Sitting here in the Boston airport waiting to board a plane to Toronto then home. What an amazing three days! Here's why:

First, the people. Joyce Valenza, Tony Parkin, Glynnis Barett were in "my posse" when I was here last year. We had the opportunity to see each other again and spend some time catching up on the last year. Missing Alan Mills.

I was about to begin this sentence talking about new friends but that wouldn't be accurate. I know so many people via their blogs that when we get a chance to meet face to face like this it feels more like old friends picking up where we left off: Dean Shareski, Bob Sprankle, Ewan McIntosh, Will Richardson (who has become completely twitterpated), David Jakes, Christian Long and Chris Lehmann. I also got a chance to meet Barbara Bareda, Vince Jansen and Sharon Peters. There were so many more new names and faces. BLC continues to be a warm and inviting experience where everyone is welcome in every conversation.

Dean, Christian and I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon getting chased out of the dining room and down the hall. (We didn't realize how loud we were talking as each of us took turns challenging each other to clarify our thinking.) We were having a passionate conversation and pushing each other to figure out what are the bare essential tools needed to amplify learning and success for our students. At least we started there and rambled far and wide ending at a place distant from where we began. Then Dean went for a nap. ;-) I think it was Chris who said his wife has a "control-alt-delete" button for Christian ... or was it an energy shield. ;-)

Last night Chris, Christian and I stayed up late in the lobby sharing pictures and videos of our kids. Three proud dads sharing the love we have for our children. I already respect these guys as brilliant minds but this was a bond formed on a completely different level. Earlier that evening though, David Jakes had the line I've been carrying around in my head ever since.

Thursday night at BLC was a boat cruise around Boston harbour. A bunch of us were standing on the upper deck outside talking about our kids, our students and our views on teaching. The passion was palpable. Dave listened for a while, held out his arms and said "I love you guys!" The strength of weak ties Dave. ;-)

Now that's only the tip of the iceberg with this year's conference. This was, bar none, the best conference I have ever attended. There was a breathtaking array of talented speakers; but that's not what made it. The attention to detail that Christine Bridge and her team made of absolutely everything was of the highest calibre; but that's not what made it. The tech support provided by the good folks from Apple, Lester Ray and Cindy Everest was outstanding; but that's not what made it. The participants made it.

Read David's blog. You'll find a series of posts he calls chatcasts: Fire up skype and invite everyone in the room to participate in a live chat while the presenter speaks. Open it up to the folks who aren't physically there on your twitter and skype networks and you begin to get a sense of what participating in this conference was like. As the presenter speaks pictures are taken, uploaded to flickr and shared within seconds. The speaker says something that a member of the chatcast challenges, finds the source and drops the link into the chatcast. Dean starts streaming the audio live via a skype conference call. Invite students into the chatcast, have the presenter respond to questions in the chatcast as they too participate, and .... it was intoxicating! People from the UK, Canada and the US, who weren't physically there, were there.

Today, David and I took the bus to the airport together. It felt like we were drunk. We talked about a lot of things but both agreed, this is what future conferences should look like. What the presenter has to say is just a prompt; it's fodder for the people in the audience to reflect, to push back, to wrestle back and forth with and develop their own thinking. Slides are available via slideshare for anyone anywhere to follow along. Photos uploaded to flickr so the remote participants can see what the room/presenter looks like. Technology really amplifies learning. Physical space just slows everything down. But when you marry the two together ... the possibilities are limitless.

I gave three talks this year; all either podcast, chatcast or both. (More details coming soon.) The slides for every presentation are online at slideshare. I had a computer meltdown just before the conference so my last presentation, Developing Expert Voices, was a rough draft of what I really wanted to say. I felt that I had talked too much and come across rather flat. I failed to factor in the chatcast. Before I started I told everyone in the room (about 50 people) to download skype and contact either David Jakes or Sharon Peters to join the conversation. (I think David got 20 requests within 2 minutes.) In the silences between slides or as I waited for a site to load (the net was running really slow) I didn't factor in the breadth and depth of the conversations going on in the periphery of my talk. I think the periphery became the centre. Skype wasn't designed to do this but this is what it was made for. On the bus David and I agreed, this is something to do with our students.

