Mini-Marathon

Hola, fellow WP folks.
We had a Mini-Marathon at my house on the 16th of September, and it was wonderful. I think my favorite line of the day had something to do with a diaper commercial and how it made someone's uterus ache. Good times.
We enjoyed coffee, lots of treats--it's a writing project function--and shared lots of writing, writing ideas, book titles.
If you are interested in hosting an event, please contact Kim Penn about doing so.

Let's Build a Network

Hey, y'all. It's nice to see you again. When last we met, several of you created blogs and said that you wanted more.

Well, here we go.

Today, we're going to be talking about learning networks, and how we can use blogs, podcasts, wikis, and other learning tools to create them.
We're going to begin today here, an article in this month's Edutopia Magazine. The piece is written by Will Richardson, one of my teachers in the edublogosphere, the learning network that I call "home."

After we've read the piece, I'd like for you to take ten minutes and use the comments section of this post to write your thoughts about what you've just read, as well as any questions that this raises for you and/or anything you're hoping we can explore further today.

I won't lie to you -- it's my goal today to convince you that every person -- student, teacher, administrator, parent, or otherwise -- is a person of value who can contribute positively to a learning network. We've all got a lot to learn from each others' experiences, knowledge, questions and concerns.

And today, we're going to look at some of the nuts and bolts of that sharing.

Everyone's network starts with two essential pieces -- your input device and your output device. For us today, Blogger is for output, and Bloglines is for input. While we're a "writing project," We'll start with input today, and move on from there.

By the time you leave today, hopefully you'll have created a personal learning network, as well as populated it with some useful resources for you. Then, it's up to you to become a participant in the networked world. After you're proficient, it's time to get your students involved.

Anything else we accomplish is bonus.

A few links we'll probably end up using (although we might not):

• Blogger and Bloglines Tutorial (We looked at this when we met in June. No shame in reviewing it. If you'd prefer, here's another tutorial that deals with the same issues.)
• Technorati (Google for Blogs)
• Podshow (Adam Curry's podcasting "network)
• Bailey crisis blog article from Rocky Mountain News -- Friday, September 29th, 2006
• Bud's Wiki (permission letters, odds 'n' ends, etc.)
• Placeholder Wiki for Today
• K12Online Conference
• Karl Fisch's Fischbowl - Did You Know?
• Bud's "No Good Thing is Easy" Reference. (Basic tech and blog/podcast info -- might be a useful read for you -- but I won't force anybody to read it.)
• Visual Thesaurus
• Wikipedia
• YouTube

What Is It that Y'all'd Like to Do?

I'm giving a presentation/workshop to a great group of teacher consultants of the CSUWP on Saturday. The focus/topic is "Blogging & Podcasting 102." Do you think you/they'd like to leave with their own blog, or should we work towards an online community ala Elgg? I originally had intended to go the blog route, as I've done with that group in the past, but a conversation with a colleague this week has me thinking that perhaps a supportive online community gathering place might be a better way to go.
What do you think? How would you like to spend that time? I'm particularly interested in your suggestions/opinions/concerns/questions/etc., if you're going to be in the group on Saturday.

K12 Online Conference

I'm pleased to report that I'll be giving one of the keynote presentations for the first "K12 Online 2006" conference/convention/virtual meetup/really neat-o mashup of smart folks sharing interesting things. Please read the rest of this post to learn more and to see how you can participate.

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Announcing the first annual “K12 Online 2006″ convention 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, Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3 with the theme “Unleashing the Potential.” A call for proposals is below.

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 podcast or screencast format and released via the conference blog (URL: TBA) and archived for posterity.

THE FOUR STRANDS ARE:

Week 1

Strand A: A Week In The Classroom

These presentations will focus on the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools (Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools in their classes. They will also show how teachers plan for using these tools in the delivery of their curricular objectives.

Strand B: Basic/Advanced Training (one of each per day)

Basic training is “how to” information on tool use in an educational setting, especially for newcomers.

Advanced training is for teachers who have already started using Web 2.0 tools in their classes and are looking for: (a) advanced technology training (eg. how to write your own blog template or hack existing ones), (b) new tools they can make use of in their classes, (c) teaching ideas on how to mash tools together to create “something new,” (d) a pedagogical understanding of how technologies such as Weblogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking sites, RSS feeds and others can deepen learning and increase student achievement, or (e) use of assessment tools to measure the effectiveness of Read/Write Web technologies in their personal practice and with their students.

