead of the learners who are the “primary” audience for a particular activity/event/experience.  Let me try to say that better - we can sometimes create problems for our class when we try to create opportunities with “outsiders,” particularly if we’re forcing a connection that maybe isn’t organically or authentically there.  Connections just for connections’ sake are bad ideas, maybe even educational malpractice.  The trick becomes figuring out where those lines and boundaries are, and when to say no to kind invitations to meet/Skype/join up with others who may or may not be in a similar place, educationally speaking.

Another struggle, I suspect, is figuring out how to contextualize those creations in a way as to make them as useful as possible.  I’m beginning to practically understand why so many higher ed folks talk about learning objects and repositories and a slew of related issues, and struggle with those things, too.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/305027755/

My wife sent me the following exchange via e-mail today, a conversation between herself and Ani, who’s three and not quite a half:

A lunchtime conversation:

Ani:  My ice cream is too cold to eat.

Me:  Well, you can wait and let it warm up, but it will melt.

Ani:  I can eat it when it’s melted.

Me:  Yes, but you might have to drink it through a straw.  Ice cream is like Frosty the Snowman — it melts.

Ani:  Chocolate melts.

Me:  Yes.  What else melts?

Ani:  I don’t know.

Me:  Does ice melt?

Ani:  Yes.

Me:  Do strawberries melt?

Ani:  No.

Me:  Do popsicles melt?

Ani:  Yes.

Me:  Do people melt?

Ani (in that of-course-not-you’re-so-silly tone):  No!  (Then matter-of-factly): They die, though.

Smart kid.  Wise, maybe.  Just saying.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/303772726/

At the risk of getting a little too meta, I’m going to be talking through my history of thinking about linking, or conective writing, today during CyberCamp as a part of our series of “Works in Progress” conversations.  I’m inviting you, if you’re interested, mostly to help me model how a backchannel and uStream conversation can be of value to a face to face group, but selfishly, too, because I’m always interested in how others are thinking about these ideas.  So, if you’re willing and able, join us at around 11:30am MST for a short uStream presentation.  All the details are on our wiki.  

Thanks in advance!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/118828610/announcin

    The following announcement comes via Darren.  If you read this blog, chances are you've something to offer the conference, and I strongly encourage you to submit a proposal.  At the very least, prepare to spend some time with the conference -- it's a great opportunity.

    One of the best things about the conference is that it's not too late to engage with last year's event.  You can visit the K12 Online Conference blog for all of last year's info and presentations as well as information on this year's event.  I'm looking forward to it.

    Of course, now I've got to figure out what to offer the event via my own proposal.  Any thoughts?

Announcing the second annual "K12 Online" conference for teachers,
administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of
Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! This year's
conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, October 15-19 and
October 22-26 of 2007, and will include a preconference keynote during
the week of October 8. This years conference theme is "Playing with
Boundaries." A call for proposals is below.

OVERVIEW:

There will be four "conference strands"-- two each week. Two
presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday -
Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the
course of the two-weeks. Each presentation will be given in any of a
variety of downloadable, web based formats and released via the
conference blog (www.k12onlineconference.org) and archived for posterity.

FOUR STRANDS:


Week 1


Strand A: Classroom 2.0


Leveraging the power of free online tools in an open, collaborative and
transparent atmosphere characterizes teaching and learning in the 21st
century. Teachers and students are contributing to the growing global
knowledge commons by publishing their work online. By sharing all
stages of their learning students are beginning to appreciate the value
of life long learning that inheres in work that is in "perpetual beta."
This strand will explore how teachers and students are playing with the
boundaries between instructors, learners and classrooms. Presentations
will also explore the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools
(Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools
in their classes.

