Riding the Wave of Change (conference)

Last week (May 5-6) was the annual Riding the Wave conference in Gimli, MB. This conference is sponsored by MAETL (Manitoba Association of Educational Technology Leaders) and ManACE (Manitoba Association for Computing Educators) and is meant for K-12 educators and IT folks and is, of course, related to technology use in schools. I don't usually present at this conference - it is great to just go, relax, and take in sessions - and this year, I almost decided to not go and attend a one day research seminar at my institution (it sounded really relevant and interesting), in the end I decided to go to RTW. It was a great decision, I do try to stay in touch and I work closely with K-12 school personnel, I want my teacher ed courses to remain relevant, and I like to work with the field. The decision to attend was certainly not a mistake.

Sphero maze!

The keynote was given by the inspiring Kathy Cassidy (@kathycassidy) from Moose Jaw. I use her book Connected from the Start as a text in my EY ICT in Ed course - the students always love it! Her message was all about new literacies - multi-literacies in today's digital world. The importance of visual (including video) literacy. An inspiring presentation. It was good to chat with her again for  a few minutes.

Sphero Chariots!

The other sessions I attended were about coding and maker spaces - something I want to add into my ICT in Ed courses next year when I return from sabbatical (sadly almost over!). I played with spheros and lego and learned some great tips and ideas. These sessions were by Tara (@msmclauchlan) and Joan (@jbadger), from St. James Assiniboia SD and Diana Rendina (@DianaLRedina - a visitor from Tampa - her slides are here). I also attended a great session by Shannon McLintock Miller (@shannonmmiller from Denver) who presented powerful stories about student voice. A great reminder about the purpose of our efforts, and a topic that I value (see my Hybrid Pedagogy article on student empowerment).

A slide from Shannon McLintock Miller's Presentation

That evening, we held a sweltering (the AC was broken!) list of 15 fantastic Ignite presentations sponsored by ManACE. Photos of the event can be seen on the ManACE instagram account - what an evening of inspiring stories, all of the spotlight speakers volunteered to present - and the evening finished with the conference keynote, Kath Cassidy, giving another great presentation. The plan is to put up the audio of the presentations via ManACE.

Darren's "The Fourth Screen"

The next day, I attended 2 sessions before I had to head off. Both addressed the important topic of digital citizenship, although with very different approaches. My friend Darren (@dkuropatwa) presented powerful stories for teaching digital citizenship - he included asides explaining his approach - which is very positive - and showed us many resources. I hope to have Darren come to my institution to present to faculty and students alike. The next session was by another friend, Dr. Rennie Redekopp (@rredekopp), Rennie took a more critical approach - that to be citizens we need to consider issues such as the environment, sustainability, energy use, and manufacturing in relation to digital products (see his links here). Together, these approaches offered important resources and food for thought for thinking and operating in a digital world.

All in all, it was a very good conference - so many good sessions to choose from, I know I missed some other great ones. I learned much and gathered up ideas/resources to incorporate into my own courses for aspiring teachers. It also provided an opportunity to connect with friends and to meet new ones.

One final note, a shoutout to the amazing Andy McKiel (@amckiel) - who, as a member of MAETL and ManACE, does incredible work behind the scenes in putting on events in Manitoba for educators!

Gimli Beach

Gimli Pier

Gimli Pier

Awakening Possibilities 2014

Nice posters of sessions
outside each room -
I'm second from bottom.

On April 16 and 17, I was fortunate to attend and present at the Manitoba Teachers' Society's educational technology conference called "Awakening Possibilities". This conference was geared toward K-12 educators, in the past 6 years most of the conferences I attend are usually academic ones or ones with a more mixed audience. I was asked to present on my dissertation research, the organizers wanted some sessions based on research. My slide deck was very similar to the one I used at the National Congress on Rural Education a few weeks earlier - it is embedded in that post, so I won't embed the new one here. It can be found on my slideshare page if interested. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people attending my session, but the topic was about using social media in the classroom - from the teacher's perspective. It went well, I think. Near the beginning I ask "What is social media?" the very definition is a confounding factor in doing research in this area. This led to a good discussion and points made - not all I agreed with, but good none the less. The rest I went through the purpose, findings and some conclusions from my study.

Now - back to the conference. It was one of the best I have attended, I actually wished I was still teaching in K-12 so I could try some of the ideas presented with kids. But alas, I will have to settle for using the ideas and examples presented in my teacher education courses instead. The number of tremendous educators and projects going on in Manitoba (and SK, in the case of Kathy Cassidy) schools is inspiring, it was too bad I had to pick some sessions over others. The tweets were also going fast and furious - which helped get a sense of other sessions going on. The keynotes, opening by Steve Dembo and closing by Chris Lehman were excellent, as were the IGNITE sessions held in the evening. Many of those were by students, all so intelligent, funny, & inspiring. Some photos and video clips from the conference can be found on the MTS Facebook page.