Imagine a 20 minute lecture where all your students back channel about what you're saying. Outside guests or experts are invited in. Someone acts as a "rudder" to keep the conversation on track. The discussion is displayed on a SMARTboard or with a projector. The chatcast is immediately dumped into a wiki. The rest of the class is devoted to reorganizing the wiki clarifying what was said, answering questions (student to student as well as teacher to student; and don't forget the people, students, teachers, mentors or parents beyond the glass walls of the room) summarizing the big ideas, reframing the discussion in terms of what needs to be explained again and where we're going next. Imagine the possibilities ...

I'm at the Building Learning Communities conference in Boston. It's intoxicating to talk with so many people I've long respected and admired. I was here last year too. The conference has doubled in size from 300 to over 600 people. The sessions offered are an amazing array of talent and thoughtful thinkers but the best part is the face to face conversations we're having afterwards.

Actually, that's not the whole story. Twitter and using skype to chatcast in sessions has added another dimension to the entire experience.

Ewan McIntosh gave a breathtaking talk this afternoon. Bob podcasted it and David chatcasted it. Dean tweeted that Ewan is his new yoda and look at this ... he's already on flickr!

I'm a little behind on my reading but I've read Chris' and David's thoughts about using twitter in the classroom.

Since I first started tweeting I've been thinking about pedagogical applications of twitter. For me, the pedagogical virtue of twitter (or anything like it: jaiku, pownce, IM, etc.) is how it can be used to make students' thinking transparent; to the teacher and each other.

Here are some of my nascent thoughts. In each case I would be using twittercamp to display tweets on the smartboard although the same could be done using a computer & projector setup:

(a) Kids, in groups, are working on a complicated problem (I teach math so, it's a math problem). They tweet their progress and difficulties as they work through it. They learn from each other and the teacher gets some powerful insight into their thought processes. This allows for very focused and concrete feedback to students to refine their thinking and improve their skills.

(b) While I give a lecture students tweet their thoughts about it to each other. Comments that clarify or question what I am saying. They can also tweet any confusions they have as they arise. This makes the lecture much more dynamic as it takes on the character of a conversation. The teacher isn't "interrupted" so they can develop new concepts fully but they can also respond instantaneously to student's learning needs. This also provides a live, in class venue where quieter students can be heard and get their questions answered immediately. The open nature of this discourse also allows the teacher to modify their presentation on the fly to address the needs of the learners in the room.

(c) This one isn't so much for the classroom as it is for teacher professional development; twitter as an integral part of any presentation.

I'm planning my workshops for the upcoming Building Learning Communities conference. I plan to have an interactive whiteboard set up running twittercamp. As I give each presentation I am hoping that people in the audience will both tweet and chatcast while I speak. Again, changing the character of the presentation from "show and tell" to a conversation. This last idea arises out of the blogger's cafe from NECC and my vicarious participation via my twitter network.

I would have students use their cell phones to tweet. They would set up nicknamed accounts and I would have a classroom account. Only members of the class would be added to this particular twitter network. In this way:

 • Student's identities are protected.
 • Students are more motivated by being able to use their cell phones in class.
 &bull The process models good pedagogy responsive to student's learning needs.
 • Students learn to use a cell phone as a learning tool.
 • [your suggesstion goes here ;-)]

Tweets are ephemeral. In my view, tweeting homework, assignments, due dates, classroom updates or anything like that is more appropriately posted to a classroom blog.

The power of twitter in the classroom lies in harnessing the instantaneous and ephemeral nature of the tool. These ideas are my first draft thinking re: twitter and pedagogy. I'm interested in seeing how others develop different educational uses of it.

Mirrored from the K12 Online Conference site.

