Blog Action Day - Poverty

I have been very fortunate in my life, not just because I have never known what it is like to feel impoverished, but also because I wasn't raised in ignorance of it. One of the greatest skills I was ever taught from my school, church, and family was having empathy, not pity, for others. Charity, and not just in the form of "things", was important and still is an important part of my life.

However, as empathetic and understanding as I may think I am, nothing would prepare me for what I would learn from being a student teacher in an impoverished area of the state. Now my student teaching experience wasn't exactly "optimum," but I was teaching Principles of Technology to 7th & 8th graders. This is technically a Vocational Ed class, and a redesign of "Woodshop." It was a hard group, but slowly I began to reach them. The best thing I ever did was agree to help coach the girl's softball team. As an avid player, this was an easy decision, but what I didn't realize was how it would make me connect with my students more than anything. Few parents could make it to the games, since they were right after school, and we had a special activity bus to take all the kids home after games.

My parents has always been so supportive of my after school activities. I can hardly remember a home game that was not attended by some member of my family. I felt so bad for my players, that their families couldn't come see them. I had one player in particular that took it hard, and one day missed the bus to take her home. So I broke the rules and drove her home in my car. Little was I prepared for her neighborhood or her home. She had to hurry in to make dinner for her 9 brothers and sisters, and didn't invite me in.

But I learned something that day. Not to pity her because of her surroundings, but to celebrate her for persevering. That she could be happy and find joy. That was eye opening for me. There are a few students and experiences I will never forget, and I will forever be grateful about what she taught me about enjoying life.

Team Presenting

I did a 1:1 Workshop the other week with the wonderful Joselyn Todd. It reminded me of how much I enjoy presenting with other people, not only the presentation part, but the planning part. It has always helped me to be able to talk items over with others to help me synthesize what I am trying to get across. (I used to joke that reason I asked so many questions in class was because I wanted to have a 1-on-1 conversation with them rather than a lecture).

I recently came across this when working on troubleshooting an issue with a colleague of mine at CALS (College of Agriculture & Life Sciences). We were able to work out the problem by thinking it out together, and it was much more fun than frustrating.

I feel sometimes this burden to be the one that comes up with everything, that has to be the inspiration and the fixer of technology. It can be a bit lonely, and as much as my Twitter friends help, it was nice to do some in-person collaboration.

I guess it goes goes to show that authentic, project-based learning environments are good for everybody!

Voices of NC

http://www.voicesofnc.org/

One of the great things about my job is the diversity of professors I work with. There are some new kids on the block (they've been here for like 2 years now, but I still see them as new :). that are doing some fascinating things.

The most rewarding thing I can ever do is introduce someone to a tool and just have them go with it. It is amazing to me what they will come back with and how far they have grown past what I can teach them. Now these two guys I could never assume to teach them anything, but they collaborate with me and I just learn so much. OK, so now I'm gushing, but I want to share this incredible project they are working on.

Voices of NC is a project that is focused on understanding a sense of community and place with our surroundings. It has many strands, from language and dialect, to community and diversity. I had the opportunity to work with this group last year on doing podcasting and it amazes me where they have gone with it.

They key to all of this I think is how stellar their web presence is. They are not only doing exceptional work - they are sharing it! The teacher generated projects there, but also the curricular materials generated by the faculty.

I can't say enough good things about this project. It was great to be a small part of it and I hope they continue to do more!

My goal is to make me be NOT needed

My husband may die a small death when he realizes this is my goal - but it is. I want my teachers to not NEED me anymore. My goal is to teach them how to find tools, assess their validity and make them work in their classroom. I could never (and don't want to) try and teach them every tool that exists - I want to give them the skills to find the tool for themselves.

I've been asked a good deal lately to define what it is I do. Not because they don't believe in what I do (so I'm not out of a job yet :) but because they are actually considering cloning me. Seriously, we are looking at another Instructional Technologist (do not send me resumes - you know how this works - it will probably never happen). It still amazes me how people in education (and we have a degree program in IT) have no idea what an Instructional Technologist does or is supposed to do.

However, in deconstructing my job, I have discovered that the most important thing I do really has nothing to do with technology per se. People feel comfortable coming to me and discussing what they are doing. My job is primarily to listen and bring the right tool sets to the table. Yes, I may do training and develop workshops, but when it comes to what makes me valuable - it is my ability to connect the right people together.

So maybe I'm not out of job after all :)

Does Generation Matter?

