Tag: necc03

WebQuest Portal

Bernie Dodge presented about WebQuests at NECC. For the next few months you can view this session online.

This session was interesting to me for two reasons. First, it is always interesting to understand how someone associated with a process or product understands his/her own vision. When you are acquainted with ideas indirectly, you may acquire a personal perspective that is different than originally intended. I use the word “different” to indicate that each of us brings our personal experiences to the interpretation of abstract ideas and the result may be more or less useful than the original. The opportunity to interact allows moving toward a shared vision (a social constructivist kind of thing). However, after listening to Bernie on multi-occassions, I am also convinced his own ideas drift (grow/change) as I am sure is true of all of us. Anyway, if you are interested in WebQuests, you will benefit from this presentation.< The second reason I liked this presentation was the focus on a “community.” This is an idea many of us have played with and considered how to develop. Dr. Dodge has made the assumption that those individuals interested in WebQuests represent a potential community and the collective wisdom and time of this community exceeds his own. The goal is to find a way to tap into this collective wisdom and time for the benefit of all. His present effort to do this is represented in a web site – WebQuest.org.

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Last Day

Blogging NECC has caught on. I see that an organized group of contributors is creating NECC blogs so a link from here is warranted.

I have noticed there is not a lot of support here for “No Child Left Behind.” Perhaps this is a function of the sessions I select. I listed to Ferdi Serim this morning. He and a colleague talked about the difference between growth (NWEA) and performance orientations to evaluation. The idea is that a hurdle system (performance) does a poor job of informing teachers how to work with individual students and is insensitive to entering differences in capabilities/background.

I attended a David Thornburg presentation to end the day. Again, a big picture person with challenging ideas. The theme of the presentation was helping students navigate from data to understanding. Thornburg offered some interesting data on data – just how much of it we experience. He also recommended tools for working with data – how to locate meaningful data (Grokker), how to organize (Inspiration) and how to personalize and add context (eZedia). I assume other tools could be substituted. Grokker was new to me. This application is a different type of search engine/organization tool and it is certainly worth a look.

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Alan Kay Keynote

I like presenters who offer both big ideas and specific examples. If you have the time, connect to the archived video of Alan Kay’s keynote. You will have to wait a bit to view the archived version, but in a week or so try Minds TV. If you once were excited by the ideas of Papert and LOGO, this presentation is for you.

Since this video will likely go away soon, you might also explore a web site that attempt to promote some of the same ideas – Squeakland.Org.

Recommended site – Adobe Digital Kids Club. Learning and apply the skills of digital photography.

50 Ideas for using a digital camera in an elementary school.

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Web Sites

I collect lots of interesting web sites when I attend conferences. Some end up in our database and others I link from web pages.
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nAn exaple – Geek is Chic is a site focused on encouraging gender equity in experiences with technology.

Family Treasures is a site promoting a project based learning approach to learning history.

MINDS Oral History Project is archiving oral histories provided by WWII vets. (I am focusing on history resources)

My favorite paper of the day – Karen Grove’s presentation on the role of cooperating teachers in mentoring teacher candidates. Great reference list if this happens to be your area of interest.

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NECC – Day 1

This was the first day of NECC – mostly seminars.

NECC 2003 Sign

I did experiment with one new thing., Various NECC documents are available for beaming to your Palm. You approach one these devices.

NECC Bluefish

Your Palm locks on and downloads both programs and documents. Now I can use my Palm to decide what I want to do tomorrow, The idea is familiarize educators with the potential of the handhelds.

NECC Palm Database

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It takes a long time to get from Grand Forks to Seattle. Go east to Minneapolis. Go west to Billings. Wait while plane tries to find Billings. Fly to Seattle. Even with a couple of time changes and leaving before 7 I did not arrive in time to take the shuttle to the convention center. I do have a cool view from my window.

Space Needle

Maybe I will try to find a cup of coffee. Tomorrow is a new day.

Some NECC 2003 sessions will be webcast.

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NECC 2003

This is an anniversary of a sort. I started this blog as a short term demonstration based on NECC 2002 (note first entries). The idea was to chronicle some of the things I saw and learned at the conference. I later decided to continue keeping an online account of resources and ideas as much for my own benefit as for anyone else. I do appreciate the visits from those of you who were curious and especially those of you who bothered to come back.

The original post – a goals statement:

iv. to teach them this techne, should they desire to learn [it], without fee and written covenant, and to give a share both of rules and of lectures, and of all the rest of learning, to my sons and to the [sons]of him who has taught me and to the pupils who have both make a written contract and sworn by a medical convention but by no other. (from the Hippocratic oath – translated).
http://www.indiana.edu/~ancmed/oath.htm

It is not time for NECC 2003. My next posts will originate from Seattle.

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