Week 2

Strand A: Personal Professional Development

Tips, ideas and resources on how to orchestrate your own professional development online; the tools that support Professional Learning Environments (PLEs); how to create opportunities to bring these technologies to the larger school community; how to effectively incorporate the tools into your personal or professional practice; or how to create a supportive, reflective virtual professional community around school-based goals.

Strand B: Overcoming Obstacles

Tips, ideas and resources on how to deal with issues like: lack of access to tools/computers, filtering, parental/district concerns for online safety, and other IT concerns while trying to focus on best practice in the use of Web 2.0 tools.

CONVENORS & KEYNOTES

For organization purposes, each strand is overseen by a conference convenor who will assist and coordinate presenters in their strand. The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote by a well known educator who has distinguished his/herself and is knowledgeable in the context of each topic. This year’s convenors and keynote presenters are:

A Week In The Classroom

Convenor: Darren Kuropatwa

Keynote: Bud Hunt

Bud Hunt teaches high school language arts and journalism at Olde Columbine High School in Longmont, Colorado. He is a teacher-consultant with and the Tech Liaison for the Colorado State University Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project, a group working to improve the teaching of writing in schools via regular and meaningful professional development. Bud is also the co-editor of the New Voices column of English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. A consumer of copious amounts of New Media, Bud blogs and podcasts about his practice and larger educational issues at http://www.budtheteacher.com.

Basic/Advanced Training

Convenor: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

Keynote: TBA

Personal Professional Development

Convenor: Will Richardson

Keynote: Ewan McIntosh

Ewan McIntosh is an educational technologist and teacher of French and German. Based in the Edinburgh area of Scotland he frequently works around the UK and Europe, leading student and teacher workshops and conferences. He is an experienced workshop facilitator in the area of Web 2.0 technologies in education across stages and curricular areas. Ewan blogs at http://edu.blogs.com

Overcoming Obstacles

Convener: TBA

Keynote: Anne Davis

Anne is known for seeing the educational possibilities in the use ofweblogs with students in classrooms, having implemented wonderful ideasand weblog projects with students and teachers in K-12 classrooms and atthe university level. She currently works at Georgia State University inthe Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education as anInformation Systems Training Specialist. Her weblog, EduBlog Insights

is a co-winner of the Best Teacher Blog inthe second international Edublog Awards, a web based event thatrecognizes the many diverse and imaginative ways in which weblogs arebeing used within education.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

We’d like to invite you to submit a proposal to present at the conference. If you have something you’d like to share with the community, both people who are new to blogs and/or experienced bloggers please email the appropriate conference convenor above with your ideas. The deadline to submit a proposal (just the proposal, not the finished product) is September 30, 2006. One of us will contact you to finalize the date of your presentation. Your presentation may be delivered in any web-based medium (including but not limited to…podcasts, PowerPoint files, blogs, websites, wikis, screencasts, etc.) and must be emailed to your assigned conference convenor one week before it goes live, (see above strands) so that it can be uploaded to the server.

The conference organizers are:

Darren Kuropatwa

Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at Daniel McIntyre 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).

Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach

Sheryl is a technology/education consultant for the National Education Association (NEA), the Center for Teaching Quality, SRI International, the Virginia Community College System, the Virginia Department of Education, the Miami-Dade Public Schools, and the Alabama Best Practices Center. She has had several journal articles and book chapters published, been featured on public broadcasting television and radio shows, and is a regular presenter at local, state, and national conferences speaking on topics of homelessness, teacher leadership, virtual community building, and 21st Century learning initiatives. Sheryl blogs at 21st Century Collaborative ( http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/).

Will Richardson

Will Richardson is known internationally for his work with educators and students to understand and implement instructional technologies and, more specifically, the tools of the Read/Write Web into their schools, classrooms and communities. A public school educator for 22 years, Will’s own Weblog ( Weblogg-ed.com) is a primary resource for the creation and implementation of Weblog technologies on the K-12 level and is a leading voice for school reform in the context of the fundamental changes these new technologies are bringing to all aspects of life. Will is the critically acclaimed authour of the best-selling book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms (March 2006, Corwin Press).

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

Darren Kuropatwa

Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach

Will Richardson

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). Please tag all related posts with k12online06.

Update -- Young Writers in St. Vrain

Congratulations to everyone involved in the recent "Teacher as Writer" and "Young Writer" programs conducted in St. Vrain this past week. I know lots of work went into some great programming. The Longmont Daily Times Call wrote up the events in today's paper. Here's a link to the story.

