school2.0

I have been working on a couple new documents that make sense for the development of pedagogy and the future of education. You can find the links to them at the k12online conference: http://k12online.wm.edu/AuthenticLearning.pdf http://k12online.wm.edu/101Resources.pdf

This new possibility (which is now kind of old) is a total reversal of some of the things that I have consistently talked about and advocated for. This only comes about because of a great contact I have made with the principal of our online school (eDCSD). The possibility is this: Starting from a place of amazing technology and bringing in education rather than starting from a traditional school and trying to shove technology into it. What do you think about it

Sometimes we get so caught up in creating the system and the environment for learning that we forget about the most important element of that environment: creation. The singular act of creation is not something to be glazed over; it is the backbone of all that we do, and sometimes we need people to remind us of this.

I am now convinced that the only way to create widespread change within our schools is to articulate a singular vision for the future of education. I don't know if I am the person to articulate that vision yet, but I am working toward it.

This podcast is all about how I am starting my year. I would love to know how you are starting your year and how we can collaborate (share) any of the resources and systems that we have set up. Send me an e-mail at benwilkoff@gmail.com

This is the first podcast in over a month because I needed to upgrade for more storage space. It is not an enhanced podcast, but I'm sure it will be illuminating nonetheless. I was trying to figure out which content management system to use for The Academy of Discovery. I am still not sure if I picked the best one, but I am pretty confident that we are doing some great things. Check it out at http://academyofdiscovery.com.

I don't know when it happened, but I have started using the word "we" in my podcast and blog when I would normally use the word "I." I believe that it is due to my increased awareness and involvement of the community that I have surrounded myself with. I also think that many more of "us" should start using "we" when "we" write and speak. It makes me feel like I am a part of something, that "we" are going in a particular direction. I want "us" to be aware of how amazing "our" community can become, so long as we don't fall into some of the pitfalls that I describe in the podcast. Let me know what you think of this idea at benwilkoff@gmail.com.The image for this podcast is by http://flickr.com/photos/factoids/. I think it is amazing. 00:00:00: Intro to I vs. We Podcast Blog 00:02:00: Shoutout to Geeked! Geeked! Podcast 00:02:59: The Difference between I and We Image Attribution 00:04:51: I have a community! Edubloggerworld, my community? 00:07:28: The Coallition of We Support Blogging 00:08:12: Chris Lehmann's Addition Humility 00:08:47: The Moment of Switch-Over 00:10:54: The 1:1 We connection Ripe Environment: Connection 00:14:02: Conclusion to I vs. We My Blog

Well, this is the official podcast about my interview with Littleton Public Schools. Although I was passionate and had a great experience in the interview, I was not offered the job. That made my decision to leave the classroom much easier. I still think that this podcast is relevant to anyone else who is thinking about leaving the classroom. I also outline the idea that passion and vision are the two elements that will allow you to progress professionally and personally. I think that I will continue to explore these ideas in the classroom next year, and I am extatic that I will have one more year to impliment all of the ideas from this podcast into my practice. Show Notes: 00:00:00: Intro To Interview at LPS The Most Change for The Most Students 00:01:51: The Ripe Environment The First Blog Post 00:03:09: Why do I want to work here? My Google Document 00:06:38: The Post-Interview Reflection My Blog

This podcast is pretty heavy: I was in Osawatomie, KS for the 4th of July. It flooded earlier in the week, and my sister-in-law lost her car and her apartment due to this natural disaster. This event really got me thinking about how we can use the technology that our schools provide (especially in 1:1 programs) in order to create social networks for a community. I hope that we can start putting together ideas like Steve Hargadon's Public Web Stations (link below) in non-crisis times. If you have any ideas about how to do this, please shoot me an e-mail at benwilkoff@gmail.com I am also interested in knowing if you would rather I don't include links and pictures with my podcast, but rather simply upload the mp3 file. If you have an opinion either way, please post a comment on this podcast. Show Notes: 00:00:00: Intro to Osawatomie Flooding Pictures 00:02:12: Supporting the people of Osawatomie News Article and Support Links 00:03:02: The 1:1 Social Network The Osawatomie 1:1 Initiative 00:06:24: The New School Community Center 00:07:51: Steve Hargadon's Public Web Stations Public Web Stations 00:09:53: Bridging Social Networks and Analog Communities 00:12:15: How do we use tech in our schools to benefit the community? My Blog

