Skywalker+Ranch+Notes+(rough)

This is a bit of a brain dump of my notes from today...I will tidy up...it is not yet edited for content, spelling, citations, etc., but such is the nature of a wiki. I will take a first stab at collecting all the material and posting here electronically. Any help is much appreciated. There was a device a person sitting next to me was using to write notes using a pen that had an attachment to gather audio...she escaped before I could talk to her...are you out there?? I would love some audio snipets.

Matt Pearson Director of Technology Marin Country Day School mpearson@mcds.org 415-927-5950

Rachel Smith: I blogged about the day at http://ninmah.be/2009/02/28/teachers-multimedia-and-skywalker-ranch/

Matt's notes: Marin Learning Conservancy

Steve Arnold polaris venture partnership

Krystina face to face talking and building of community and discussioin and think tank type idea making multimedia in Marin worked with Steve arnold wile at Atari to use NatGeo, Lucas, Apple to

combine public, non-public, profit and not for profit to create the conservancy construct Get the public working with the private and tie all of us together. Bring us all together under one umbrella

then, now, and the future

screening 1: MacMagic (1989)

can't we move a bit more quickly, we can do more than we have done even though we are working so hard

Marin can provide a leadership role

Work locally and impact gloablly (national/internantional)

Who is in this group? edutopia (Lucas), marin community foundation, MCOE, exploratorium, new media consortium, case western rserve, arnowitzhurn studios, center for digital story telling, EHDD arhitecture (Ross school district and Exploratorium), MetaDesign, Stanford university one year masters program for learning design and technology, just I think, BIE, Apple, 

Context first the THEN "Golden Era"
 * 1) Hypercard
 * developed and given away free on every Apple computer
 * apple mac
 * atari research labs
 * xerox PARC
 * Brown University
 * Doug Engelbert
 * Vannervar Bush
 * Sketch pad
 * 1) Multimedia(presentation)/Interface(use)/Hypertext (retrieval)
 * 2) Nat Geo, Lucasfilm, Apple, and the Internet and Al Gore

pachyderm demonstation www.pachyderm.org talking about macmagic Innovations student focus on creating image rich-non-linear narratives to learn english and history project based learning time to do work in class with three periods to do work in class non-tech teacher using technology broad range of children with good diversity including gifted to needy and economic range and language spectrum from non-english to english
 * 1) 1989 karla and krystina--sisters
 * 2) fredrick burke elementary school project based learning (where Karla and Krystina attended)
 * 3) active and engaged youth
 * 4) 512k mac computers and hypercard B&W screens
 * 5) not about using the computers even though were proud of them...it was about students learning how to learn with the basic approach to these tools and what is possible...large blocks of time
 * 6) word processor, paint, hypercard
 * 7) one computer per two students

interact with a book, each other, maps and communication between one another is focus and the computer melts into the background

MACMAGIC MOVIE SHOWING

Non-linear thinking and this type of project based learning allows defincencies to come to the top. language barriers melt as the cooperative approach to solving a common problem causes tighter collaboration

A gathering of ideas and perspectives is easliy organized and presented and tells a story of not just the subject lessons, but of lessons in the process of overcoming the problem or obstacle.

To be able to tie together multi-media elements to tell a story and offer a theatre for debate and discord by the students and the peers is a powerful means to communicating the process and subject.

not hung up by the writing skills--word processor allows to go back and correct and also allows quick dumping of ideas...kind of like this dump of notes :0)

teacher adoption paranoid about the process, learning curve, steve sheski hall middle school the teacher does not have to be the repository of all the knowledge, but assists the student in the process of how to learn and acquire the knowledge.

then students teaching students ala train the trainer model...

PANEL DISCUSSION Karla, fundamentally still trying to do the same thing, but with more bells and whistles (perhaps more available) How are you all using the technology?

Steve, macmagic project was tough with divers set of kids, time periods, how to communicate to parents and selection of students (15 languages spoken at homes of kids). Never about the technology, it was a tool to do project based learning.Each one teach one technology tool/trick creating a culture of support and fostered group learning. This created a way of learning that was very noticeable when kids went to hs as they stood out. Not about tech, but how they learn.

Krystina, struck by how easy it looks. watching the kids be a spokesperson for this in the movie is great. how many institutional barriers we have that we can find some way to break down these barriers to provide a high level of naturalist to the kids. (what does she mean by naturalist). Work with all these groups to faciliate.

Chris Carter, what I saw on the screen was what we have in our classroom. we have group learning, collaborations, we can do it faster and easier. 1 hour seems like five minutes. that hit home...I like the engagement factor using the technology. Kids will come in at lunch time to engage their personal interest. 5th graders get certified as users of technology.

Anthony, how much learning that can happen when the teacher gets out of the way. The roadblock can be the teacher to the process of learning.

questions Dana, marin school of the arts. had to fight to get those computers into the classroom. No money -Chris carter---write the plan to get those computers to then sell the plan, Krystina---Chris is my hero...facitilate

Matt thinks: this meeting is the building of a group to support others

Chris carter--using technology to talk about the project and collaborate

Anthony--give them the tools and something to talk about after the day is over...give a purpose for the tool. Social collaboration is part of the process...this is new...social conversations should occur.