---

There has been a bit of a glitch with the proposal submission form. It seems it is only accepting one submission from each IP address. The last submission overwrites the earlier written material.

The deadline for submissions is extended until Friday, June 22.

For all who made or would like to make multiple proposal submissions:

1. Your final submission has been received.

UPDATE
We fixed the form! It will now accept multiple submissions.

If you did not receive a confirmation email from Lani on June 19, please resubmit your proposal. Then contact Lani by email (lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net) to verify it’s been received.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience and understanding. The deadline remains extended until Friday, June 22.
/Update

2. Please email any other submissions to the convener of the strand for which the proposal is submitted.

To all who have not yet submitted a proposal:

1. The deadline is extended until Friday, June 22.
2. You’re encouraged to submit a proposal to present. Personal Learning Networks, in particular, could benefit from your expertise.

For your convenience, here is the list of conveners:

• » Convener Classroom 2.0
  Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com
• » Convener Personal Learning Networks
  Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net
• » Convener Obstacles to Opportunities
  Lani Ritter Hall: lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net
• » Convener New Tools
  Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

With only 7 days left to submit proposals Lani, Sheryl, Wes and I are honored to announce the keynotes for K12 Online 2007. We eagerly anticipate the kick off of the conference and each strand by the following distinguished and accomplished educators. "New Tools" features 3 co-keynoters.

	Preconference Keynote: David Warlick David Warlick, a 30 year educator,has been a classroom teacher, district administrator, and staff consultant with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. For the past ten years, Mr. Warlick has operated The Landmark Project, a consulting, and innovations firm in Raleigh, North Carolina. His web site, Landmarks for Schools, serves more than ten-million visits a month with some of the most popular teacher tools available on the Net. David is also the author of three books on instructional technology and 21st century literacy, and has spoken to audiences throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. David blogs at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/.
	Classroom 2.0: Clarence Fisher Clarence has been a classroom teacher for the past 13 years. He blogs professionally at remoteaccess.typepad.com, with his class at mr-fisher.edublogs.org and has spoken at conferences across North America. Clarence has won several awards, including one of Canada’s highest teaching awards, the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching for his integration of technology into daily classroom life. Clarence's innovative classroom practices have been featured online, in books, magazines, and newspaper articles. He is an advocate of classroom 2.0, learning spaces that take complete advantage of the tools that are available to learners in their quest to learn rather than having school be something that is done to them.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: Alan Levine Alan Levine Vice President, NMC Community and CTO for the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international consortium of more than 250 world-class universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies dedicated to using new technologies to inspire, energize, stimulate, and support learning and creative expression. He is widely recognized nationally and internationally for expertise in the application of new technologies to educational environments and was a pioneer on the web going back to 1993. Alan blogs at http://cogdogblog.com.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: Brian Lamb Brian Lamb is Manager, Emerging Technologies and Digital Content with the Office of Learning Technology at The University of British Columbia. He teaches a course on “Text Technologies” for UBC’s Master of Educational Technology Program. He is also a Research Fellow with Utah State University’s Center for Open and Sustainable Learning. Brian maintains his weblog Abject Learning http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/brian/, where he mutters ll-tempered observations on social learning, open education, disruptive technologies and other such things.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: D'Arcy Norman D'arcy Norman is a software developer at the Teaching & Learning Centre, a service department at The University of Calgary. In his current primary role, as an educational technology developer, he explores new technologies and works with faculty to implement tools for blended learning. He has also been involved in the open source development of the Pachyderm project, an easy-to-use multimedia authoring tool. D'Arcy spends a fair amount of time thinking (and rethinking) about the concept of control and copyright, and how they might affect academia. D'Arcy blogs at http://www.darcynorman.net.
	Personal Learning Networks: Derek Wenmouth Derek is currently the Director of eLearning at CORE Education Ltd based in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has a broad background in education, with experience at the primary and secondary school level, and as a teacher educator. He was manager of the eSection at The Correspondence School in Wellington and is currently an adviser to the Ministry of Education. Derek is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars, and maintains a regular blog where he shares his ideas and thinking across a range of areas relating to the use of ICT in teaching and learning. Derek blogs at http://blog.core-ed.net/derek.
	Obstacles to Opportunities: Brian Cosby Brian Crosby, an elementary teacher for 26 years, teaches fifth grade in Sparks, Nevada, and has infused technology into teaching since the 1980's. While piloting a 1:1 laptop program, students in his class utilizie many Web 2.0 tools including Skype, Fiickr, blogs and wikis. His award winning student produced video about including a classmate that couldn't attend school using video-conferencing software has been downloaded by thousands. Brian teaches several popular tech classes for teachers in his role as a Nevada Writing Project Consultant. You can try keeping up with him on his blog "Learning Is Messy" at http://www.learningismessy.com/blog/.