Kudos to the organizers and MTS for putting on this excellent conference!

I created a Storify of as many tweets in the hashtag as I could capture (unfortunately it quit working on me, I don't know if there is a limit or what - it was my first use of Storify - so please forgive me). It is here;

SocMed13

(this post also appears on the blog ICTology)

Last month (May 3-5), my colleague, Dr. Jackie Kirk and I attended the first annual Social Media: Implications for the University conference held at York University in Toronto. The conference was not large, however it was amazing in the diversity of presentations and fairly unique in the format. The presentations covered areas of administration and recruiting, research on using social media for a variety of purposes in the university, and a few sessions offering a critical look as well. The format was unique in that each day had a keynote address of about an hour in duration, and sessions were about 20 minutes with 10 minutes or so for questions and discussion. This kept the presentations moving and concise and interesting discussion. The other interesting piece of the format was that there were no concurrent sessions, ALL participants sat in and listened to all presentations. Ths worked very well, in my opinion, since I heard several sessions that I might not have chosen to go to, yet was glad that I did indeed hear them. This gave a broader perspective of the use of social media in areas such as recruitment & retention, sociology, drama, archaeology, and more. It also allowed for the participants and presenters to get to know one another. I made several contacts, interestingly, by conversing on the twitter backchannel then having lunch together! I came away with some new insights and ideas and was able to make some great new friends and contacts as a result. I commend the organizers, Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano and Jana Vizmuller-Zocco of York U., for their hard work on a successful conference.

For our part, Jackie & I presented on "Student Engagement Using Social Media in Teacher Education". The slides we used are below, we took a contextual and story based approach, and I believe our session was well received based on the comments and discussion afterwards. Oh ... the other great thing about the conference was that the weather was beautiful, a big difference form the continuing snow and cold weather in Manitoba!

Beautiful day on York campus

Talking about our plane's problems :(

The other fun note was that on the flight home - which was delayed due to plane troubles and needing to disembark and get another plane (not the fun part!), Jackie and I were surrounded by about 15 grade sixers from Newfoundland heading to a town near Winnipeg for an exchange. Many people might not enjoy that - but they kept us smiling with their chatter and exclamations as the plane bumped about due to turbulence on the landing. We hope they had a great trip and that their teacher kept his sanity :-)




Our slides:

Reflections on the 17th National Congress on Rural Education

This past week I attended (and presented) at the 17th National Congress on Rural Education in Canada, held in Saskatoon, SK March 25-27. This is the second year I have attended and presented at this conference. It is an interesting one since the audience is very different than other conferences I attend. Attendees include many school trustees and superintendents in addition to school administrators, teachers and post-secondary educators. This gives the conference a different flavour than others.

I presented, with a colleague during the last slot of the day, it was surprisingly well attended, and we engaged in a great conversation with the attendees. That is all I will say about it, on to other parts of the congress.

The conference started off with an impassioned keynote by Craig Kielburger, who, when he was only 12 years old, co-founded the Free the Children foundation. He shared powerful stories and told us about the work of this foundation, including the popular Me to We Day events (one of which was held in Winnipeg last November). The major theme of Craig's keynote was that even one person can be an agent of change and can make a difference.

Alan November giving Keynote

The Monday morning keynote was Alan November, who I have heard present on three previous occasions, and I have enjoyed every one of them. His message was excellent, and he handled a few technical glitches without problem. Alan's main message was that technology itself will not make a difference in learning. As much research has shown, using technology bolted on to traditional pedagogy does not work. There must be a change in process to make a difference. Another message is one that I firmly believe, that learning is social, we need to let students talk and discuss. November used many examples to illustrate his points. One was the wonderful work of Kathy Cassidy(@kathycassidy) from Moose Jaw - someone he called one of his heroes. I must say I have often used Kathy's blog as an example for my students. Another example was my good friend, Darren Kuropatwa, (@dkuropatwa) from Winnipeg. His work with daily scribes in his (former) high school math courses was the example Alan used. The audience was asked to consider a few questions, including; who should own learning? and who should be working the hardest in the classroom? The obvious answer for both, of course, is the student, yet how often is it true? One line I liked was when he said that lesson plans should be tossed. Many would disagree with that, but I am not one of them. While I would agree planning and a direction is necessary, I would also say that a lesson plan can lead to a lack of flexibility, a rigidity that shows that the teacher owns the learning - not the students. November used the example of the flipped classroom that is the rage - while I am not a big fan - especially as set out by the Khan Academy (watching his poorly made video lectures - they are still lectures - rote, algorithmic learning), the idea can be useful if used wisely. November made other great points and had many examples to share. All in all a thought provoking and interesting keynote.