Kids these days.... The Generation Gap.....Gen X, Gen Y, Baby Boomers and Millenials. Are we defined by our generation? Yes & No. An article in Radar magazine has me thinking about the disconnect between generations, and how that influences the teaching of those that come after us.

We make broad generalizations about those from different generations. Baby Boomers spoil their kids, Gen Xers are anti-authoritarian and Gen Yers or Millenials are just plain lazy (they are of course the children of Baby Boomers. We know these are not true fo everyone, yet we still generalize most of our students when it comes to technology. We ASSUME that students know all about computers because they grew up with them. We ASSUME they know more than we do about how they work and how to fix them. We ASSUME that because they play video games, or IM others that they can use a computer. We never step back and think - can they really?

Now I grew up on the tail end of Generation X. Yes I had my Doc Martens and anything by Pearl Jam or Nirvana was my theme song. I dressed in plaid with the best of them and "My So Called Life" was my calling. I also was fortunate enough to have wonderful parents (my mother acquiesced to my plaid by buying matching t-shirts and socks) and my father a self-professed computer nerd had me programming BASIC in 2nd grade on our Apple IIc (which I still own). I grew up with computers and they grew up with me. I watched them evolve from Command line prompts to Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. I saw disks get smaller and smaller and eventually change from square to circular.

Now is this generational? Yes and No. Watching the evolution of a product can be integral to understanding it. But it was INTEREST that kept me connected. Without the influence of my father or the "need" to upgrade my hard drive, I would have lived in happy oblivion. There are many people of my generation that were still using type writers for papers in college.

In the smae household as myself is my "little brother" (I call him little because although he is 8 years my junior he is half a foot taller), grew up in the Gen Y/Millenial Generation. Being born in 1984, the year my family bought our first computer he was completely immersed in computer culture. By the time I went to college and he was in middle school - point and click was all he knew. Yet, I get calls a 11pm at night from him grief stricken because his computer has completely gone blank and the blue screen of death has appeared in the middle of his term paper. He is a very very smart individual, but he has no desire to understand why or how his computer works - he just wants it to work. Is that generational? Is he lazy?

I think the answer comes down to interest. There are 70-year-olds that can program the pants off an 18 year-old hacker. Most of the IT teachers I know just picked computers up. I think we need to get away from the concept of digital immigrants and digital natives and more to the idea that there are those that are intrigued and comfortable with technology and others that don't care how it happens - they just want it to work.

Big crowds intimidate me!

Technorati Tags: professional development education alternativelisensure ncteach

After I got home from NCaect, I began finishing up my final preparations for my NC Teach Super Saturday presentation on Integrating Technology. NC Teach is an alternative licensure program that at NC State is hosted in regional cohorts and the entire group comes together once a month for Super Saturday.

They plan their events about a year in advance, and I have to admit that it kind of crept up on me. Then to find out it was not only 120 people (ack!) but was entirely lecture based AND for 6 hours!!!! I was incredibly intimidated by this prospect. However, After I got my lesson plans together, I was fairly confident (or as confident as I get).

Let me tell you, it has been a long time since I have been with a "random" group of teachers. Now I work with a good amount of teachers, but most of them come to me and are already interested in technology. They have opted to hear me speak - these students on the other hand are REQUIRED to attend. I forget how much this changes the dynamic of the class, add to this that 30 counties were represented with varying degrees of technology prowess it was overwhelming at times.

However, I found a few things that really worked well. I used Turning Point Clickers (Thankfully CALS had 100 I could borrow) and that helped (once I got them working) to gauge the audience and assess where they were in the technology integration process. I used the PowerPoint Integration part, but wish I had used the Turning Point software throught the day so I could just get random questions answered.

The other thing that really saved my sanity was the teachers that were already doing technology integration. It is so important that these alternative lisensure see THEIR peers integrate technology well. That they were dealing with all the same obstacles and overcoming them. It was pretty powerful.

At the end of the day, trying to teach something as vague as "Technology Integration" was just as hard as I thought it would be in a one day workshop format. But I'm not giving up - I have some great ideas for next year :)

Gateway Technology Center

Technorati Tags: ncsu distanceed videoconf

On Friday of last week I was asked to present at the Gateway Technology Center in Rocky Mount, NC about the technology tools we use in Distance Ed @ NC State. Friday was bit of a whirl for me since Evan was sick (and little did I know that I was on my way to being sick as well). But I finally made it up to their facility. Wow, was I impressed. Not only is the building nice, it is functional and professional, the people were very gracious as well. I love the idea of the Gateway Center - two colleges in the UNCGA system, NCSU & ECU have created this place to serve the underrepresented areas of the state, in this case the North East. As landgrant institutions it is important that we give back to our state. It is easy for us to help thos in our backyard, but the NE areas of our state are not surrounded by a large institution.

