WEMTA Conference Take-Aways

This week I attended and presented at the Wisconsin Educational Media & Technology Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Below are some of my take-aways from the Conference.

Educators Range of Use
I had a great conversation with Chris Longe after the banquet about professional development. She gave me permission to quote her, "Some teachers are really pushing the envelope on a lot of the Web 2.0 technologies being presented here, while others are still trying to find the mailbox". This really fit well with the Coaching Educators’ Use of Information & Technology session I presented on an EETT grant I'm evaluating. I think administrators are key in helping educators move ahead with technology. I think that administrators need a couple of tools in their toolbox to help teachers move forward with technology. (1) They need to have buy-in and a belief that technology is important for their students (2) they need to be able to recognize what effective teaching practices with the use of technology are and (3) they need a variety of coaching strategies to deal with the large continuum of teacher comfort levels with technology.

Web 2.0 Conference Strategy
This year's WEMTA conference was filled with Web 2.0 tools and the word "collaboration" was everywhere. Diane Dorsh, in charge of technology for the Neenah Joint School District, shared with me a strategy that she uses with her colleagues when going to a conference. They start a wiki and everyone who goes to the conference contributes to it. That way it can be shared with everyone in their district. What a great use of a Web 2.0 tool!

Adventures on Second Life
Another presentation I did was on Second Life. A lot of educators ask me how Second Life can be used in education. I chose to share a couple of videos to help the audience better understand the potential that virtual worlds provides.

The first video I shared was a video that gives a nice overview of the power of using Second Life as a simulated environment.



I also shared two videos of the Pacific Rim/ Project. One of the things that I challenged the audience to think about while watching these videos was what ISTE NETS Standards, AASL Standards, 21st Century Skills, and Content Skills this project would cover. When you think about this project from this perspective it is truly amazing how deep this project is!

Part 1:


Part 2:



After showing the videos one person made the comment that she was glad that I showed this because she always had sort of creepy idea of what Second Life was and this really helped to see how it could be used in education.

Next, we met Michelle Kowalsky virtually in Second Life. Michelle is Michelle is a professor at William Paterson University in New Jersey and teaches school library media specialists. She recently finished her dissertation in which she studied communication patterns among librarians in Second Life.

The audience found it humorous because I couldn't always keep up with Michelle and my avatar was a little slower and more clumsy than her. Some people came up to me after the presentation and said that it was nice to see me struggle and that they were having trouble or feeling frustrated learning how to move and interact in Second Life. I think part of that is because we as adults don't like to be unsuccessful at something, but failing is a part of learning and important part of learning and we've forgot what it feels like to learn something unfamiliar and new.

We suggested that you go to ISTE's second life island if you are a newbe educator in Second Life. Another person asked where you can find other schools on second life- http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Institutions_and_Organizations_in_SL

Responsible Use Policies

A couple of weeks ago I had a great conversation with David Jakes, the Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Glenbrook South High School in the hallway at the CoSN annual conference in Austin. Mr. Jakes was proposing the idea that schools should have responsible use policies instead of acceptable use policies.

This was in line with some of the comments made by one of the panelists at the International Symposium who talked about the need for schools to share risk meaning that schools should not be the only ones responsible for risk management of the Internet.

I read another good quote this week that falls into this category when I was preparing for my presentation on How New Media is Changing the Way We Learn for the WEMTA Conference.

"The Web is not a babysitter, it’s not a friendly place full of rocking chairs and whittling, but with the right parenting and sensible precautions children and teens can use the Web safely” (“MySpace Deemed Harmful to Children...Well, Duh”, http://websearch.about.com/b/a/217893.htm).

I think we are going to see a lot of shifts in AUPs and school's approach to Internet safety in the next five years.

What's New at The Stephens Group

Early registration for The Milwaukee Digital Media Conference is available at our conference web site at http://milwaukeedmc.com/ . If you register by May 1^st you can save $50 off the cost of the registration. This year’s conference will be held at the Milwaukee Public Zoo from July 28^th-31^st. This is a hands-on conference in which you will learn about wikis, digital mapping, digital photography, video-editing, and podcasting. We have also added a student strand for students grades 3-6. (Students in grade 7-12 are welcome to come with their teachers and participate in the adult strand).

Registration is also still open for The Stephens Group Using Digital Media in the Classroom Workshops on May 10^th. We are offering classes on Advanced Podcasting and Free Digital Media Tools. More information is available at our website at http://www.thestephensgroup.com/workshops.php .

Consultants will be presenting at the Wisconsin Educational Media Technology Association (WEMTA) April 6^th-8^th on Web 2.0 Tools for Information Technology Planning, Lessons Learned in the Digital Media Explosion, Video-conferencing, Data Driven Decision Making, & One-to-One Computing. Information on times and locations of sessions are available at http://www.thestephensgroup.com/conferences.php#WisconsinEducationalMediaampTechnologyAssociation

Feel free to pass this information on to others who might find this information of interest.