Celebrate creativity and innovation at NYSCATE

The New York state educational technology conference, NYSCATE (Nov. 22-24) always has a top lineup of speakers and keynotes. This year is no exception. The featured keynote is Sir Ken Robinson, a world-renowned advocate for creativity and innovation in learning.

I’ll be there as well, participating in the Constructivist Celebration, two sessions, and a panel. My Monday session is on teacher professional development in a “technology ecology,“ and on Tuesday the topic is games in education. The panel will tackle an intriguing question – What does it mean to be literate in the 21st century (and what does Web 2.0 have to do with it?)

In a special Sunday session, we will explore the second year outcomes of the NYSSTL program (New York State Student Technology Leaders). In more than 30 middle schools in New York, this innovative model for student-centered technology is showing that students can be 21st century leaders. The session will showcase video by two teachers who are working side by side with these student leaders.

Continuing in the creativity theme, if you are anywhere near Rochester on Sunday, Nov. 22 — don’t miss the Constructivist Celebration @ NYSCATE — it’s back and better than ever! Gary Stager and award-winning children’s book author Peter Reynolds will host a full-day workshop at the Strong National Museum of Play. This is the perfect place to explore creative, playful, constructivist learning with computers. The $100 registration fee includes lunch, creativity software from your favorite companies, and new this year, a free TechYES Mini-kit. TechYES is our middle school project-based technology literacy certification program. This is hundreds of dollars worth of the best creativity software and tools PLUS a great day of tinkering with technology.

And a note for you Stager fans, this will be your only opportunity to hear the always entertaining and thought-provoking Gary at this year’s NYSCATE.

The theme of creativity resonates strongly throughout NYSCATE, and the best way to encourage creativity is to allow (and teach) children to be creative problem-solvers in their own lives, both personal and academic. At Generation YES, we are sure there is no better way than to invite students to become leaders and allies in the effort to improve education with new technology.

As you can tell, I’m excited! NYSCATE is one of my favorite education technology conferences of the year and I can’t wait. If you’d like to hear more about what’s going on there, or meet me at NYSCATE, I’ll be there Sunday –Tuesday (Nov. 22 – 24).

Sylvia

It’s Take Your Students To Conferences Month!

OK, not really. I just made that up.

But this is the time of year that many educational conferences ask for educators to submit ideas and proposals for sessions at state and regional conferences to be held next spring.

Going to conferences is a great professional development experience for educators. But why bring students?

Reason #1 – It’s good for the students. Students presenting and sharing their work is a great learning experience. Expanding the audience beyond their own teacher or parents can spur students to reflect on the needs of their audience, be a little more serious about their role, and put more energy into practicing and performing.

Reason #2 – It’s about walking the talk. If you are considering presenting a session where you talk about what your students do, how empowering that is, and the benefits of this, wouldn’t it be that much better if actual students were there to drive that message home?

Reason #3 – It’s about building your classroom learning community. Working with students on something that’s a stretch for you creates mutual respect, shared commitment, and purpose — all hallmarks of a vibrant learning community. You should see these attributes seep back into the classroom in unexpected ways.

If any of this sounds enticing to you, I hope you will download this PDF called, Sharing Student Voice: Students Presenting at Conferences. It includes:

  • Top Ten Tips for Student Presenters
  • Balancing the needs of the audience with the needs of students
  • Research on student voice, 21st Century skills and student empowerment
  • How to plan and submit sessions with student presenters
  • Maintaining student ownership and authentic student voice
  • Logistics tips for bigger conferences and exhibit halls
  • The crucial role of the teacher as part of the presentation

You’ll notice that this is not all happy talk about how precious the little darlings are and every word out of their mouths is a pearl of wisdom. It’s never fair to inflict amateurish, unfocused presentations on an audience not composed of adoring parents. Honoring student voice is a two-way commitment, and both sides have to contribute their best.

I hope you get something out of the article, Sharing Student Voice: Students Presenting at Conferences. And if you have some great student presentation advice, add comments below!

Sylvia

Does peer review work? Thoughts on conference session selection.

So here’s something interesting from my inbox!

Only 8% members of the Scientific Research Society agreed that “peer review works well as it is.” (Chubin and Hackett, 1990; p.192).

“A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision and an analysis of the peer review system substantiate complaints about this fundamental aspect of scientific research.” (Horrobin, 2001).

Horrobin concludes that peer review “is a non-validated charade whose processes generate results little better than does chance.” (Horrobin, 2001). This has been statistically proven and reported by an increasing number of journal editors. (full text and references)

I got this email from the International Symposium on Peer Reviewing: ISPR being organized in the context of The 3rd International Conference on Knowledge Generation, Communication and Management: KGCM 2009, which will be held on July 10-13, 2009, in Orlando, Florida, USA.

I assume that I got on their mailing list because of my post from almost a year ago, Conference 2.0 – changing how sessions are selected. In that post, I mentioned the KGCM conference and how these experts are investigating how people learn at conferences and are questioning how conference sessions are selected.

In the past year, I’ve read many blogs wondering about conference sessions and the selection process. Many use a form of “peer review”, meaning that people who are presumably peers of the paper author or conference session presenter rate the submission and determine whether or not it gets selected. Academic journals use peer review as a means to claim that their articles are superior to those found in lay magazines, books, or other sources. And many conferences use this same technique to select sessions, whether or not there are academic proceedings that result from the conference.