A Maine-iac's Musings

Check out my new blog!

The End... for now.

The end of the SI has come... at least until the end of Sept. when we gather ourselves together one more time, but hopefully not the last. It's been intense, to say the least, both in work and in play, in remodeling old relationships and forming new ones. It’s been beautiful, difficult, comforting, challenging, and ridiculous all at the same time. If you don’t agree, you weren’t paying attention.

Every year I'm asked by my friends why I choose to come back, why I give up 4 weeks of my summer (plus more during the school year) when I've already participated in WP. Didn't I get what I needed? Too many teachers see specific professional development as something they’ve already participated in. Once they’ve done it, they look for something else.

“I did that last year.” “I already took a class on that.” “I already know how to do that.”

But I see it differently. There is no end to my need (for myself and my students) to be a better writing teacher, to be a more thorough and thought-provoking teacher-researcher, to be a deeper and more self-aware writer. It doesn’t matter that I’ve “already tried it” or “already done that”. It’s greater than that. It’s bigger than just my views and limited knowledge.

For me, WP Summer Institute is rebirth, rejuvenation. I see it on the faces of the "graduating" fellows every year. Oftentimes, teachers need to know that they aren't alone. So much of our jobs is behind a closed door. And WP reminds me of this. I'm always looking for new challenges and experiences to keep me in teaching, a job I live for but am afraid I'll burn out on. The writing project is still that for me.

The SI that I was a Fellow participant in was a great moment in time when I realized that I could and would do more for kids in a way I never understood. But the 2 years I've returned as a staff member, I've learned more. I've seen a lot…

…humble teachers realizing how great they can be; master teachers passing on wisdom to young, energetic ones; The same master teachers humbling themselves in the midst of a extraordinary community. I've seen inexperienced teachers see that there is more to teaching writing than what their limited views afford them; all teachers gaining a greater appreciation and understanding for those grade levels they don’t teach. More than anything, I’ve seen people step outside their comfort zone in their teaching and personal lives and be truly transformed by the experience. Every year is a bit different but always incredibly powerful. I’ve always said that every person that enters my life, even for a short time, is there to teach me something.

So Thank you…

To Sherry for illustrating how much the primary grade levels can inform junior high and high school teachers in their teaching of writing.

To Beth for showing me how “collegial” one can be when speaking to adults or ordering food… and how to keep a sense of humor through diversity.

To Kat for reminding me why I still need to travel and how I can make my experiences just as powerful for my students.

To Dani for showing me the most important lessons our kids learn are the ones they get early in life. It’s my job, as a high school teacher, to support those lessons.

To Julie for reminding me how sacrificing those things that are the most important to you for greater experiences can be the most rewarding.

To Colleen C. for demonstrating to me that you can truly make a difference no matter what you are surrounded by as long as you are willing to take a risk.

To Colleen (Stan) for proving to me that peripheral friends can somehow, someway become amazing influences in your life.

To Tami for demonstrating to me that super organized people aren’t necessarily super annoying (which I used to believe)… and that connections with people can take an enormous amount of work or can be instantaneous.

To Donna for reminding me that a strong family is defined by the deep connections between people, not societal stereotypes or monetary possessions.

To Cameron for showing me that no matter how accomplished you are at something, there are always new challenges to undertake.

To Elsa for giving me a much greater perspective on the beauty and successes of the ELA community of students and teachers.

To Trudy for showing us how much we, the teachers, have to learn from the amazing adults that are a part of our students’ lives outside of the stereotypical classroom.

To Cindy for proving to me that Doctors and Professors don’t have to be arrogant and intimidating (though you do scare me occasionally).

To Nancy for showing me how humility, wisdom, understanding, empathy, and knowledge can manifest themselves in a single master teacher.

To Lindsey for reminding me that surrounding yourselves with honest, positive people can enrich your life and experiences.

To Natalie for teaching me how to share… or at least attempting to teach me how to share, something I should have learned a long time ago.

To Laura for demonstrating me how people challenge themselves in so many different ways in so many different arenas.

To Heather for showing me that those that listen first and speak later have the greatest wisdom.

To Liz for reminding me that “the best way to teach students” should be a conversation that all teachers continue to participate in, because there is no one perfect way.

To Gilda for reminding me how important and powerful a sense of humor is for a teacher… and for keeping me honest by flicking me off… three times.