Strand B: New Tools

Focusing on free tools, what are the "nuts and bolts" of using
specific new social media and collaborative tools for learning? This
strand includes two parts. Basic training is "how to" information on
tool use in an educational setting, especially for newcomers. Advanced
training is for teachers interested in new tools for learning, looking
for advanced technology training, seeking ideas for mashing tools
together, and interested in web 2.0 assessment tools. As educators and
students of all ages push the boundaries of learning, what are the
specific steps for using new tools most effectively? Where "Classroom
2.0" presentations will focus on instructional uses and examples of web
2.0 tool use, "New Tools" presentations should focus on "nuts and
bolts" instructions for using tools. Five "basic" and five "advanced"
presentations will be included in this strand.

Week 2


Strand A: Professional Learning Networks

Research says that professional development is most effective when
it aims to create professional learning communities — places where
teachers learn and work together. Using Web 2.0 tools educators can
network with others around the globe extending traditional boundaries
of ongoing, learner centered professional development and support.
Presentations in this strand will include tips, ideas and resources on
how to orchestrate your own professional development online; concrete
examples of how the tools that support Professional Learning
Environments (PLEs) are being used; how to create a supportive,
reflective virtual learning community around school-based goals, and
trends toward teacher directed personal learning environments.

Strand B: Obstacles to Opportunities

Boundaries formalized by education in the “industrial age”
shouldn’t hinder educators as they seek to reform and transform their
classroom practice. Playing with boundaries in the areas of copyright,
digital discipline and ethics (e.g. cyberbullying), collaborating
globally (e.g. cultural differences, synchronous communication),
resistance to change (e.g. administration, teachers, students), school
culture (e.g. high stakes testing), time (e.g. in curriculum, teacher
day), lack of access to tools/computers, filtering, parental/district
concerns for online safety, control (e.g. teacher control of student
behavior/learning), solutions for IT collaboration and more --
unearthing opportunities from the obstacles rooted in those boundaries
-- is the focus of presentations in this strand.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS:


This call encourages all, experienced and novice, to submit proposals to present at this conference via this link.
Take this opportunity to share your successes, strategies, and tips in
“playing with boundaries” in one of the four strands as described
above.

Deadline for proposal submissions is June 18, 2007. You will be contacted no later than June 30, 2007 regarding your status.

Presentations may be delivered in any web-based medium that is
downloadable (including but not limited to podcasts, screencasts, slide
shows) and is due one week prior to the date it is published.

Please note that all presentations will be licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

As you draft your proposal, you may wish to consider the presentation topics listed below which were suggested in the comments on the K-12 Online Conference Blog:

 

• » special needs education



• » Creative Commons



• » Second Life



• » podcasting



• » iPods



• » video games in education



• » specific ideas, tips, mini lessons centered on pedagogical use of web 2.0 tools



• » overcoming institutional inertia and resistance



• » aligning Web 2.0 and other projects to national standards



• » getting your message across



• » how web 2.0 can assist those with disabilities



• » ePortfolios



• » classroom 2.0 activities at the elementary level



• » creating video for TeacherTube and YouTube



• » google docs



• » teacher/peer collaboration

KEYNOTES:

The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote
by a well known educator who is distinguished and knowledgeable in the
context of their strand. Keynoters will be announced shortly.

CONVENERS:


This year's conveners are:

Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at
Daniel Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known
internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools
meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice and for
"child safe" blogging practices. He has more than 20 years experience
in both formal and informal education and 13 years experience in team
building and leadership training. Darren has been facilitating
workshops for educators in groups of 4 to 300 for the last 10 years.
Darren's professional blog is called A Difference (http://adifference.blogspot.com). He will convene Classroom 2.0.

Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach, a 20-year educator, has been a classroom
teacher, charter school principal, district administrator, and digital
learning consultant. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty member
teaching graduate and undergraduate preservice teachers at The College
of William and Mary (Virginia, USA), where she is also completing her
doctorate in educational planning, policy and leadership. In addition,
Sheryl is co-leading a statewide 21st Century Skills initiative in the
state of Alabama, funded by a major grant from the Microsoft Partners
in Learning program. Sheryl blogs at (http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/). She will convene Preconference Discussions and Personal Learning Networks.