I attended two other sessions of note. Both were from School Divisions sharing their use of technology. (strangely, last year, there were very few sessions addressing technology, this year there were several). In the first, a group from Peace River S.D. in Alberta talked about how they have engaged the community in obtaining online feedback. It was great to hear that students are encouraged to bring their own devices (at the urging of parents!) and that they do not block social media sites, preferring to teach digital citizenship & literacy rather than blocking! As we see more successful and forward thinking divisions like this, maybe others will see the light (we can only hope). I find it ironic that some school divisions are proud of having a presence on Facebook and Twitter, yet block these sites in their schools. I should note that the presenters consisted of the Superintendent and several trustees. These people were genuine in their use of media to share and get input. @misuzb tweeted the following, from a different session, mind you, that summed this up: "When we block the internet, we stop internet literacy and remove critical thinking opportunities for our learners" - nicely said!

The other presentation was a group of tech leaders from Good Spirit S.D. in Eastern Saskatchewan (Yorkton area). They showed us how they have engaged technology to be virtually paperless. This ranged from a number of administrative applications to professional learning for teachers to the many innovative uses of hardware and software tools in the classroom. They illustrated with many student created examples. This use of technology also included the use of a wide range of 'web 2.0' tools. Exciting work.

Finally, in addition to spending time with a few colleagues from BU, I met some other great people as well. Included in that number were Shelley Wright (@wrightsroom) and Cori Saas (@corisaas), both from Prairie South S.D. in Saskatchewan (Moose Jaw & area). These two educators are doing amazing work and were looking after the 'geeksquad' - student journalists from several schools in that division who interviewed, taped and reported on (via their blog) the various events at the Congress.

My colleague and I left to make the long drive home and missed the last half day, but the tweets from the event (#rced17) indicated that there were more good sessions. All in all, it was an interesting conference - besides it gave the chance to enjoy some of the best pizza anywhere at the restaurant in the Radisson Hotel :-)

Sunrise in Saskatoon

ICEL 2011: Reflections

On June 27-28 I attended the 6th Annual International Conference on E-Learning (ICEL), along with a friend/colleague with whom I collaborate on various projects. The conference was held at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Okanogan campus in Kelwona. First off, the campus is beautiful - as you can see from the photos below. You can see our poster & handout by visiting this other blog. (this post is cross-posted there as well)

flying over mountains.

Conference opens

UBC, Kelowna Campus

on campus

Some reflections:

                                                   

Walking up/down hills

View from my room in res.

Walking up and down hills certainly uses muscle not used on the flat prairie, my calf muscles were sore, but it was good exercise!


 Posters
At first, my colleague and I were not sure to attend to present a poster, kind of like 'second place', however, we decided to do it. Making and presenting a poster was new for both of us (I did do one for a course in my Ph.D. program, so it wasn't completely new for me). Well, I am glad we did this. The posters were up through the first day, then in the morning of the second we stood at the posters and  we conversed with many people - one on one. In this way we could answer the questions the person had, discuss areas they found of interest. I would certainly do another poster. We made great contacts, including a possible future collaboration with some people from the UK. We also found that the keynote speaker, Susan Crichton, was very interested in our work. All in all, great conversations. As a bonus, our presentation was chosen as the 'best poster presentation' - not sure what that really means, but it is nice to have your peers think highly of your work.

International! 
This conference is called 'international', and it certainly is. I would guess that at least half of the delegates were from outside Canada and the U.S.. In all 37 countries were represented.It is fascinating to meet and hear about what is going on in so many areas of the world.


 Connections!

from the Eldorado Restaurant

I met so many great, smart and nice people. Several are now twitter &/or LinkedIn friends. I have already exchanged emails with a few. This connecting was probably the highlight for me. On the second day, a person we met who taught at Kelowna took Glenn and I on a quick winery tour, we visited 2 wineries, tasted some fine wine, and we each bought a few bottles to take home! The school bus trip into Kelowna to the restaurant on the lake, the conversation and fun during the meal, and the wine/beer with conversation out in the beautiful night air in Kelowna when we returned to the residence was fantastic. I met people from all over, but especially enjoyed new friends and acquaintances from elsewhere in Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Scotland, U.K.

Powerpoint
What can I say, people try, there were some very well done presentations, but powerpoint is still not always used very well! That aside, there were many good presentations and posters. As I said earlier, it is neat to hear what is going on elsewhere. It is also interesting to know that issues and innovations here are also often innovations or issues elsewhere, the infrastructure, language and customs may differ, but we are all part of this Earth and have more in common than we have differences.

Leaving Kelowna

Final words
This conference was not at the best time for me, I am currently writing my Ph.D. candidacy exam, however, the few days off (I did take and do some reading!) was worth it, for the connections made and the knowledge and ideas gained.