This week I had the distinct privilege of presenting two sessions on Communication and Collaboration at District 30 in Illinois with Andy Kohl. Although we had enough material to last us through the day, we tried to cram it all in a 90 minute time slot. Needless to say, we didn’t get to everything.

I think the conversation was outstanding, and I believe we should all take the time to wrestle with these ideas together with other staff members. I’ll share the session notes and presentation here, and please feel free to use anything that will be useful for you. And really, I mean it, go have these conversations with other members of your institution. I think you’ll find it an excellent opportunity for growth and learning for everyone.

Introduce Moodle and backchannel to attendees. Invite them to join in the process, building collaborative notes.

9:30 – 9:50 = Introduce ourselves. Introduce Moodle and Backchannel. Ask teachers to define collaboration. Use Etherpad to have them build this definition together.

9:50 – 10:00 = Review the definition and reflect on the process with them.

- What was different about this experience?
- How could this look different for the classroom?

- Discuss portions of the Panitz article.

Review questions asked in the article.

Students must learn to routinely ask questions such as: “Are we thinking clearly enough? Are we being accurate in what we say? Do we need to be more precise? Are we sticking to the question at issue? Are we dealing with the complexities of the question? Do we need to consider another perspective or point of view? Are our assumptions accurate or are they faulty? Is our purpose fair-minded, or are we only concerned about advancing our own desires? Does our argument seem logical, or is disjointed, lacking cohesion?

In other words, these important standards of thought must be applied to all of the important structures of thought: to its guiding goal or purpose, to the central question, to the information used with respect to the question, to the judgments that are made with the information, to the concepts inherent in the judgments, to the assumptions that underlie the judgments, and to the implications that follow from it.”

10:00 – 10:20 = Roundup of tools which can help provide these learning experiences for kids.

- Moodle
- Wikis + Google Sites
- Google Docs
- Blogging

- Look at the bowdrill video from YouTube. Talk about this as a collaborative experience for this student. Use this as a transition to the topic of communication.

10:20-10:40 = Discuss how communication has both changed and stayed the same.  Show “Can This be His Home.”  Discuss the result of new mediums and the “four resources model”.

10:40 – 11:00 = Time for teachers to work on a lesson example or retool an existing assignment.

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We only got to the point where we showed “Can This be His Home.”  Lots of good stuff in the Four Resource Model.  Maybe we’ll get to it next time.

Thanks to American Backroom for the use of the Flickr image.

Educational technology conferences are strange beasts.  Masses gather to focus and discuss technology, all the while maintaining throughout the discussions that it isn’t about technology.  It creates a rather odd juxtaposition.  I actually really like Ryan Bretag’s statement he made a while back on Twitter that he prefers to go to content-specific conferences rather than technology conferences.  The reason that statement makes so much sense lies in the very nature of what most often transpires at a technology-specific conference.

I attended the Illinois Computer Educators’ conference a few weeks ago, and I was struck by a notable disconnect in almost every session I attended.  In almost every case, the session focused on a tool or on a specific technology devoid of any pedagogy or specific framework of how the said technology impacts a student’s learning experience.  It was quite troubling.  Many highly intelligent people were presenting tools that in essence, became sessions entirely about the tools rather than their implications.  A statement might be made at some point along the way, like, “this is really great for a math class” or perhaps, “you can see how useful this would be in a reading class.”  The problem is, that’s not pedagogy.  It’s not really much of a connection at all, to be honest.  Where’s the needed construct of what makes the technology truly transformative in the learning experience?

If a presenter took the first five minutes of a session to truly frame the discussion and base it entirely on a specific student learning skill, or set of skills, I believe the technology conference experience would be made much more powerful for attending teachers.  As it currently stands, a general classroom teacher enters a sessions, gets bludgeoned by a series of tools or applications, and then is left to leave the session dizzied and potentially disoriented as he or she attempts to draw a correlation between the dazzling tool just demonstrated and the learning experience he or she wants to afford students.  What if a presenter focused at the outset on foundational learning skills?  I don’t mean necessarily specific teaching content like math or social studies, but rather skills we know students need to be engaging in to be successful in life.  What if a presenter started off explaining the power of collaboration and communication in general terms-why those two skills are relevant and meaningful in today’s culture and built upon that foundation to frame the technology entirely within that learning context?  Discussions of pedagogy could then ensue.

