The following notes are from David Warlick’s Keynote at the HISD Leadership Institute, August 6, 2008.

“Literacy & Learning in the 21st Century”

redefine, literacy, warlick

I will spare you the long story and just say that yesterday I accidentally DELETED my entire blog and blog database from my web server. Yes there were some tears and some nausea. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve nearly everything except comments on most of the posts from the past 4 months.

CALL FOR COMMENTS - If you commented on any of my posts during the past 4 months (since mid-March), and you have those comments archived in coComments or some other place, I would very much appreciate if you could repost your comment on the appropriate blog post.

I will be adding in retrieved comments (from recently cached Google pages) directly into the body of the posts for now. Getting them back into the data table for comments will be tricky, so I’m not even going to attempt to do that right now. Hopefully this won’t cause problems for anyone.

I do have to re-customize the blog template and I still need to rebuild my sidebars and additional pages, but it all could have been much worse.

I am incredibly grateful for Google for caching some of my content. I used the technique described by Dave Cormier here. I took the content that was cached and copied and pasted each page into a new Google Docs document - this preserved the links and structure of the text. Very nice

I am also very happy that I have used Ecto to write my blog posts - AND that I had the foresight to make sure the program was set to store local copies of posts on my computer after posting to my blog.

If you linked to any of my blog posts then you shouldn’t have to change anything. I carefully restored the recent blog posts to ensure that the URLs for each post were the same as before (another nice feature of Ecto - the syncing between the blog database and the program to ensure accurate post IDs).

I am also glad that I do occasionally do full backups of my entire home directory on my server. This saved me countless hours of work.

And, as Miguel Guhlin said last night:

mguhlin @ssandifer The opportunity to begin anew is often disguised as a disaster.

As I restored all of the posts from March 2008 post-by-post - a tedious process - I spent time reflecting on what and when I post on my blog. This gives me the opportunity to rethink some of the design of this blog and to think carefully about my content.

I’ll be continuing to work on this restoration today (and most of this week), but the bulk of the work is completed.

So here’s my PSA/warning to everyone - Backup your stuff! Backup, backup, backup! The data you save just might be your own.

Okay - fire at will… How do you define literacy in the 21st Century?

I am looking for as many opinions as possible, so please comment with your thoughts and definitions. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: 21st Century, education, literacy

So we’ve all been talking about getting out of the “echo chamber” quite a bit lately. To help us be a bit more organized in those “outreach” efforts, I’ve added a new page to Scott McLeod’s Moving Forward wikispace.

Your task:

• Add information about regional/state/national non-tech academic or educational leadership conferences that accept proposals for sessions.
• Focus on only one or two with which you are most familiar.
• Keep the information updated if you post it. This means that you should update the deadlines and URLs each year if necessary.
• Spread the word about this resource so that those of us who are interested can stay informed and take action when/where appropriate.

Important Note - please indicate whether or not the conference that you are listing only accepts proposals from organization members (i.e. National Art Educators Association).

Technorati Tags: 21st Century, conferences, education, Instructional-Technology, Technology

Remember all those recent discussions and blog posts about how we need to be getting out of the “echo chamber”?

Well here are a couple of excellent opportunities to do just that. Special thanks to Dennis Richards for working so hard with ASCD to create this opportunity.

By the way, if you are interested in getting out of the “echo chamber” and your name isn’t on this list, it needs to be.

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The following comments were retrieved from Google cached pages after accidental loss of this blog’s database.  If you are one of the authors included below, feel free to restore your original comment using the comment form below.

1. diane July 11, 2008 7:36 pm

   In classical mythology, Echo pined away for love of Narcissus. Neither of these characters are role models I choose to emulate!

   I’m on the list and hope to make some sort of contribution.

Technorati Tags: ASCD, Instructional-Technology, leadership

I am currently reading “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” (Clayton M. Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, Michael B. Horn), and I wanted to share some snippets from a passage that I read last night that really resonated with me.

… The tools of the software platform will make it so simple to develop online learning products that students will be able to build products that help them teach other students. Parents will be able to assemble tools to tutor other students. And teachers will be able to create tools to help the different types of learners in their classrooms…

… they (these “modules”) will be pulled into use through self-diagnosis — by teachers, parents, and students. User networks, not value-chain businesses, will be the business models of distribution…

…Ultimately, people will assemble them together into entire courses whose approach is truly student-centric — custom-configured to each different type of learner…

I think the most powerful part of this passage for me was the reference to students building products on their own to help them teach or tutor other students. A few pages later the authors acknowledge the value in this when they say:

….We mention above that these software platforms will enable students to teach other students by developing tools and putting them into the user network. Isn’t it better to have the professionals teach, and the learners learn? No, not necessarily. We often learn better when we teach than when we listen to a teacher.