Wesley Fryer is an educator, author, digital storyteller and
change agent. With respect to school change, he describes himself as a
"catalyst for creative educational engagement." His blog, “Moving at
the Speed of Creativity” was selected as the 2006 “Best Learning Theory
Blog” by eSchoolnews and Discovery Education. He is the Director of
Education Advocacy (PK-20) for AT&T in the state of Oklahoma. Wes
blogs at (http://www.speedofcreativity.org). Wes will convene New Tools.

Lani Ritter Hall currently contracts as an instructional
designer for online professional development for Ohio teachers and
online student courses with eTech Ohio. She is a National Board
Certified Teacher who served in many capacities during her 35 years as
a classroom and resource teacher in Ohio and Canada. Lani blogs at (http://possibilitiesabound.blogspot.com). Lani will convene Obstacles to Opportunities.

QUESTIONS?


If you have any questions about any part of this, email one of us:

• » Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com



• » Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net



• » Lani Ritter Hall: lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net



• » Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

Please duplicate this post and distribute it far and wide across the
blogosphere. Feel free to republish it on your own blog (actually, we'd
really like people to do that ;-) ) or link back to this post
(published simultaneously on all our blogs).

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/117033697/hooray_fo

    The district just north south of where I live and just south north of where I work is going to begin offering e-mail accounts to many of its students if a vote goes well at a board meeting tomorrow night.  That's not a super big deal.  What is is the reason why they're considering it:

The district’s Technology Advisory committee members recommended the accounts so that students in middle and high schools could “communicate and collaborate locally and globally, and participate in and contribute to learning communities through e-mail,” according to a report detailing the e-mail account plan.

Under the plan, students could create school-related online journals and blogs, design Web pages, work on projects in teacher-created Internet spaces and produce podcasts.

    Pretty cool, huh? 

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/117029248/blast_fro

    Turns out my first ever scholarly publication, an article on book clubs and preservice teachers that I co-wrote with my friend and teacher Cindy, is available for free online for a short time.  She taught me to write for journals; I'm teaching her to blog.  I think I came out ahead in the deal.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/115810713/the_podca

    In this podcast, I begin by trying to explain a trend I'm noticing in my own blogging practice.  Then I move into a discussion of being "in the zone" in a creative sense, emphasizing my work with the CSUWP's Advanced Institute on Technology and Teacher Inquiry, and wrap up with some thoughts, and not very articulate ones at that, on how I'd like to see more ways for blogs to represent or honor visual text.  Oddly enough, I was listening to this week's Teachers Teaching Teachers and I heard Paul Allison mentioning his desire to see blogs with more visual and audio components.  Here's to synchronicity. 

The Show Notes

• My "internal filter" post - Full of reassuring comments.



• Kevin's Meandering Mind



• CSUWP's Advanced Institute Mother Blog (check the sidebar for our active bloggers)



• Sandra's BookArts blog



• Natalie's blog

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/115734917/questions

    Ben shares a frustrating experience he's having with a collaborative partnership torn asunder by parental concerns in a different state.  Lots to think about here, amidst the perceived parental overreaction, but I'm particularly interested in the comments from students on their collaborative wiki about the issue.  They're frustrated -- but are communicating, too, the value of their learning via wiki.  One comment in particular struck me as very astute:

Seriously, I never even got a chance to talk to them, and   

do you know why? Because I was working and learning and writing! What
does that tell you! That tells you that by them not being on here they
are being deprived of something they could have learned from. I just
hope whoever the parent is that called that attorney something

knows how much they have affected.  And that they have deprived an entire class of kids of some of the learning they needed!

Another student is a bit more practical about the situation:

.  .  .  we can still use wikimail and make our own wikispace.

    Hmm.  After school wiki work?