So this research not only calls into question the methodology of selecting conference sessions, it questions that whole academic tradition of journals representing the highest level of publishing and “truth” about current research in any field. They find that the principle of peer review is well-regarded, but that the methodology and implementation is flawed. Doesn’t that sound familiar…

If peer review is a flawed process, what does that say about conference session selection? You have to ask yourself, would a completely open selection process, where everything is out in the open be more in keeping with the principle of fairness and making sure best practices and research are shared to benefit all?

Would an open selection process for conference presentations be more or less prone to favoritism, self-promotion, populism, and cronyism than the current process? Is that just throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

If you are interested in joining a conversation about improving conferences, check out this social network created by the Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education (AACE) — Spaces of Interaction. They are having an online conversation Feb 18-20 with interactive live sessions.

And by the way, what does this say about school librarians who insist that students use only peer-reviewed journal articles for their research. Do they have a leg to stand on anymore?

Sylvia

Back to New York and NYSCATE

Well, it seems like I just got home from the east coast, and I’m off again!

This time I’m headed for the New York State education technology conference NYSCATE in Rochester, NY November 23-25, 2008. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones, most likely at Dinosaur BBQ.

If you are going to NYSCATE, be sure to check out these sessions:

NYSSTL –Technology Leadership for the 21st Century
Sunday, 1:45PM Stacy Ward
Learn how the HFM and WSWHE BOCES have created the New York State Student Technology Leaders (NYSSTL) Club in 30 middle schools. Students help their teachers learn to use technology and their classmates prove their tech literacy, creating a community of 21st century learning in our schools.

Where Teachers Learn, Where Teachers Teach
Monday, 10:45AM Sylvia Martinez
For many teachers, technology professional development happens outside the classroom and never crosses the doorstep into the classroom. This session will explore two models of professional development that cross that barrier: classroom embedded and student-led professional development.

Little Green Monsters: The XO and Its Implication For Education
Tuesday 10:30AM Brian C. Smith, Sylvia Martinez, Dr. Gary Stager
The XO low cost laptop was designed to revolutionize education in the developing world. The panel will discuss the lessons we can gain from this learning initiative and the implications for the future of education. We will also explore why such a simple idea has created such controversy.

By the way, I’m happy to have someone record, live blog, or ustream my sessions IF you can come and do it. It’s just too hard to do it AND present.

After that, it’s back to New York City for a family/friends Thanksgiving, and then some workshops in Brooklyn. More about that later!

Sylvia

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The people in the room are the right people

Last week I was the closing keynote at NEIT 2008, the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) Education and Information Technology conference. It was an “unconference” and used a structure called “Open Space” to plan and manage the meetings. Other than the two keynote “anchors”, there were no planned sessions.

Open Space Technology is “a simple way to run productive meetings, for five to 2000+ people, and a powerful way to lead any kind of organization, in everyday practice and extraordinary change.”

At NAIS 2008, I found it very successful, and at the same time, a powerful metaphor for learning.

At the beginning of the conference, everyone is free to step up and propose any session they want. Not just ones they want to present, but anything they want to know more about. And then as these suggestions begin to fill the slots, more ideas come forward. After a few sessions, you have another meeting and fill more slots, propose more ideas. (More about how this works)

When it started, it seemed like there were way too many open spots and not enough ideas. People worried that voting would help sort out what to do, that their ideas wouldn’t be popular, that they would miss things, or that we would run out of ideas. But as we heard the Open Space Four Principles and One Law it started to make more sense:

Four Principles

  • Whoever comes is the right people
  • Whenever it starts is the right time
  • Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
  • When it’s over, it’s over

The one law is The Law of Two Feet, meaning, if you want to be somewhere else, do it – just don’t waste the time.

How it worked
Sure enough, most sessions had enough people. Part of the success was due to the facility having many small rooms, enough to accommodate all the proposed sessions. Some had projectors, some didn’t but it all worked out. When we re-gathered for the next planning sessions, people were energized, more sessions were proposed, people decided to continue or repeat a session, and slowly the open slots were filled

I’ve been to other unconferences, and this one was different. Because there was no voting, there was no competitive element and no hidden message that only the most popular ideas or people are important. While I understand that often the physical space is a limitation, I think there must be ways to acknowledge that everyone can contribute.

As I went to various sessions, people were passionate and focused. It’s the first conference in years where I went to every session and wished there were more. Lots of people said the same thing. You know when you go to a conference and the best part is the conversation in the hall? This was all hall.

The kids in the room are the right kids
But really, isn’t this what we hope for classrooms, especially project-based learning environments? Sometimes it’s hard to explain project-based learning. It’s hard to convince others that it actually works, because it’s hard to “see” the learning when the teaching is not continuous direct instruction. You have to trust the process, design situations that will engage students, and then give students time to become immersed in them. You have to trust the students and allow them to take risks, make mistakes, overcome frustrations and work through momentary distractions. You have to believe that your kids are the right kids, that you are the right teacher, and that when it all works, it will be magic.

I took a risk too, I didn’t prepare my keynote presentation until the night before. I felt I wanted to honor the process and trust that the experience of the conference would provide support for my topic of leadership vision to action, especially student leadership. And it did. I liked what I came up with, and the audience seemed to as well. It was videotaped, but apparently only the audio worked. Oh well!

I knew I wasn’t going THAT far out on a limb; I have enough videos and examples that I can pull together fairly quickly. But the theme of trusting the process and the participants ended up providing the perfect context.

Your kids are the right kids, you are the right teacher, and now is the right time. Trust them, trust yourself, trust the process. Now let’s get busy.