So the Gateway Center can act as a satellite location to help facilitate our work with this area. In this case we were showcasing the use of "cohort based distance ed" by the Two plus Two program of the College of Engineering. This program facilitates students taking two years of community college courses and then transferring to NCSU for their last two years (no comment on actually finishing in 4 years :) . They have placed instructors at specific community college locations to facilitate video conferencing between the remote site and on campus. This way they can start taking NCSU classes before they transfer to on-campus.

We were able to illustrate the use of high end video conferencing through Polycoms, as well as using Elluminate for presentations and whiteboarding. These are all synchronous learning tools that are integral to the cohort based distance ed model.

VoiceThread in Elementary School

Technorati Tags: education voicethread digitalstorytelling

I am working again with students in our elementary teaching program on creating a VoiceThread. They will be creating them for an Oral History Project for their class. I have bookmarked some of the VoiceThreads I will be showing to the class on del.icio.us and hope to continually add to this group. I have also created a wiki page to go along with the workshop.

So far I found some really great example VoiceThreads:

5th Grade Federal Holiday Proposals

Kindergarden Sponge Activity

Civil War - Carolina's Campaign (Middle School)

North Carolina & Kuwait - students learn culture through pictures

I'll also be talking to them about blogging and our new CED Video Server. I'll follow up on not only the class, but also what other topics I end up covering.

The Economist Debate

I just recently came across The Economist Debates about Education, thanks to Ewan McIntosh's blog - he is a "formal debater" for one of the articles. I am a big fan of The Economist and am impressed with this venture into combining online polls, fact-finding, and blogging in a familiar term of "Debate."

One of the previously debated questions catches my eye,

The house REJECTED the proposition that "The continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education."

Proposition: 46%
Opposition: 54%

First and foremost the "Harvard Model Congress (Class of '94, '95) Member" in me - gets all excited about the debate format. But Secondly, I am impressed with the way the question is phrased. They do not question technology itself, but new technology. The use of technology for its own sake is ill advised, but the concept of new technology being automatically bad disturbs me. I would also be concerned about the term of new technology in education. What is New to me may be Old to someone else. Considering the budgetary cycle of education, implementing new technology is not as "lightening fast" as it may be made out to be. Overall, I am pleased that the proposition was opposed, but it is still by a close margin.

Point of Personal Privilege (I used to love yelling out that one!)

The Current Proposition is: Social Networking: does it bring positive change to education?

Ewan McIntosh heads the Proposition and I agree with him in that Social Networking is not just MySpace, it is not Facebook - it is the online network we create for ourselves. The concept of Personal Learning Networks is growing, and how you may not realize you have a social network - but the blogs you check, the IMs you send and the e-mails you recieve all create a social network and connection of friends that you may have never met in real life.

The concept that Social Networking is bringing a positive Change strikes me as odd. Social Networking exists and is being brought into education by our students. Are cell phones negative in the classroom? Some would say Yes. Are laptops negative? Is the Internet? The answer to these questions all depends on the context and the way it is used in the classroom. Social Networks, in whatever form they take - are only positive when facilitated correctly.

I am looking forward to the debate....

Why did I become a Teacher?

After my last post, I've been thinking about my journey as a teacher. I find that when I meet someone new, they ask me what I do, and then subsequently how did I get there. I guess I always was a teacher, I just never realized it.

Growing up I had always been the babysitter for the neighborhood. My little brother is 8 years my junior and I was a built-in babysitter for my parents, and it just expanded. I ended up being a Basketball coach, a Baseball Coach, a Soccer Coach and a Den Sister at the age 0f 16. I loved working with the 1st graders, when sport is just so much fun! Then, as part of my high school community service I taught Sunday School for 2 years. Yet, I still couldn't see that I was a teacher or that I had a knack for it - I just enjoyed it.

Then when college came (see previous post for engineering reference)I still couldn't see it - until I started teaching E115, an undergraduate run 1 hour Intro to the computing system at State. I loved teaching that class, and thought - maybe this is what I should do.

Then, my Dad gave me a book called, "Please Understand Me," Which I now know is basically an interpretation of Myers Briggs, and discovered that my "Personality Type" was pre-disposed to like teaching. So I investigated a bit more and found the College of Education at NC State (my current employer - but more on that later).

It was there that I found how to cultivate what I was doing unconsciously, into what I would like to consider a worthwhile career. But I didn't take the traditional road - Heck - I'm still not on it.

When it comes down to it there are 2 reason's I'm a teacher 1)I found a great place to start and get excited about education & 2)I had the opportunity to work with students and enjoyed it so much - I wanted to see that "A-ha" moment on their faces. I wanted them to get it. No matter how young or old my students are, that is what drives me. To help someone else understand a concept, and most of the time teach me a new way to think about it in the process. It is not about imparting knowledge, for me it is about understanding and interpreting it.

Ok - so obviously expository writing is not my forte - more nuts and blots posts to follow :)

Finding Your Way

I was so fortunate (really - I was) to grow up with parents and family that I have (although if the 16 year-old could hear me now - she would like totally wretch). I was always a very "goal-oriented" student (i.e.driven). I wanted to do well and please others. (still do) But my parents were the ones that encouraged me and pushed me in the right direction. There was nothing that they didn't think I was capable of. I mean, I helped start the Computer Club in 3rd grade and still played sport.

Anyways, when it came to deciding, "What I want to be when I grow Up?" My parents pushed me in the direction of Engineering, due to my interest in computers and building things. So I came to NC State like many freshman in the College of Engineering. I'm not sure how I got lost in it all, but I did. Maybe I wasn't capable, maybe I wasn't interested, or maybe I just plain got lost. But I found myself in Education. I didn't intend to end up there, but somehow I discovered my (which I dare to say) talent of teaching.

It is hard to work on this campus and walk by so many memories on a daily basis of an institution that transformed me into what I am today. Yet, I don't regret where I started or where I ended up, nor do I wish I hadn't been pushed.

I truly feel blessed in many aspects of my life, and if I were to hazard a guess - I think I'm in the place I'm supposed to be. As others, including my brother, lose their way in the vastness of university life I hope I provide some solace in finding your way.

VoiceThread & Community Walk Example Lessons

My final project in my 21st Century Skills class was to update the current way a lesson or topic is taught in the classroom to meet the guidelines set forth by the 21st Cent Skills Iniative. I decided to use two of my favorite new tools, VoiceThread and CommunityWalk, in conjunction with one of my favorite subjects, The Civil War in NC (Thank You Again Dr. Candy Beal for inspiring me about my local history).

I created a wikipage to act as a launch point and have included rubrics and storyboards. I'd love to get some feedback, please take a look!

http://bethanyvsmith.pbwiki.com/civilwar

Edublog Awards

I am always impressed by the quality of winners from the Edublog Awards, and this year is no exception. Some of these I have heard of, others I have not. I look forward to exploring them all more!

Best educational use of a virtual world
Suffern middle school in Second Life (Second Life)

Best educational use of a social networking service
Classroom 2.0, Steve Hargadon (Ning)

Best educational wiki
Welker’s Wikinomics, Jason Welker (Wetpaint)

Best educational use of video / visual
RBG Street Scholars Think Tank Multi-Media E-Zine, Marc Imhotep Cray (Blogger)

Best educational use of audio
SMARTBoard Lessons Podcast (Wordpress)

Best elearning / corporate education blog
eLearning Technology, Tony Karrer (Blogger)

Best educational tech support blog
El tinglado, Josa Cuerva Moreno

Best librarian / library blog
A Library By Any Other Name, Vaughn Branom (Blogger)

Best teacher blog
The tempered radical, Bill Ferriter (Typepad)

Most influential blog post
Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? - The Fischbowl, Karl Fisch (Blogger)

Best resource sharing blog
TipLine - Gates’ Computer Tips, Jim Gates (Blogger)

Best new blog
dy/dan, Dan Myer (Wordpress)

Best group blog
Techlearning blog

Best individual blog
ScienceRoll, Berci Meskó, Hungary (Wordpress)

Cyber Safety

I had a conversation with my younger brother - who is considered a Millenial or Next-Gen (i.e. He is in college and is under 25 years old) about Facebook. He was discovering that some of the high school students he was working with had found his facebook profile. He was lamenting this fact because he had to take down "inappropriate pictures." And that the "wrong people" were finding his profile. He was like, "Why would other people look for me?" When I explained that his students could probably find them somewhere - even after he had taken them down. He was astonished. The following videos illustrate this point:





Thanks to Wes Fryer for posting these the other day - as well as drawing attention to his PD videos page - hawesome!