To Jackie for reminding me how much I miss having you as part of my daily life.

To Cam for reminding me how much I never wanted an older brother.

To Megan for demonstrating to me how much love one person can spread around and give to so many others.

To Kyla for reminding me how important it is to laugh and cry in equal amounts as much possible.

To E. Jason for reminding me that teaching students to have an open mind and empathy is more important that any content that we teach to kids.

Thank you all.
See you soon…

Thanks!

Thank you for four fabulous weeks of writing, crying, laughing, eating (that's props to you, Beth!), and writing some more. I really enjoyed the ride and the experience of getting to know all of you. Like we said today, it's not goodbye, just see ya later!

Teachers Telling Stories

Now that the Podcasting is slowly piling up... Thank you Gilda, Tami, and Natalie... and to those of you that I KNOW will be podcasting these last 2 days of SI. Anyway... Bud has finished building our "Teachers Telling Stories" Blog. It is meant to be a podcasting site focused on the reading done by our fellows (CSUWP) and the NYC Writing Project. In time, other sites hopefully will join us. So now there is even more motivation to get your voice and work out there. Check it out... and thanks to Bud. I wonder how many times I've said that.

Colorado State University Writing Project

Colorado State University Writing Project

Just adding to Cameron and Heather's awesome log: You know you're in CSUWP when - you're blogging (even though you hate blogging) on the fourth of July. You really know you're in the project when you don't mind being late to the BBQ because you'd rather be reading and or listening to stuff you've read and or heard already.

A New CSUWP

The Writing Project SI process for the Staff and I began 6 months ago... reviewing applications, interviewing candidates, planning pre-institute and summer ongoings... it's been a long beautiful process. This doesn't take into account the other WP events that have taken place, Young Writers Workshops, Two Summer Teacher Workshops, Rural Sites, Writing Retreats, Social Gatherings, all organized by Governing Board Members and their hard-working committees. Somehow Cindy deals with it all.

But to me, the WP Summer Institute is the culmination of it all, although those of us that stay involved know that none of it ever really ends. But this time of year, Tamasag and all, feels like our year is coming to a close. As we speak, we are revising next year's schedules, reevaluating the interview process, and reconsidering next summer's procedures, so as I said, it's really only the beginning of another year of progress. On friday of next week, our WP Fellows will grow to a number around 80 strong. And they are amazing teachers and people that will only help CSUWP continue to grow in a way that very few WP sites have grown, not this quickly and efficiently.

So 2006 WP Fellows... start wondering about, considering, and exploring the many different ways that you can come back to us and make CSUWP stronger. In all of the above programs, we are looking for people to help and lead, and since I will be asking you on Friday about your interests, start thinking about it now. Cindy wants you...

Winding Down

The past 4 weeks (4 months for the staff) has been like driving towards the horizon. And finally, though it always remains at a distance, we seem to getting closer to the end of our time together.

Although we still have a few days left, our trip to Tamasag tomorrow is the beginning of the end in my mind. The time off will be nice when July 7 elapses but the time we've been here has been amazing.

Wednesday felt like a day of "things we NEED to know". From Elsa teaching us about writing in the ELA classroom, which offered more lessons on the ELA population than many of us have learned in years, to Nancy's demo on "How to Change the World" from a kid's perspective, not exactly a light subject but one that does inspire. There is little doubt that both of these amazing teachers do just that everyday.

And lastly... of all of the amazing author's chairs this year, and they have been powerful, profound, and escapist, Donna's struck the biggest cord with me personally. It is a piece (a book hopefully... one day) that NEEDS to be published, NEEDS to be read... by everyone. It will change many. It already has...

Something to think about...

Did anyone see the news today, about a new website called Teacherspayteachers.com? You can join for an annual fee of $29.95, and sell your units and lessons to other teachers, or buy from your colleagues around the world. This web-store has just been "opened" by a 33-year-old former teacher. It raises some really controversial issues, and calls into question the type of sharing of demo strategies that we do for free during the SI and in the rest of our professional lives. Should we sell our stuff? Isn't that what consultants do? Aren't we worth the money, too? Or do we have an ethical obligation to share? I just love talking about these issues with anyone who's interested, so post a comment here if you have one.

By the way, I'm so proud to be a part of CSUWP again this summer - what a great community - a talented group of positive, motivated people - and awesome writers, too. I shed tears over author's chair every day. Being around all of you makes me feel so good about our profession. Thanks for that attitude adjustment-
Megan

Thank You

I feel a little guilty that I haven't posted more, the first one coming the first week of the institute, but my laptop has been in Texas getting fixed, so I have an excuse, be it marginal.

Author's chair: something everyone in the institute looks forward to each day, except for one day, the day they have to read. I love it for the standpoint that as an adult, I love being read to, but also because there are some amazing teachers here who are amazing writers. Some have been so funny, that my face and stomach hurt from laughing, laughing so hard I was crying. And some, have been so beautiful, so rich in emotion and human experience that I could feel the corners of my mouth being pulled down, one of the signs I'm going to cry, as tears leak onto my cheeks. It's scary for the writer, but such an amazing experience for the audience to be present for shared life experiences.

I feel so blessed to be in the presence of so many gifted teachers and writers, so many wonderful people who make the world a better place by who they are and all the lives they touch. Every day I learn so much, I laugh a lot, and occasionally, am brought to tears by the gifts people give to an audience of careful listeners.

Week Number 3

The third week has begun... from "nervous" Donna (though she showed absolutely no signs of it and her demo was killer) to possibly the best SI Feedback session I've witnessed, it was an amazing beginning of our last full week. This group has finished the honeymoon but yet still seem to respect and love each other just as much as they did the first week, maybe more now that they've spoken to improvements that they wish to see from each other. I'm more impressed everyday.

A few busy days ahead and then... ahhhh... Tamasag.

East Coast Update

I'm here on the east coast of South Carolina living vicariously through the blog. Ani discovered the ocean yesterday. I hope everyone at the CSUWP is having wonderful discoveries, too. Thanks, y'all, for the updates.

I hope week three finds everyone well -- and that good work is still getting done. For the benefit of our podcast subscribers, who can only receive automatically one mp3 per blog post, here's another link to Kyla's great podcast. Forgive the reposting, but our subscribers will be grateful.

Finally... Podcasts

I finally was able to get over my computer troubles and get the podcasts up and running.
So here are the only ones I have so far... A re-recording of Colleen's Suess Tribute and Kyla's childhood view of her grandmother's house. Both are fantastic.

The Education of Bertrand the Zirk by Colleen S.
My Grandmother Has Two Houses by Kyla C.

Or... Click HERE to get a stream of any and all of the podasts.

Now... if we could only get others to join...

Colorado State University Writing Project

Summer Workshop Success

Well the first of our "Summer Writing Workshops" (aka Open Institutes) is almost over. This has been a fantastic week. I knew we were going to rock the first day when we started piggy backing. Since then we have had all the typical writing project "quirks" - Laughter, clicking on a laptop, tears and food! The week has been so much fun, and we have some great people in the group. Including our own young writer, Bethany. She's going into fourth grade and has been writing and sharing on all of our prompts with us. We think she's ready for Summer Institute right now. She's sure teaching us a lot.

I hope next week's workshop goes as well as this week. I am really looking forward to it.

A big thanks to Cam for helping me out the first day. You were quite the success. Your 6 pack is coming soon. :) Although you did somehow manage to break the electricity in the room. The front outlets haven't worked since you finished presenting on Monday!

Halfway Home

Tomorrow at lunch, we will hit the midpoint of this year's summer institute. Time flies...

Another day of Double Demos, but this group has adjusted extremely well. There is an air of collaboration and respect in the room that always builds over the four weeks. But this year, I am especially impressed. Although the CSUWP fellows have always been amazing, the excellence of this year's demos are a notch above. Though they are still pushing for constructive criticism, this year's participants haven't quite realized how well they are doing so far. Nine demos down and not one weak one in the bunch... not even close. The entire staff has been awed by this year's batch. So far so good.

In addition, I learned today that E. Jason has commemorated the Fort Collins Flood of '97 and everyone in town should hear his rendition. In addition, I learned that I will one day be reading Lindsey's children's book to my Mathphobic kids. Fantastic author's chairs.

This "class" is already quite accomplished... they just keep adding to their repetoire.

The Death of Richard Cory

I'm always very interested in the writing that comes from the demo, but rarely am I inspired to write as much as I was today in Colleen C.'s demo on Rhetorical Analysis. Using "Richard Cory" by Arlington, Colleen had us rewrite from different point of views, analyse from a historical, literal, and/or an emotional perspective, and go to depths of poetry using personal responses. And all I wanted to do the whole time was write. Fantastic demo.