For presenters, it would be like lobbing themselves up a nice softball to be hit out of the park from the very outset of the session.  If a presenter jumps out of the gate just swinging the bat, there’s zero change he or she will connect with anything outside of the occasion where the bat slips out of the hands and inadvertently strikes a nearby object.  An analogy that really does bear true in many technology sessions.  If a presenter is simply swinging that bat at the air, the only thing that can be said of him or her would be focused on the swing itself.  If the softball of learning is first lofted up, then it’s the connection that’s made that will be the focus of discussion, or perhaps the obvious lack of connection the swing of the tool makes with the ball of learning  Even if a weak connection is made and the ball is barely dribbled out of the infield, at least the discussion will be focused on where it should be, the connection that the swing makes on the ball.  It’s the whole point of why we learn to swing in the first place-to make contact with a ball and hit it as successfully as possible.

I hope more conference presenters consider this approach as they prepare for upcoming sessions.  Think about how you want your participants leaving your sessions.  Is it about the tool you are presenting or about the learning that ensues when utilizing the tool?  If everything we discussed was framed in the learning context, I believe we would serve the population of conference attendees in a much more powerful manner, and we might just find that we hit home runs with our sessions quite a bit more often.

Thanks to eschipul for the Flickr image.

I believe attending conferences is one of the most dynamic ways for a professional to develop.

I recently attended the IETC conference in Springfield, IL, and I left, as I typically do from such a conference, with the indelible notion that there simply aren’t many better forms of professional development in existence.  I find this of great interest, as typically, many school leaders do not seem to share my sentiment.

Perhaps one of the most oft cited criticisms of a conference by administration is the cost and potential lack of accountability for those in attendance.  As opposed to sending people to conferences, the alternative is typically to bring in an expert to address the entire staff.  Unfortunately, while in theory that allows more people access to the same information, in practice, it tends to be much less effective than planned due to a myriad of distracting issues.  Hopefully, someday soon, people will start making this part of their normal inservice routine to facilitate greater results.  Regardless, there are too many things working against the success of the mass inservice model (sitting everyone in terribly uncomfortable lunch tables or folding chairs, having speakers speak of the importance of allowing student movement and attention breaks while delivering said message in an uninterrupted 3 hour information marathon, really, really bad PowerPoints).

Seven years ago, a friend of mine won the Milken Educator Award.  A few months after he won it, he was being interviewed for a journal, and the interviewer asked her first question.  It was something to the effect of, “What has been the most instrumental factor in making you the excellent teacher you are today?”  His answer came without pause.  “Attending professional conferences.”  My friend said at that point the interviewer smacked the table, turned off the recorder and said, “You know, I’ve now interviewed a number of Milken Award winners.  Every single one had that same answer.”  She went on to elaborate that the reason this bothered her so much was that she used to be a principal, and she refused to send any of her staff members to conferences because she felt it wasn’t a judicious use of time or money.  I think that says it all.

Something significant happens when a person attends a conference.  All the daily noise of the routine gets silenced, and there comes a great sense of focus.  By being away from the classroom for a couple days, and away from the demands of everyday life, a person can truly become immersed in learning more about the profession to which they are so dedicated.  Conversations take place, connections are made, and a great deal of thought is given to what it is that’s happening in their own professional practice.  It’s incredibly refreshing, to be honest.

One interesting movement in the current conference model has taken form the past several years, and that’s the idea of a virtual conference.  The K12 Online Conference is a good example of this.  The idea is to encapsulate all the good that occurs during a conference and make that available to people anywhere at anytime.  I think it’s a noble effort, and I think some very good content has arisen from this idea, but I don’t think it will ever really be what some hope it could be.  While I know there are a great number of people who have gained excellent insight and value from the K12 Online Conference, I know there are a greater number who have never tapped into the potential learning opportunity the online conference presents.  Which is rather unfortunate, because there are some excellent thoughts and ideas coming out of the conference that are not being heard by enough people.  The problem with a conference format like this is that the attendees lack that away from the routine focus that occurs by leaving town and going to an event.  I think it’s a rather difficult sell to get teachers to really buy into the virtual conference idea.  I believe if you’re looking to try it, though, this is an excellent way to start.

I believe there’s one more element that a virtual conference misses.  The face to face human element.  There’s something so entirely unique about getting to sit down and talk with people in person, and the connection allows you to apply more accurate context to a person who you’ve only met virtually.  I know that I can’t avoid adding my own interpretation of a person’s personality while reading their communications online.  I’ve found that every time I meet someone I follow on Twitter, I end up paying closer attention to what they are saying, and I have a better context to apply when reading the words they write.  And I think this is one of the greatest parts of attending a conference.  The connections that are made.  It touches such an important part of who we are as social beings, and so often, the connections turn into the most invaluable of resources.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend a professional conference, remedy that as quickly as possible.  Take the time, be open to new ideas, be prepared to be somewhat to entirely overwhelmed at points, and don’t be surprised if it changes you in ways you never expected.