The face of our students

I know that this video has been circulating for awhile - I just haven't had a chance to really comment about it. My first reaction is - How cool! To get students in a college classroom to not only gain some insight about themselves, to use the Read/Write Web (Google Docs) to do it, and then use video to share it with the world. This is a powerful and engaging message that as teachers, we need to recognize where our students are coming and growing from - otherwise we will lose them.

Online Learning Conference

I had one of the best conversations surrounding education last Monday. In the midst of everything I was doing - I took some time Monday morning to watch David Warlick's Pre-Conference Keynote and participate in an online chat that spanned timezones and continents. Some of my favorite bloggers were participating at the same time I was, Julie Lindsay and Jeff Utech amoung them. David has recently posted the chat, along with his comments.

Here are some excerpts, that I hope to elaborate on later (David's comments are in italics):

Bethany Smith (NC) • 2007-10-08 09:02:39
i vote for looking at products not tests

Hmmmm! Test kids, not on what they've learned, but what they can do with it.

EYH - Expanding Your Horizons

I am fortunate enough to be on the Steering Committee for Expanding Your Horizons, and excellent program for middle school girls in science. Here is the official announcement!

Seventh grade teachers and career counselors, mark your calendar! The Sixteenth Annual EYH Career Conference for 7th grade girls is scheduled on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008. The purpose of the conference is to expose middle grade girls to science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. The conference is hosted by The Science at North Carolina State University.

Registration for schools will open on Monday, December 3, 2007 and close on Monday, January 14th, 2008. For more information about the conference, contact pamela_gilchrist@ncsu.edu.

21st Century Learning

How do you define 21st Century Learning? Is it the content? Is it the tools? Is it how you deliver content? Does the room matter? Is it virtual? I find the idea of defining 21st Cent Skills odd in some ways, and difficult in others. We can't predict the future, and in our current society, technology and lives change at an exponential rate compared to the last century. So how do you build skills for the future? You add flexibility, yet set ambigious guidelines that allow for the ebb and flow of change. But how do you set standards that encompass 21st Century Skills? How can you categorize something that is so hard to nail down? We currently live in a EOG & Standards based world - and that isn't about to change anytime soon.

So when I look at the 21st Century Skills Initiative - that NC is apart of - I'm not surprised to see that this is an initiative driven by businesses and industry. Maybe this is where the flexibility we need to define skills - by business needs and the funding to make it possible can come together. Maybe....

Web 2.0 - DELTA Presentation

I am at a Web 2.0 presentation by Scott Watkins & Charlie Morris for Delta. Moblogged...

Educause article by Bryan Alexander
Horizon report - describe new technologies and their effect on education
O'Reilly Web 2.0 - 2005
127 mill citations of Web 2.0 in 2007

What does Web 2.0 mean? Convenient label - Read/Write Label
The Machine is Us/ing Us - Youtube Video

Principals & Practices:
User participation - not just consumption of information

4 Key ingredients
1) The Web as a platform (we no longer need an OS)
Timeline from MIT SIMILE & Exhibit
2) Harnessing Collective Intelligence
3) Syndication of Content - RSS, Trackback
NCSU - BLERN
Google Reader
Common Craft - Social Design for the Web
4) Tagging "folksonomy" vs. taxonomy - the crowd vs. the info specialist
del.icio.us - Tag cloud
Get your own tag cloud

Web 2.0 Examples
Flickr, youtube, elgg,
2007 Web 2.0 Awards
Dr. Greenlaw

Girls in STEM - Keynote

Keynote - Dr. Jamila Simpson - moblogged
We have come quite some way, but we have a long way to go
Born to a Social Worker and a community college counselor
Her mother had dreams of being and engineer and told that was a man's field
They encouraged her so she would not have regrets
Building with legos and said - You can be an architect or an engineer
In 2nd grade I decided I wanted to be a meterologist
Overheard a conversation about tornados
Checked out every book on tornado they could find
Wanted to be a "tornadologist"
Her parents always encouraged her
But School Curriculum was an issue
From a rural area without the opportunities - her passion was never covered in school
Not many organizations available to change that
Coursework - being put on the wrong path - Tracking
When she looked at NC State's requirements she would not have enough Math
Her parents pushed the school to take 2 math classes at the same time
Her school did not think she could do it
What happens when you don't have advocates?
First African American female to graduate with a BS in Meterology in 2000
Saw teaching as a way to help kids - to advocate for them. That science is accessible to them.