It is with some hesitation that I post this podcast. I am a teacher, and I will always be a teacher. However, I have been given the opportunity to do more. I have been recruited (although not formally given the position) for a Technology Integration Position in a nearby school district. This podcast is all about coming to terms with the idea of leaving the classroom so that I might create change and achieve School 2.0 in a larger way. At this point, I am very much interested in following my passion for finding solutions, and if this job provides solutions for more teachers and more students and also for my family, I don't know that I can do anything other than pursue it. I am, however, still looking for others who have either made this transition or who have rejected it in favor of the classroom. Please e-mail me at benwilkoff@gmail.com if you have any questions or ideas. Show Notes: 00:00:00: Intro to the Great Transition The Podcast Blog 00:00:58: Karl Fisch put me up to it. The Fischbowl 00:01:59: Why is the first wave leaving the classroom? Slow Motion Distributed Car Wreck 00:05:28: The Long Haul Teachers Cool Cat Teacher 00:07:15: What Should School 2.0 Leadership Look Like? Leadership Development for Educational Technology Leaders 00:09:27: What happens to the classroom I leave behind? My classroom Website 00:10:51: Other Factors My Daughter's blog 00:11:55: The most change for the most kids My Blog

The more that I think about doing something "different" in my classroom, the more that I feel that process should be transparent. Not just for my students and their parents, but also for my administrators. Principals, Assistant Principals, and even Super-Intendants should be aware that there is change happening in the classroom. They should also want that change to occur, meaning that they should actively support it. But the only way that this is going to happen is if we start advocating for it. br> So, this podcast is all about how we should be writing our own job descriptions for the jobs that we dream about doing as teachers and presenting them to our administrators. I think that if we take this proactive approach, many will listen and start to think differently about what should be going on in the classroom. br> Show Notes: br> 00:00:00: Intro to my busy life 00:00:35: Academy of Discovery Search for Funding Academy of Discovery 00:01:01: The Bridge Project The Bridge Project Wiki 00:02:20: My brief brush with the law while recording Littleton Police 00:03:04: Education Transformation's First Podcast Education Transformation Blog 00:04:21: Maintaining My Blog Discourse about Discourse: The Blog 00:05:18: Cresthill's Language Arts Department The LA Cresthill Collaboration Wiki 00:06:37: Collaboration at home or abroad Paul Allison's Blog 00:09:14: Teacher 2.0 Job Description My Blog Post 00:11:56: Teacher Advocates 00:13:31: Creating Change Where I Am 00:15:48: Transparency at the teacher level 00:16:52: School 2.0 Duties 00:18:30: Static vs. Dynamic Teaching Jobs Paul's Metablog 00:20:28: Conclusion to Creating the New Definition Podcast Page

Feedback continues to be something that requires a lot of thought to do right. I want to provide my students with as much timely feedback as possible, but I don't want to have to resort to the methods of printing out blog posts and putting paper sticky notes on them. In this podcast I explore the possibility of giving student feedback using web annotation tools. If anyone has any good ideas for tools like this (other than diigo) please e-mail them to benjamin.wilkoff@dcsdk12.org 00:00:00: Intro to Feedback The Podcast Blog 00:01:33: Feedback Methods 00:02:56: Revision-based Writing 00:06:03: Collaborative Tools for the Individual 00:07:21: Virtual Stick Notes 00:08:55: The Outsourcing of Grading Steve Hargadon's Blog 00:11:51: Looking for the Tool and Conclusion My Blog

This is the first podcast that I have done on my new MacBook and I was used GarageBand rather than ChapterToolMe in order to create the chapters. I have, as of yet, not been able to find a way of exporting the chapters and links into html using GarageBand, so you will have to download the show in order to get the links. If anyone has a way of doing this, I would love to hear about it. As for the episode itself, I have been hoping for a very long time that my students are learning everything that I want them to. I want them to come back to me after years of amazing creation and show me just how much influence they have derived from my class. I do not expect to change each of my students, but I do believe that many of my students see value in the School 2.0 environment that we are trying to create. The three things that I want them to be known for and to come back and tell me all about are Authenticity, Analysis, and Passion. If they have those three things down, there is no telling what they can do. http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2006/08/did-you-know.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/httpwww.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/ http://discovery0607.wikispaces.com/The+Weekly+Authentic http://discovery0607.wikispaces.com/message/list/reflections http://headrush.typepad.com/ http://yongesonne.edublogs.org

