Two For Tuesday

Every Tuesday during the school year I try to share two links that I think might be helpful to educators and students. Last year, I created a separate blog to share the links. This year, I've decided to move these links to this blog.

Here are two interesting links to start off the school year.

1. Yolink - Search more efficiently and effectively
Yolink searches your searches, shows you where your search terms appear in your search results and gives you the context for those results. Download the Firefox add-on and improve your search results today!

2. Sign Up Genius - Manage your sign up lists Online
You can organize your team, event, dinner or party with this free invitation service. It includes templates to help you create your invite and automatic email reminders to keep everyone organized.

Just Blog It!

I have been so lame about blogging, that I just got off the couch and decided to write something, anything just to get myself going again. Here are a few things that are going on with me these days.

1. School just started and I am once again teaching digital journalism. So far it is going well (we've only had two classes). Two new things I'm doing - starting each class with 8 minutes of writing and planning to do more actual journalism (not just learning about it, but doing it).

2. I'm heading to Shanghai on Sept 11th for a week to facilitate a strand of the Learning 2.01o conference. My cohort will be looking at social media in education. I'm really looking forward to it, but I'm also a little nervous. I'm really not a world traveler. I've never been to Asia. This should be a really interesting and challenging experience.

3. I was recently elected to the MassCUE board. The annual conference is fast approaching and I'm looking forward to attending with a different perspective. I'm also looking forward to being a part of this organization.

OK - It isn't a fancy post. No images or big messages, but at least I got something out there.

It is great to be in a profession that offers so many fresh starts. May we all have one this year!

10 Tips for Managing Information Overload

Yesterday at the BLC conference I presented on how to manage information overload. Together we looked at the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment for this all to prevalent problem. Here is a list of 10 things you can do to keep your Online life under control.
1. Have compassion for yourself - We are all works in progress, don't be too hard on yourself if you don't know everything. No one can know everything. It is OK Not to know.

2. Measure - There are many tools that you can use to measure your use computer use. They run in the background and will give you data on the sites you visit, the applications you use and how much time you spend on each tool.

3. Set goals - Before you open up a browser consider what you are hoping to accomplish.

4. Triage - Filter on the way in, not on the way out. Look through your email and create filters so that not everything comes in to your inbox. For example, if you are CCd on an email you probably don't have to look at it immediately. Filter those messages into a separate file to look at later. Also check out Howard Rheingold's resources on mindful infotention.

5. Ask a Librarian - Don't overlook the human resources in your own building.

6. Don't check email until lunch - If you are the fastest responder to a problem, you will get all the problems. If you wait to respond, they may figure out their own answers.

7. Be effective, not just efficient - Being efficient is doing things right, being effective is doing the right things. Make sure you are doing the right things right.

8. Use a productivity tool - Applications like Evernote and Remember the Milk can help you to keep track of all your tasks and information. You can learn about other productivity tools here.

9. Mark as read - Don't be afraid to go through your reader and mark everything as read. Start fresh. If it is important it will come back up to the top.

10. Take time outs - Explore the Pomodoro technique which suggests you use a timer and set it for 25 minutes of work time and then take a 5 minute break. And, during the work time you keep track of your distractions and take a look at when they occur and what they are.
Do you have a good strategy for managing your information overload? Have you tried something on this list that has worked for you? Please leave a comment and share it with us.

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelmarlatt/3150759027/

Full Brain after First Day at BLC 2010

I have had a great first day of the Building Learning Communities conference, but my brain is full. The day started with an interesting keynote by Mitch Resnick, the inventor of Scratch. I do a lot with Scratch at my school and it was wonderful to see all of the projects that students are doing with the Scratch software. Mitch pointed out that good technology should have a low floor, so that it is easy to get started with, a high ceiling, so that students can take it far, and a wide walls, so that students can follow their own interests. Scratch certainly has that and I think it is a great rubric for evaluating any software.

In my second session I was not the smartest person in the room with Dean Shareski. School is no longer the primary place for learning. He asked the great question, what does it mean to be a life long learner? How do we move past an educational model that is tethered in time and place. Students have already moved there, when will schools follow?

In Jeff Utecht's session on Blended Learning, he showed us how his school is using blogs as online portfolios of their work over their entire school career. He suggests finding a container that works for you, whether it be a blog, a wiki or a ning, and using that to hold student work. He also encouraged us to be connectors for our students to use our own networks to help network our students and expose their work to a wider audience.

Finally, I learned about different iPad apps at Seth Bowers's session. He showed us too many to talk about, but he nicely posted a list here.

If you aren't at the conference, you can follow a lot of what is going on by searching #blc10 on Twitter or checking out the delicious bookmarks tagged BLC10. If you are here, I hope you will leave a comment and or a link and share some of the highlights of your first day!

An Interview with Steve Hargadon about the Early Days of Classroom 2.0

If you read my blog, you know that I recently wrote a paper on the early days of Classroom 2.0. In March of this year, Steve Hargadon, founder of Classroom 2.0, was kind enough chat with me about the topic. Our conversation lasted more than an hour. I've edited his thoughts down to just a few minutes and have posted them below. If you scroll down you can also see the transcript for this video. Enjoy!