We strongly encourage you to join these educators at the conference by sharing your take on "playing with boundaries" in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! It's time to submit your proposal. The deadline is June 18, only 7 days away!

For your convenience, you can find the initial call for proposals here and the link to the proposals submission form is here.

I've been catching up on some of the podcasts available from the recent Webheads In Action Online Convergence. A couple of days ago I listened to the keynote given by Etienne Wenger and Susan Nyrop. Etienne discussed a three dimensional (3 axes of "movement") model for online communities of practice. One of the axes related to synchronous vrs. asynchronous learning vis a vis the physical spaces we occupy. It got me thinking about how we are able manipulate time and space in education. Essentially, we can learn:

• »in the same time and space
• » at the same time in different spaces
• »at different times in the same space
• »at different times and in different spaces

The new tools we have access to open the door to life long learning for our students. We are learning together how to manipulate time. I think this is why using web 2.0 tools in education feels so empowering. We've never really been able to manipulate time before. We've always been its slave. Now we can stretch and mold time to our advantage.

This is just a summary of what I've been thinking. I figure there's a lot of clever people out there who might have a different diagram or perhaps have something to add to this one. You might want to share it on your blog or in your flickr account. I'm tagging this post "edutimespace". If you do the same on your blog, flickr or elsewhere we can all walk through the galleries of each other's thought and see what comes of it.

Well this just made my day ...

Linger is a student in my AP Calculus class. She does some of the most exceptional work when she is scribe. She recently published her Developing Expert Voices project. Lani left her this comment:

Hi Linger!

What a great introduction!

"The questions that I chose are of interest to me, and I chose them to challenge myself. My goal for this project is to learn something new and to be able to teach you, the reader as well. Yes, becase "together, we can learn.""

I really appreciate your wanting to move out of your comfort zone. And from your reflection, "Now I am twice amazed, because I got to make the problems on my own and I got to understand it in a different point of view.", it was definitely worth the effort!

Your problems were of interest and your explanations clear and valuable! I personally really liked the music to accompany my learning; just the right touch -- helping to move calculus out of "gross" as was your intent! :-)

You mentioned that you learned math and about yourself from this project. Do you find one more valuable than the other and why?

Kudos to you on your learning and teaching!

My very best wishes,
Lani

Here is her reply ...

Hi Lani, thank you for your comment!

I find learning about math and learning about myself equally valuable. I'm a very competitive person and I saw this project as a competition where I was against myself.. and that is the best kind. Because it's not like being in a team, where people have to pull their own weight to keep things balanced. This is the type where you're all in or you're not. It's the kind where you know how well you did, and you've got no one else to blame.

Mr. K told us the other day that he made us do all these things (blog, project, other assignments) so that we learn in many different ways. It doesn't matter what you're learning as long as you know how. He wants us to become life-long learners, and I think, on my behalf anyway, he succeeded. I really value this project, and our AP calc blog. Mr. K's job is to teach, and he did it well.

This project taught me a lot.. yes, math was the main point but learning about myself was a double bonus ;)

<smile>