Well, I guess it was bound to happen sometime, but I really didn't expect it to happen this soon. We have received funding for our School 2.0 within a school idea, The Academy of Discovery. So, what do we do now? How do we continue to articulate the vision in the face of overwhelming support. Adversity I can handle, but what do we do now that everyone is behind us, just waiting to see how we can pull this off. It leaves me very excited to have the freedom of collaboration and experimentation within my community, but it also leaves me scared for blank page that we have been given to write on. I just hope all of our posturing and framing doesn't signify nothing. Show Notes: 00:00:00: Introduction to Successful Proposal The Academy of Discovery 00:02:00: What happens if you get what you want? 00:03:05: Framing School 2.0 for Success Inquiring Minds Want To Know 00:04:03: Starting a new School The Science Leadership Academy 00:07:24: Overwhelming Support 00:09:13: Gcast Example Gcast 00:12:10: A Voice of Vision, A Voice of Change 00:15:12: Remote Access Challenge Remote Access 00:16:57: Conclusion to the Vision Podcast Blog

One of my students came up with an amazing metaphor for how intellectual property should work in the classroom and in greater society. She described the idea that remixing should be like cake making. You buy all of the ingredients and then can prepare any kind of cake you like. Once you have the cake, however, you can't un-remix it and get back to the sugar and flour. You can also borrow sugar from a neighbor, but generally you give them credit when you are serving your delicious cake. I hope that this podcast outlines such a metaphor a little bit better, but I think that this is the metaphor for creating connections that I was looking for a few podcasts back. If you like this podcast, I recommend the Great Remix Debate. You can also digg this podcast at http://digg.com/podcasts/Discourse_about_Discourse_Educasts_by_Ben_Wilkoff 00:00:00: Introduction to Carcast Podcast Blog 00:01:11: The Great Remix Debate Recap The Great Remix Debate Podcast 00:01:55: The Cake Metaphor Rockinwithacdc12's Blog 00:04:32: The Classroom Remix 00:08:06: A Standard for Classroom Creation 00:09:41: Conclusion My Blog

In creating a wiki for my vision of School 2.0 within a school, I have found that there is quite a bit of research out there supporting 1:1 computing, constructivist teaching practice, and engaging technology usage in the classroom. What is even more amazing is that I didn't know that this research existed because it has been so universally ignored by much of the proponents of this kind of reform. We must have this kind of research on the tips of our tongues, and we must be ready to spout off both the anecdotal evidence and the numbers to anyone who wants to know more about where education is going. We must also create our own research from our own classrooms. This podcast describes three different ways of achieving this goal: 1. A malleable research model that can assess new types of technology as it becomes available. 2. Survey and reflection of what is working in our classrooms. 3. Comparisons of certifications of mastery. Show notes: 00:00:00: CSAP and the Academy of Discovery The Academy of Discovery 00:02:25: The Research Rockman Et Al 00:05:53: Is technology realization too new? Google Documents Research... 00:07:44: Informal Research Paul Allison's Gcast 00:10:52: Proficiency and Mastery Geek!Ed! 00:13:59: Wrap-Up My Blog

This podcast was brought about because of the classroom discussion that my eighth graders had about what a terrible affect Myspace can have on their lives. I wanted to start brainstorming a school-sponsored space that we could substitute for Myspace that would be an extension of the classroom. This space would have the ability to connect students over academic interests as well as personal interests. It would allow for photo sharing and digital storytelling within these photos. Primarily, however, this space would allow students to comment on everything. Each element of the space (a module) would have a feedback form, so students would get comments about their school notes, their podcasts, their blog posts, their beliefs, and their photos. I can't think of anything that would engage students more than being able to get specific feedback on all of the important aspects of their lives, and to do it all in an environment that wouldn't allow the inflammatory remarks that are a systematic part of Myspace. Let me know what you think of this idea and its feasibility at benjamin.wilkoff@dcsdk12.org or http://yongesonne.edublogs.org

Convincing parents that the skills of School 2.0 are important is going to be one of the biggest jobs facing all teaching in the very near future. I have outlined in this podcast three possible ways of accomplishing this goal: 1. Student exemplars of continual advancement. 2. Constant communication and reflection on learning between parents and teachers, students and teachers, and parents and students. 3. Parent and Student testimonials of engagement and achievement. My hope is that by identifying the things that are the most convincing to parents, we can create a compelling argument for technological school reform.