Thanks to supervillain for the Flickr image.

I remember the first time I heard the term, “backchannel.”  I was at NECC, and I was immediately struck at how the word seemed somehow geekily mystic.  It took me a bit to realize the term was really just synonymous with chat.

According to the define function of Google, a backchannel is, “the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks.”  In practice, it is simply a chat room established to carry on conversation during a presentation.

I absolutely believe the concept of a backchannel has an inherent dual-edge sword nature to it.  As mentioned in my last post, there is a distinct danger to utilizing a backchannel.  The danger is that if not executed in the right fashion, the distraction and bifurcation of attention can potentially lead to a complete dismissal of the content being presented at a given venue.  I’ve seen occasions where there are no less than eight backchannels for a room of scarcely over 20 participants.  The result is noise.  Distracting noise that leads to a great missing of the point.

I could go on about my perceptions of the negative regarding this topic, but I’d rather not.  Because I think there’s more good here than bad.  I actually think creating a backchannel in the right way has the potential to be one of the biggest game changers we’ve seen in recent memory.  I’m quite excited about it, to be honest.

One of the most oft cited educational edicts in the past ten years is that we shouldn’t have our students sitting in their seats listening to a presentation of information for too long.  I believe this applies to adults as well.  Interestingly enough, this edict is often espoused by a speaker or consultant who has come in to spend a day teaching teachers this highly valuable bit of information, and they do so by having teachers sit at terribly uncomfortable lunch tables or folding chairs for hours without breaks.  I believe therein lies the definition of irony.

Think of the possibilities of establishing a backchannel.  People interact with the information being presented in a way that allows for an expansion of learning and information retention.  This could happen anywhere information is being presented for a prolonged period of time: inservices, classrooms, even churches.  I came across this article recently discussing how a church in Texas is using Twitter during their service as a form of a backchannel, and it simply solidified and validated how important this could be and how widespread this practice could extend.

Allowing people to interact with each other and the information in a focused way affords participants the opportunity to learn more and focus more on the content.  Instead of sitting passively, succumbing to the temptation to take mental meanders, participating in a backchannel brings a collaborative element that actually increases mental attentiveness.

This summer I started utilizing a backchannel with the courses I taught for my district, as well as for the graduate class I teach for Judson University.  That experience, along with my recent experience at the IL TechCon, has led me to conclude there is a right way to go about doing this.  I believe the following 3 guidelines should be followed when setting up a backchannel.

1.  Have a moderator.  I don’t mean a censoring, dictator-type moderator who is trolling the room looking for people to bust for saying inappropriate or perceived off-topic statements.  I mean a moderator who helps facilitate the conversation.  Maybe you want to call this person a facilitator instead of moderator, it’s up to you.  I think having an open-minded administrator take on the moderator role at a teacher inservice could help keep the discussion somewhat on topic, while also giving the participants at least a moderate level of accountability so the conversation doesn’t digress into a “Wow, this is cool.”  “Yes, it is.”  “I think it sucks.”  Don’t scoff, even adults can be reduced to this level of astute prepubescent intellectualism given the opportunity.  The moderator should also post frequent statements summarizing main points the presenter is saying.  Wes Fryer did this at TechCon, and I found it extremely beneficial.

2.  Have only one main backchannel.  Some people don’t like this idea.  They want everyone to have the freedom to create their own channel, but I think that is quite problematic.  I want as many people participating as possible so the greatest potential for added value and diversity in thinking can occur.  I think it would be great if a conference set up one main backchannel, with individual rooms for each of the presentations at the conference.  This way, everyone would know where to go for discussion, and there wouldn’t be too much cross-pollination of separate presentations creating too much noise in a single room.  Conferences could publish the url of the main backchannel site in the literature handed out at the beginning of the conference, and people could commence discussing at the outset and continue until, well, forever.

3.  Use a site that can be archived.  If done well, people will be dropping links, references, and suggestions in the room, and it would be most beneficial to be able to return to the room to access those resources again in the future.  It would also allow people to be held accountable for things being said, and positions could be defensible should dissenting opinions be presented.

I think the idea of a backchannel is very difficult for some people to embrace as they fear allowing people to discuss during a presentation will draw attention away from what is being presented.  As I stated above, that can certainly happen, but if this is all done the right way, I think that risk is greatly reduced.  In fact, I absolutely believe this could help our attention-deprived culture get more out of sitting in seats listening to the dissemination of information for hours on end.  I think doing this in the right way will most certainly lead to a reinvigoration of inservices, and dare I even say, classroom lectures.   Just think about it, and try it out for yourself the next chance you get.  I think you’ll find the results might just change everything.

Thanks to Wesley Fryer for the Flickr image.