Video Transcript - Steve Hargadon reflects on the early days of Classroom 2.0:

I bet in the beginning it was the conversations. Maybe a combination of the conversations and the other members who were already there. Part of it was the network being public and open so you could see without being required to join. You could see who was there and what they were doing. And you didn’t have to join, but it let you see what was taking place. Maybe that was a little bit of an inducement overall and more of a positive. The conversations were really interesting. The threaded forum discussion allowed for conversations to take place that weren’t really fully taking place on blogs. It was a better version of listservs. And I think that was really the magic for Ning. If Ning hadn’t had forum discussions it wouldn’t have been anywhere near what it is because then all of the sudden there were these really interesting discussions that were taking place with lots of people where everyone could participate. And my guess is that that was pretty attractive. You didn’t have to start a blog, but you could actually come in and be part of the conversation. I think the network really benefited from not having any kind of commercial association. Like Wikipedia it was a place you could trust. There wasn’t an overt agenda. It was an experiment in communicating and connecting.

I spent a lot of time sort of tweaking classroom 2.0, phrases, changing it from “friends” to “colleagues.” My guess is that you accumulate enough of those changes and it does make a difference. I had actually been a tour guide for 5 years and so I had some sense of group dynamics. I had to figure out how to manage expectations, help people act thoughtfully to each other. I’ve thought personally that there is that sense of nuance to what’s really going on that helps distinguish a network’s creator/moderator who is able to manage the personality of the network. After you have worked a certain amount of time with a community and there is an established tenor or voice or sense of character to a network, that I didn’t have to be as overseeing. If you go into Classroom 2.0 it tends to be a very friendly discussion. And I think that is because that became the character of the place and people knew it so they supported it.

It was really hard for me to transition from what I felt was being the heart of the network to just being the guy who keeps it going. And now with 40,000 people I’m just shepherding a network now, not a community. This is a network. But to me the power, the backstory there is the power in the tools to communicate outside of traditional power structures and I’m really fascinated by that. These kinds of networks are creating very fertile ground for a grassroots revolution in education.

The value of Classroom 2.0 has shifted to being an example site or a launching place. It needs to be a tool set that early adopters can come in and play with. It can give them something back. They can get some visibility, notoriety. They can get some strokes back. As long as it is a place where a beginner can come and sign up and actually see that there is value in social networking in education, then classroom 2.0 has done its job.

Edubloggercon East and BLC 2010!

Lisa Thumann and I will once again be facilitating Edubloggercon East at BLC on Monday, July 12, 2010 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Tower, Boston, MA from 9am - 5pm. Come all day, or any part of it! It is absolutely FREE (thanks to the generosity of Alan November!). Please add yourself to the I'm Attending Page if you will be joining us!

At the first annual EduBloggerCon in Atlanta on June 23, 2007 it was suggested that regional EduBloggerCon events be held to expand participation. In that spirit, the Third annual EduBloggerCon "East" is being planned just prior to, the Building Learning Communities Conference (BLC10) in Boston, MA.

The 2010 BLC conference runs from Wednesday, July 14th through Friday, July 16th in Boston, MA. The conference is held in downtown Boston and is sure to be another exciting and inspiring learning experience. Lisa and I will be presenting, along with many other great educational leaders.

EduBloggerCon is based on the idea of an "unconference," and is being organized by the participants in real time on this wiki. Another way to describe this event is as a "collaborative conference," where the conference attendees help to build and create the experience. Different than the inaugural event in Atlanta, we've not actually scheduled any sessions yet, and we're going to do so together as a group at the start of the day--based on the submissions of sessions that attendees have indicated they are willing to facilitate or would like to learn about.

Last year's unconference was a wonderful learning experience attended by educators from all over the country. I hope to see you this July in Boston. It really is a great time!

Missing You!

poulingail @lizbdavis Hello Liz You've been pretty quiet and I love following you We want more! Blog it, tweet it, whatever! 9:25 AM Apr 20th via web


This tweet from @poulingail brought home to me how disconnected I have been for the last month. Thanks so much Gail for noticing! Unfortunately, it is probably going to continue for a little longer. But it sure is nice to know I've been missed.

Here's what I've been up to:

• Teaching a new "Digital Journalism" course to seniors in the spring.

• Taking a class at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

• Adopting a 9 month old Havanese puppy named Tommy.

• Taking care of my kids, Ben and Abby, and my husband Rob.

• Working with my faculty to integrate technology.

• Playing with my new iPad and exploring possibilities for use in the classroom

• Coaching the middle school crew team.

• Rowing.

Life feels pretty crazy right now. I am still reading blogs and Tweets, I just haven't been participating in the conversation lately. I am listening and hope to jump back in soon. I miss my Online PLN.

Sometimes real life takes over...

My Family:

Our new puppy Tommy: