#bbw12 Day 2: Discovering You are the Red-headed Stepchild + keynote coverage and some not-quite-so-public info

So, this is the day that I was conflicted about with regards to Blackboard World, attending, applying to be an official Blogger (they liked the olive sauce post by the way -- and it was worth it! yummy!). Today was the big keynote with cool announcements and features that Blackboard wants shouted from the rooftops...and while I will be doing some shouting...even some positive shouting :), I want to put this in context:

We are not Blackboard Learn users. We use the newly acquired Blackboard Engage (formerly Edline). Jen and I were asked to come present our use of the LMS within our 1:1 BYOT system. We presented yesterday and it seemed successful...great audience and questions. We even got to make a short promo video for Blackboard, although without the Android w/ a surfboard, it will pale in comparison to the latest Jen&JD Show. We have also worked with some great people MoodleRooms (another Blackboard acquisition) and some great people from Blackboard as we put together the school's new technology plan.

We like Blackboard...but we also like the free and open internet.
We understand the need for an LMS and the potential it has to shape things...but we hate lock-in

...and so with that, my view from the blogger's table:

The keynote begins with an impressive look at the world of Blackboard. I smile when I see the 20,000+ schools under the Blackboard Engage umbrella -- we were a great acquisition for the company which had not been able to make real in-roads into the k-12 market. I am excited to hear how Engage will become a part of the Blackboard community as a whole.

The presentation kicks off with a "I am a digital native" animation that puts some of the youtube infographs to shame in terms of production quality. It  does reinforce the idea that #digitalnative is synonymous with #digitalcitizen and the back channel picked up on that and grumbled a little bit. It's interesting, because based on other RTs and reactions, some people were eating it up. I am not sure if this is due to conflicting idea, differing experiences, or an evolutionary opinion that develops over time.

They come out of the gate with the big announcement. It is called ProjectXP (visions of decades old operating systems cross anyone else's mind? maybe the guys at Moodlerooms who helped work on some of this are big Dungeons&Dragons fans). Its Goal: to integrate the learning communities of 25,000+ campuses, enabling them to share resources, ideas, and connections in a way that is integrated with the LMS...whichever LMS you are using. Now that is ambitious!

The first part of this is to be called xpLore and we got to see the demo from the keynote. Using a search bar, the user can search for keywords and then use some pretty powerful filtering to narrow down by grade, by course, by state or common core standards,  etc. until the right lesson shows up. If that lesson is in the form of a learning object (cute term) such as a quiz, interactive handout, worksheet or the like, it can be imported to the teacher's courseware with a few clicks (I think I counted three).

The Jen&JD Show, Episode 3: We're on Location! (Cajun Style) #bbw12

We're back!

After three weeks apart, you knew that this video podcast was going to be the one rocked the world and took it to new heights. And if you didn't know that, it's ok...you can still jump on the bandwagon now and no one will be the wiser.

Live...then recorded...then edited from New Orleans and Blackboard World, get Jen and JD's take on some of their summer travels and the first Blackboard Keynote. Want to know more about Blackboard? keep following JD's blog, he is doing the daily update thing, although at a slower pace than #iste12

Without further ado...

#bbw12 Day1b: Social Media, Data, and Inspiration

(haven't read day 1a yet? you missed some great pictures of food and @40ishoracle...as well as a review of the Future of Interactive Learning Presentation...)

Harnessing the Power of Social Media with @NMHS_Principal

Talk about a change...this session is what keynotes should be: focused on education, challenging and inspiring, with real-world examples and a smattering of sappy inspirational videos.

The lead in was a challenge: 

It is a problem that those who are tasked with leading our schools, with developing 21st century skills are sometimes the least knowledgeable. While a few schools are reinventing themselves for the digital age, most are not.

We want our teachers to be adapters, communicators, learners, visionaries, leaders, models, collaborators, and risk-takers. -- whew. When you look at that list, it is overwhelming. But imagine if we created a system where the teachers who left the profession left because they did not fit that model, not because they were drained from 45 days of examinations per year or because their checklist evaluations combined with a metric of student-value-add indicated that they were only so-so. Its a stretch goal, but its achievable.

How do we start? We start by getting teachers to share their visions...by getting teachers to converse with others...by using social media.

Interesting point: Education is changing (collaborative, student centered), the landscape is changing (content overload, distributed learning opportunities, free sources), the learners are changing (connected, social learners, gamers, tech-as-default) -- but education keeps looking the same.

He preached the #digcit mantra and talked about PLNs

He showed the social media revolution YouTube video:

Ultimately, he gave six basic reasons why social media must be considered by schools:

• Communications - the quick way to get information out to many audiences
• Public Relations - totally controlled, always good news, easy pickup for media outlets
• Branding - Who we are is clear and photos and blogs give examples of the good
• Professional Growth - Hashtag chats anyone?
• Student Engagement - meeting them where they are. showing respect for their mode gives them the opportunity to reciprocate
• Opportunity - as a result of the PR, the branding, the new ideas and new systems, Vendors and companies and alumni gave the students MORE opportunities -- to test equipment, visit new places, converse with experts in a variety of fields.

...and it only cost time.

Reflection: I have been a big fan of @nmhs_principal on twitter and was happy to find him passionate, engaging, inspiring, and approachable. Why this person did not keynote the lackluster mainfloor shows at #iste12 is beyond me. We need real, passionate, actual administrators in our schools.

#bbw12 Day 1 (part a): In the future, #iceiscold + Sightseeing

Woke up after an intense first half-day of Blackboard World. This may be a pattern given that I started #iste12 blogging the same way, but I think I might line-by-line the day and see if anything pops out for anyone. If you want expansion, are here and would like to add, or see something wrong, please feel free to comment below.

Monday Night: DevCon Party
We crashed. It was so classic as they searched for our names on a list and we laid down the "but we know a guy line". I felt like I was in a bad 80s moving trying to get into the club with all the cool kids. Yeah, I said it, at Blackboard World, the developer's are the new kids.

He who controls the camera...
Expect a lot of @40ishoracle pix

• I met the new CTO of Edline Blackboard Engage, he has been in the position about 3 mos. The @40ishoracle and he talked Apple interface issues and dreamed of JD taking attendance on the chromebook.
• I had a lovely conversation with a lady dressed right out of the SCA who turns out to be so high up in the Blackboard echelon that her title is almost as obscure as when I was dubbed "Director of Strategery" -- that may have been her title, actually.
• We played wall flowers while our friend @phjmille was dragged onto the dancefloor by a sultry vampire, a scruffy werewolf, and Jake from the Blues Brothers. 
• Highlight of the evening was when the amazing band solo'd through each instrument on "So you say it's your birthday" in celebration of Heather who made the most of the spotlight.

(and now you know what happens when geeks get down - jealous yet?)

Tuesday - Before the Con:

...and food.

• Wandering the streets of New Orleans in search of beignets (found them along with crawfish omelets and scones)
• Wandered through the rain ("oh, so that's what rain is like" said the drought-stricken midwesterners)
• Registered and with three hours to kill went Catholic Tourist sight seeing.

Interlude: (as if this whole section weren't and interlude)
I love talking to people who make their living on the street and when a shoe-shiner caught my eye, just couldn't resist. Hats off to him, cause he was smooth and knew how to play the game, complete with 10-ccent wisdom, a partner who showed cash from another happy customer, and politeness to Jen. He didn't get $20 dollars off of me for a spitshine, but he did try his best. "The punchline is "you got them ON YOUR FEET"
End Interlude

Breakout Session One: "The Future of Interactive Education"

This was presented by Kate Worlock (awesome name) who works for OUTSELL, a technology number-crunching company. She positioned her talk well at the beginning of the day, laying out trends and themes to keep in mind for the rest of the conference.

While I am a sucker for a british accent, there was a lot of #iceiscold remarks. I guess that the data supports it is interesting:

• We teach in rooms of about 30 students that have very different worldviews and ways of learning
• We should be teaching 21st century skills -- it is no longer about just knowledge transfer (was it ever?)
• We are expected to teach more students, more things, with less money (this is the educaitonal equivalent to walking uphill both ways through snow)
• Education is traditionally a market that is evolutionary, not revolutionary

So, what is the future of education?

View of the #bbw12 blogger table

Nice!

A Blackboard Prelection: Open and Curious - #bbw12 Day 0

PRE-

@40ishoracle and the last journey
of her large  Macbook

I am sitting in an airport in Houston, with about a half-hour before the flight to New Orleans takes off. The @40ishoracle survived leg one on a puddle-jumper express and was able to finish a guest-blog (aside: wow. I am really impressed with gDocs offline mode that was announced at Google I/O -- there is a decent feature set offline and the sync when back on the ground was seamless).

 One of the context setting activities we do in Jesuit Schools is called the Prelection. While they take a variety of forms, the prelection helps set tone and context for the experiences that are to come. It is a way to begin to access prior knowledge, think about the tools that one brings to the task ahead, and generally get "ready", whatever that means.

As I gear up for Blackboard world, I feel the need to clear my mental palatte, in part because I am heading to this conference with little preconceived notion or expectation. At #iste12 I wanted to share our BYOT experience and learn more about the others (some success but a lot of fear), I wanted to learn how people were coping with my personal obsession, #digcit, and the changing ways that our students are learning in light of so much information and so little content (some really cool risk-takers that are more scared of test-culture than students), and I wanted to meet some of my friends from Twitter and the blogosphere (hit and miss...problem with being a watcher by nature).

 As I move into this new event after a hectic week of preparing our new network for a 1:1 BYOT rollout, upgrading teacher computers with an eye toward giving them the same type of choice that we give our student-users, and gearing up for a week of Cajun and Creole (win!), I feel very...open.

 Blackboard's Self Description:

 It is the once a year event where you can get the answers you need, network with over 2,000 peers, meet experts, explore Blackboard partners, learn about our product roadmap, and have the opportunity to share your ideas on how to shape Blackboard's products and services in the future. As past BbWorld® attendees have said, "there is no better place to discover, share and learn, experience and participate in leveraging Blackboard."

 What I am intrigued by (and hence this sense of non-opinion, which is a little unlike me) is that, while I am very open to learning how to leverage our Blackboard product (the newly re-branded ENGAGE, formerly Edline), I feel that any attempt to put all of our educational eggs in one basket is doomed to frustration (I blogged about this more in-depth here).

I am interested as a consumer in what can Blackboard do for me when I am unwilling to let my teachers be dominated by a single platform if there are other avenues that offer more educational potential. I am interested as an educators in what Blackboard does in the face of tablets, phones, chromebooks, laptops, and e-readers all looking to break out of a platform-specific experience. I am looking forward to meeting people who have both drunk the LMS kool-aid and who have used that to create amazing learning environments for their students.

So, in the best tradition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I am preparing myself mentally for a journey...an experience with no particular goal in mind other to be and interact. Not easy for a type-A geek.

My supplies list:

JD still loves PicSay Pro

• Chromebook (my goto mobile device. 10 hr battery, 8 sec startup, 3g built-in)
• Transformer Prime (with keyboard and fancy leather case. I have found one use-case for this beyond consumption -- I am now maintaining 4 email accts. It is much easier to stay up on notifications, particularly 3 gmails, from a tablet.)
• 2 Kodak Play cameras, a flex tri-pod, lav mics -- Jen and JD will do at least one episode from #bbw12.
• The Android Robot, because it wouldn't be The Jen&JD show without the star.
• #edtech and #edlingo Bingo Prizes for anyone who is brave enough to call out bingo in the middle of a session.
• My GalaxyNote and Bluetooth
• The paperback Joshua by Robert Girzone, SJ for those annoying airplane rules
• My Kindle Fire for the Movie&TV app. -- one week before the Nexus 7 goes for a mini-tab displacement.
• Distinctly missing are comicbooks. I loaded a bunch that had free download combo-codes from this week's purchases. I have real concern for the comic-book shop model, but that is a different post entirely.