Tom Con (redwood libraian)--real issue with leadership (chris carter) what strategies do you have to bring other districts or the leaders of those districts to bring them to the table so that they see the value of this technology...by the way another partner CTAP--california technology assistance project funded by the state to provide professional developent--Chris, yes good leadership is important...I've always been passionate about technology, but I believe in it. People need to see it, I invite people into our school to see it in action. We did the same and visited schools...my board had to see it in action...teachers and students engaged. Mitlon: we are here to help as well, we have made a number of presentations

Tracy smith, president of school district? --digital divide being created, parents illiterate, different levels of students with diverse school. Krystina, classic question with classic answer, but how do we get a different answer...this group is about getting a better answer. Your anlysis is right. Steve: edutopia has resources for this. We had these same issues with MagMagic. we recognized and addressed, but the solution was

Edith Akerman (psychology, Osher fellow at exploratorium and MIT fellow ), how does this help us talk differently about your experiencing Krystina. We quote technology as any tool that was invented after we were born. How do we get away from this rhetoric and instead get more specific about the projects and what they bring to us. The gist is lets get specific.

Toni Pellegrini, PR and administrative support is so important or the program will fade away. Whatever we can do to get that support.

Anthony talks (teaches history at Del Mar) History in his class with the tools he uses wikispaces

Online site to use for your class: delmarhistory8.wikispaces.com

Most of my facts come from this site with an "online textbook" ??how do you feel about this information being available to others (not parents or students...the public)

with a wiki it is very easy to use and you do not need to know html.

all kids are required to keep a notebook, the beauty of the wiki is I get to use resources not in the textbook.

??what process do you have to go through to decide what to teach ??any problem with material that is controversial?

Visual learners? Auditory learner? You can embed visual elements Hippocampus videos as well>>>>videos on lots of subjects!

This falls into alignment with standards from california ed requirements

??how do you address access?

If history is lecturing, is this better than them watching the video? No, now lecture time is used instead for sharing, feedback, discussion...interpersonal skills is built...now we use the classroom for social interaction...hold eye contact and engage, but also learn how to listen>>30s "blowhards" where the other person, the listener, just listens.

blue pod, green pod cylinders to make the groups diverse

these meetings are not about them using technology...it is the day after technology and "CSI"...engage, talk, discord.

wiki as a means to facilitate discussion. Kids learn how to write online for academic purposes.

move voting to the wiki space using Polldaddy.com...this is embeded into the site

then written online and you can monitor all changes using the discord as a teachable moment when it passes boundaries

argument, reason, evidence

the teacher facilitates the discussion and can play devils advocate and then keep the level of discussion at a good academic pace/maturity level. A natural next step is using the communication tools to talk about academics rather than back and forth about social stuff...

video of students with debate "electing the executive" the debate in the classroom that was reenacted

Anthony talking about what is happening in seminar seating in class with whole class exchanging in seminar seating

Blloms revised taxonomy --High order thinking

use of google docs for online collaboration

??ACCESS>>>high speed Internet with a device (laptop)

??when publishing to the audience where do you limit who can see the work?

Wiki's use for a test>>>slideshare.com is used for taking presentations and putting them on the wiki

Communitiy of learners (students) used a wiki to create the study guide with it being checked by the teacher

Wants the students to create their own page of the information on a wiki. Presented as a challenge with current problems. Create a wiki page that teacher could use.

tools used: google docs, wikispaces, and rest above.

Students created the wiki using embedded video, pictures, etc.>>>it engages students and allows them to step outside of the box and explore other tools. Curiosity gets the kids involved deeply.

Google Forms assessments can be embedded into wiki...ala a survey.

armstrong.anthony@mac.com

PANEL discussion

Chris: great job Anthony...live panel discussion

Karla: you don't have to invent all of this...lots of resources out there.

Dianne Darrow (reed school district teacher grade K)--fantastic job Anthony...he taught me how to use the slideshare. How to put projects up and created a conversation with teacher in India

John River (?)--how would you handle problem with Internet and not having access? Anthony: change or shift paradigm

Chase,--give me something that I can't find on Google...clarify? Give your own individual interpretation

Krystina: plus 1 model with a helper in the classroom (edtech). Librarian

Chris; create critical mass with teachers at school, it has to be about the teachers and then an attraction starts.

Illana: to be that plus one org, we have an amazing opprotnity, we have now organized nonprofits to access monies. Hwo can we orchestrate them trhough these conservancies and the relationships already here.

Milton: our future...fill out the form and give us your email. Krystina has some specific ideas of how to evolve us? Krystina: this is not the teacher knows the answer...we look forward to how we can move forward and have a similar format...we should figure that out

We have heard the then and the nows

resource list on yellow paper