Ben concludes his post with several excellent questions for moving forward:

The question I kept thinking about after reading this e-mail is,
“Who failed?” Was it the teacher who didn’t set up enough rules and
guidelines for the students that were written down? Was it the parent
who failed to work with the teacher and understand the nature of the
collaboration? Or, was it the students who couldn’t grasp the public
nature of the internet?

Because of one or a combination of these factors, these students are
being shut out of an avenue for self expression and learning. What can
we do so that this doesn’t happen to us?

    Head on over to his place and share your thoughts.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/115390979/such_good

    Kevin's poetry -- and frankly, his ability to consistently crank out such creatively elegant stuff -- impresses me.  Here's my favorite bit of his most recent poem:

So here I am, now, turning her into a poem

and then pushing her out the door of my mind on a raft of words

into your ear, dear reader, dear listener,

hoping only that she finds anchor in some friendly port

on the other side of the world.

Good poems make me want to try to write good poems.  And that's how it's supposed to be.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/115247396/its_funny

    Does it happen to anyone else who's been blogging for a time that no post makes it through one's own self-filter, either out of concern for relevancy or job security or just plain fear?
    Or is it just me?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/113775129/no_emails

    I'm working with a teacher that would like to take his students online for a short time.   Quick.  And there's a rule in place that he cannot expose his students' e-mails to public scrutiny, presumably because the IT folks in his area don't want students to be left open to strangers contacting them.  I'll argue that point another day. 
    Most tools require a student have an e-mail to create an account for a blog.  But not all.  And those that do also don't necessarily expose that e-mail to the world.  If you were me, what would you recommend?
    Seems like Blogger's an option, as is Elgg.  So, too, is Moodle.  For that matter, what tools actually display an e-mail right up front?  Or don't require one at all?  (I know Elgg's a candidate here, too.)  Does Wordpress MU require all users to have an e-mail address, or can the administrator set folks up without?
    Your suggestions?

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/112736151/web_prese

    I'm at the airport in Hartford waiting for my ride to Denver (NOTE: I began this post there.  Finished it @ home. - BH).  I'm sucking down podcast updates on the free wi-fi here at the airport so this seems like the right time to try to capture some of my thinking about the web presence retreat before time gets in the way of the learning that happened this weekend.

    This post is probably more useful for those of you who are affiliated with the National Writing Project in some way, as I'm going to slip into NWP-speak a bit.  Ask in the comments if something doesn't make sense.  One note as I begin.  When we (those folks who are writing project people) usually talk about those entities that are affiliate local writing project organizations, we call them local sites.  So, for example, I work for and with the Colorado State University Writing Project.  I usually call CSUWP my "local site."  When you start to talk about websites, then it gets tricky.  "Let's take a moment to think about our site's site."  Get the point of potential confusion?  So we on the planning team for this event began to distinguish between a web presence and a local site.  So throughout this post, I'm going to refer to a local site's web presence, meaning the web stuff associated with a particular local site.  The larger point here is that with any group or network, there's a shared language that can sometimes be both an aid and an obstacle to understanding.

    I want to remember that and try to use language precisely, as jargon can make things helpful -- or can completely destroy meaning for folks.  But anyway -- on with my reflection.

    Saturday was a very long day, as we began to walk the retreat participants through a process of examining their respective local sites, thinking about what they do, why they do what they do, how they work, and who they're made up of.  We intentionally spent the first half of Saturday away from our websites, asking folks to think about who and what is important in their local WP sites.  As a way to model everyone's thinking, we asked the local site teams (each local site that participated had a team of two people there at the retreat) to build a visual representation of their local site.  (Yes, there was yarn involved.  I'm beginning to wonder if I should own some stock in a yarn production company.)  The end product of all that examination was to develop an inquiry question that would help to guide the rest of the time we spent together. 
    I was really struck by the depth and the range of the questions that folks were and are asking.  Some sites wanted to know how to turn their great resources of people and programming into useful online tools and resources.  Others were interested in using their web presences to develop communities that would support the work that their members were doing as well as to help them keep in touch.       