The plane is boarding. Expect some on the ground updates. Some instagrams of really unhealthy food. At least one video podcast. And some educational insights with a touch of snark -- everything you have come to expect from this blog.

Teaching Discourse within Disagreement - A Quora-inspired blogpost

I am an occasional Quora user. I love the concept of answering a question as fully and accurately as possible and having it crowdsourced for accuracy.It is the next extension of Wikipedia. I also feel guilty that I really only feel qualified to answer questions about Batman, BYOT, and an occasional entry on some aspect of #digcit.


So when is saw this question come across my screen:
How can Obamacare be explained in layman's terms?


I was determined to take a crack at it. I sat down to write and opened up a few screens to fact check and when I was finished, I realized that I had not come even close to answering the question. So I never posted.


This was the first paragraph of what i wrote:

Wow. This might be one of the most challenging questions I have seen recently. Urban Dictionary describes "Layman's Terms" as an attempt to "describe a complex or technical issue using words and terms that the average individual can understand" -- I would add to that dictionary that most people who ask the question are seeking "just the facts" without a particular bias or slant, since they often are looking to draw their own conclusions. And even the term "Obamacare" was, and to many still is, a pejorative term for the Affordable Care Act that was meant to imply, among other things, a) that it was one person's idea and  b) a big brother-esque totalitarian solutions (remember the "death boards"?). 

So I scrapped my attempt to answer the question. But that started one of those thought spirals that brought me back to my "Teach the Controversy" series (Part I, Part II, and the PLN-based Part III). This was made even more poignant by Sunday's Mass and the subsequent discussions that happened (I'll get to that part in a second).


Interlude - A Peek Behind the Curtain
I remember one of the more frustrating moments of my Senior year was receiving an assignment to write a research paper. Attached to the assignment description was a list of verboten topics such as abortion, the death penalty, and passing out condoms in school. There were the usual grumbles but the teacher was adamant that these topics had been written about to death. 


A year later, I had the opportunity to do one of my first observations in teacher-training at that high school. During this one week intensive, I got to look behind the curtain into the mysterious teacher's lounge. In classic fly-on-the-wall mode, I got to hear about a variety of things. I remember my shock that teachers knew exactly what was going on in the back of the debate bus (yikes!) as well as who-was-dating-whom and other top-secret teenage lore.


During one of these discussions, the topic of the research paper topics came up. I listened as I heard teachers extol the policy of limiting topics that would cause the student's to lose focus on correct structure, cause arguments that would never be settled, and force teacher's to tip their hand to their own opinions. Through the conversation, it became clear that for all but a few of the oldest teachers, these topics had not been written about "to death" in class -- they had not been written about at all for years!
End Interlude 


I think that we are beginning to reap the results of this policy...and as educators, I think it falls to us to begin to fix the problem -- one controversy at a time.

Fortnight of Freedom:
A Real World "Teach the Controversy" Application

If you are not Catholic, you may not be aware that we are currently in the middle of a celebration, a movement, a protest called the Fortnight for Freedom. This is the name of a series of articles, speeches, homilies, etc. in protest over the Combination of the Affordable Care Act's demand for insurance coverage of certain routine/preventative/health promoting services and an HHS sub-committee's determination that one of those services in the area of women's health should be contraception. You can read the Kaiser Family Foundation's summary here. Note I did not say its unbiased description -- that is kind of the point I am going to try to make -- While I think the summary is accurate and accounts for arguments on both sides of a controversial topic, that is no longer the measure of "unbiased" in American discourse.