Once we had a handle on individual sites and the work that they do, we moved off to a computer lab to explore various research interests arising from the inquiry questions that we created for ourselves.  From there, we asked each site team to think explicitly about how they would go back to their local sites and further the conversations that we were only able to begin.  I do hope that folks returned home feeling confident that their time was well used.  I got the sense that most people did.

    There are plenty more details that I'll be thinking further about and digging out of my notebooks and notes over the next few weeks.   But for now, I want to share a really great metaphor for thinking about web presence that Symmetris and Amanda from the AAMU Writing Project came up with during the visual representation section of the day.

    They thought about their work as a house with two stories.  The first story is where everyone is invited over to share and to take part.  When you have a party, you don't have it upstairs -- you invite your friends, neighbors, business acquaintances over to your house and have the party in the living room or the dining room.  Some folks get to go upstairs in the house, but not everyone. 

    The first floor of that house can represent the very public work of a WP site - sharing writing resources, working with schools and teachers and principals and everyone that wants to come over and dig in.  The second floor of the house is for the work that WP sites do that is not necessarily for everyone.  Invitation only workshops, institutes, programming, etc. 

    Thinking about the web presence of a WP site, or of any project, as the windows in that house is very helpful, I think.  The windows on the first floor are usually more open.  Perhaps the blinds are raised so that lots of light can get in and people can see in or out.  The windows on the second floor are more thoughtfully open.  Not every window is open, some are obscured by blinds, but they're still there.  We share lots of information about the first floor stuff and less about the second floor. 

    But we still have windows upstairs.  That's important, and I'm glad that Symmetris and Amanda were able to help me think about that.

    I'm not articulating that metaphor as well as I would like to, but I will be returning to it in my thinking over the next few weeks.  I hope that others will share their experiences and learning from the retreat, too.  We'll be sharing some of that work via listserv, as it was a second floor or upstairs experience, but I do hope some of it makes its way to the various web presences of those folks who were there.  I learned a great deal, and I hope to continue to.  More information and resources are available at the wiki if you're interested.

    On a side note, it was a special treat for me to get to meet some of the folks in my blogging network.   Kevin, Gail and Bonnie have all taught me a great deal, and it was a pleasure to chat face to face.  (I promise my ABC movies will be in on time, y'all.  Well.  At least close.)   Susan is becoming a blogging comrade, too.   Now if I could only get the rest of the folks that were there to start a blog, or to tell me where I might find theirs  .   .   .   .

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/112883389/oops.html

    Oops.  Yesterday, as I began to compose a post on a great day of thinking and planning and discussion, I accidentally hit send instead of "save to draft." 
    I regret the error.  Sorry 'bout that.  A full post will follow soon.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/111966402/a_small_v    

Good news from my hometown school district.  Jason writes:

I'm actually sitting at my computer at school writing this post.

My district FINALLY decided to unblock Blogger for educational purposes.  They used my TOK blog as
evidence for its usefulness and they finally agreed... so now you are
free as PSD teachers to utilize it in your classroom... and please do.
The more of us that stand up and show how we can properly use blogger
for students and teachers alike, the more likely that they will see it
as a step forward in our use of technology.

   Congratulations, Jason.  Well done.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/111942290/i_thought

    On Monday, I installed Elgg .8 over at OldeSchoolSpace.  It was a bold thing to do, as the code had just been released.  But it worked great.  I was really pleased with the way in which the new version handled files -- it's a better interface and we're about to start uploading lots of digital stories.  I tested out the file uploads, created some blog posts in our class community, and added some files.  My podcast feeds were working great and all was right with the world.
    Then, this morning, I went to the site to show my cooperating teachers how the file uploads work -- and the entire class community was gone. 
    Completely.  Absolutely.  Gone. 
    So were three of the four other communities.  I was floored, and certain that I mis-installed the software.  I'm not so sure that I did.   
    The wonderful tech support folks at BlueHost helped me through pouring through the databases, looking for data.  It wasn't there -- it looked like it was manually deleted. 
    Turns out it was.
    I went through the raw access logs, looking for anything funky.  These lines are some of what I found:

66.249.72.52 - - [24/Apr/2007:20:32:47 -0600] "GET /speech/community/delete HTTP/1.1" 200 471 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
66.249.72.52 - - [24/Apr/2007:20:34:15 -0600] "GET /leadership/community/delete HTTP/1.1" 200 471 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"
66.249.72.52 - - [24/Apr/2007:21:09:01 -0600] "GET /digistories/community/delete HTTP/1.1" 200 471 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

I am only learning to speak the language -- but it looks to me like Google found and executed the delete command for these communities.
  Why'd that happen, and how can I keep it from happening again?  My error?  A flaw in the code?  A malicious attack masquerading as a Google bot? 
    I've restored the old data and we've lost a few days of work -- nothing too serious.  We have backups of the student work.  But before I reinstall the .8 code, I'm curious about what happened and would appreciate any response you can send my way.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/110236195/a_quiet_w

    Been quiet lately.  It's one of those weeks that's about introspection. 
    I've been writing a little, though, and I thought I'd point you to the post I just put up at the CSUWP Advanced Institute Mother Blog. Take a peek. 
    If you'd like, you can join us in our Book Club which begins in about a week and will run up until the start of the AI.  The book, Working toward Equity, is available as a free download.  It's a book of and about teacher research.  Feel free to join in on the discussion.  Check out this post for details and a reading schedule.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BudTheTeacher/~3/108090843/oh_boy_ju

    Yahoo is about to launch some sort of teacher tool.  Here's a piece of the promotional text from the "get ready" page:

Get ready to create, modify, and share standards-based curriculum.

    Oh, rapture.  That just screams sexy, doesn't it?

    In all seriousness, though, I'm curious to see what they're building here.  Might be handy.  Perhaps we'll get to know soon. 
    Their first strike?  My school's not listed in their "peer network."  Might that be fixed soon?

    Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, while I think it's wonderful that big technology companies like Google and Yahoo are putting some resources into teacher professional development, I have a real concern about the "certifications" that both Google and Yahoo, as well as other corporate "partners," are offering to teachers. 

    I understand the business angles around entering into arrangements with teachers.  If we teachers are "certified" in your products, that means we're probably more likely to use them with our students.  That means we're helping to build user bases.  I am okay with that if the tools and products are good ones.  Such relationships are also good PR, as well as good things for businesses to be involved in.  I don't believe that every corporation is necessarily evil.  Many folks in business honestly want to help schools.  That's a good thing.
    But since when did we need a bauble or two from a company, along with a sticker, t-shirt, or resume line, stating that we were "certified" to use their stuff?  In light of the certification conversation over at Will's place, I wonder what others think about whether or not a few hours spent with a corporate cadre is a meaningful certification.
    Sure doesn't sound like one, at least from much of what I see.  But teachers get something out of that deal, I'm sure.  Why else would so many folks become Discovery STAR Educators, or Google Certified Teachers, or Yahoo Teachers of Merit?
    Do we want to belong to something that badly?  Do we desperately crave that praise that we're not getting elsewhere?  Or is there a deeper something there?  A greater understanding that translates into hours of free labor and word of mouth marketing for those corporations in exchange for some coupons, clothing and community?  (Disclaimer -- I actually really like the WOMMA philosophy -- I think it's a refreshing and honest approach to marketing.  I'm afraid this post doesn't sound so kind to those ideas.)
    I'm realizing that I'm beginning to sound rant-y, which is not my intention.  I'm genuinely curious here - are these meaningful, two-way partnerships, or are we lowly teachers being taken advantage of a little bit?