Unbiased, has taken an Orwellian shift to mean its opposite. In order to be considered "unbiased" you must now present information from the political, religious or other perspective of the reader.


I sat in church and listened to the homily of my friend and Priest as he explained that this was not an issue of contraception but was an issue of Religious Freedom. More importantly, it was an issue of religious discrimination, since insular churches (predominantly ministering, educating, helping) people of a single faith could be exempt but churches with outreach (read Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals, among others) could not be exempt. -- In a moment i have since come to regret, I walked out.

• I sat on the steps of the parish with my Transformer Prime and began reading the letter from the Bishop that the priest had been quoting -- it outlined the case for religious discrimination. 
• I went back and read the reaction from Church leader's when the coverage was first announced -- very little about Religious Freedom in that context. The concern then was that Church dollars (in the form of payments to insurers) would be used to fund contraception that is against the tenets of that faith -- good point, thought I. 
• Reading further, I found that there had been a compromise made that would force the insurance companies in these situations to cover the full cost of contraception without payment from the Church or the individual being a factored into the cost model.
• I went back to the Bishop's letter written weeks after this compromise. It clearly talked about the church being forced to "fund and facilitate" contraception. No mention of the policy change. The language was now much more nuanced with the vague "facilitate" taking on strange, non-layman meanings and the term "funding" being applied only under that  "if-we-pay-for-thing-A-then-there-will-be-money-for-someone-else-to-pay-for-thing-B" kind of way.

This was a lot more complicated than the homily made it out to be. The homily was a call to arms, complete with a concluding litany-of-saints invoking images of people being forced to say prayers in homes with darkened curtains and underground Eucharist.

My wife, an OBGYN and much better writer than I am, wrote a letter outlining her reaction to the priest and he asked if we could have dinner. After a wonderful evening with chatting, fellowship, and a good meal, we sat down to discuss.

Let me repeat that last line, it's important: We sat down to discuss.

• We outlined points of view. 
• We repeated what each other said to be sure that we understood it. 
• We spoke with passion about our feelings, but not dismissive of the passionate feelings of others. At one point, my wife was reading the language of the final rule, the priest was reading documents from the Bishops at USCCB.org, and the Google TV, was showing the news articles during the shift in tone from the funding-issue to the religious-freedom issue.

We identified areas of common ground and areas of further discussion. We talked about actions that could be taken to address the larger issue of a corruption of human sexuality. We learned from each other.

In a broader context, we talked about the polarization of politics, religion and society in general. We talked about confirmation bias and echo-chambers, where we dismiss that with which we do not immediately because there are always hundreds of sources that confirm our belief, so how could we be wrong? We talked about raising a generation of children without the ability to see past their own perspective.

Reflection

As educators, we have to embrace the opportunities for controversy. In those moments and those topics lie the opportunity to teach the fundamentals of discourse and persuasion. To teach how to dissect the biases of our own perspective and work with people from differing points of view on finding common ground. 

Gary Stager, at #ISTE12, chastised educators who force students to "make presentations on topics they don't care about to audiences that don't actually exist". We need to listen to this truth. Teach the controversy...better yet, let the students teach the controversy while we guide them on the fundamentals of finding accurate information, deconstructing claims and identifying evidence and flaws in logic, and building consensus with people who did not already agree with us.

Will this increase standardized test scores? Probably, but that's not why we should do it.

• We should do this because it is too easy today to live in an info-laden world where everyone agrees with you.
• We should do this because students need a place and an environment in which they can learn to ask questions, disagree, and change the minds of other while being open to having their own opinion change
• We should do this because it might be the most important 21st century skill.

Let's stop having students write about "safe" topics they don't care about. Let's stop hiding behind a bland vernier of unbiased objectivity that no student believes anyway. 

We have a month left until school begins...let's start changing the world.