I definitely agree with this statement and find the future that he envisions very promising and exciting. As I read this passage though, I couldn’t help but wonder: do we already have tools and online apps that allow for at least some of this? Perhaps not as seamless and as easy as they describe in the book, but do we not already have Web 2.0 tools that can be used in combination with one another to create an environment where this kind of user-developed product can be created and shared?

Technorati Tags: Clayton-Christensen, DisruptingClass, EdTech, education, Instructional-Technology, Web 2.0

The title of this post is my new job title. I start my new job at the beginning of August and it will be the first time in eight years that I will not be working on a campus. However, my new role, which is located at the main administration building, will allow me the opportunity to provide support to many high school campuses in my district and will allow me to take on a greater leadership role in our district-wide literacy initiative. The official job description can be read here.

Today, after I spoke to my current principal about the job and received his blessing to pursue this opportunity without guilt (more on that in a moment), I sent out a message on Twitter to let my PLN know about the new job. Within all of the “congratulations” messages, I was asked the following question:

bwatwood @ssandifer - looking forward to the details - is it tied to 21st century literacy?

My answer — in a sense “yes.” Up until now our district’s literacy initiative has been fairly traditional in terms of it’s definition of “literacy”. It has been a very comprehensive definition in my opinion as it encompasses the skills of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking. It is a broad definition that leaves plenty of room for a variety of specific literacies including visual, media, and even Web 2.0. However, I was selected for this position BECAUSE of my interest and advocacy for pushing the envelope with regard to literacy and skills needed for college, careers, and life in the 21st Century. I have been asked to use my knowledge and skills in this new position to develop models of using technology (and emerging technology) to help students develop those essential reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking skills.

While some of the responsibilities in the job description seem fairly traditional, I know there will be multiple and daily opportunities for me to model the use of emerging technology to accomplish our goals, and multiple opportunities to help others learn how to use emerging technologies in their own work on their campuses.

I’m excited.

I’m also sad to be leaving my campus and the wonderful people — including my principal — who work with me there. I have enjoyed my time at my school and I couldn’t have asked for a better team of people with whom to work. They really are great and I will miss our daily collaboration. It was hard for me to speak with my principal today about this new opportunity. I wasn’t intending to leave my campus — but this opportunity fell into my lap right before I left for NECC and it is too promising for me to pass it up. I am grateful for the opportunities for growth and learning that I have had on my current campus and I wish the students, faculty, administration, and staff all the best.

Now about the new job title… can’t we just shorten it to “High School Literacy Specialist”?

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The following comments were retrieved from Google cached pages after accidental loss of this blog’s database.  If you are one of the authors included below, feel free to restore your original comment using the comment form below.

1. Buffy Hamilton July 9, 2008 3:27 pm

   Wow! Congratulations on your new position! It is exciting to know someone of your talents and passion will be taking on this role! I can’t wait to hear about your new adventures as I know your work will inspire me!

   Again, kudos to you!

2. Miguel Guhlin July 9, 2008 6:16 pm

   Congrats, Stephanie! I wish you well in your new position!

   Warm regards,
   Miguel

3. Britt Watwood July 9, 2008 6:48 pm

   My congrats as well, and thanks for the follow-up answer to my tweet. It sounds like a dream job - and dreams can be both exciting and nightmarish. I wish you the former!!!

4. John Peters July 9, 2008 9:39 pm

   Way to go Stephanie, congratulations. Just let me know if you need an “official” photographer again sometime. I’ll keep reading The Change Agency for new updates.

5. Kate Olson July 10, 2008 8:30 am

   Congratulations Stephanie! I know you were having some thoughts about changing positions and then I read on TMG that this is your new gig! I’m happy for you and think that you’ll truly be able to impact a lot of people in this new role. Good luck in being a part of “the big house” - that’s a big change from being right in a school recently. I look forward to reading more about this journy - it sounds exciting!

Technorati Tags: education, leadership, literacy

For those of you who were waiting for this, the video of my session is now up on the NECC 2008 Video-on-Demand website. Scroll down to Tuesday @ 11:00 a.m. to access the video.

Technorati Tags: EdTech, education, n08s513, NECC08, NECC2008, Technology, Web 2.0, Web2ThatWorks

I have started this blog post over and over again several times — and once more I am starting over from scratch. NECC was just so overwhelming and so full of rich experiences for me personally that as I have attempted to put it all into words it has just come out as a jumbled mess.

I’m going to try a simpler approach this time…

NECC was wonderful.

The face-to-face meetings — the hugs, the rich discussions at the conference or over dinner, the shared learning & shared understandings — were all simply amazing to me. I didn’t get to talk with everyone that I wanted to in as much depth as I would have liked — but the conversations that I did have with so many brilliant people were incredibly rich and have really pushed my own thinking about the work that I am trying to do in this blog as well as in my day-to-day work/life.

I can’t list everyone that I connected with at NECC in this blog post because I will most certainly leave someone out. Trust me, I tried doing that in some of the previous drafts of this post! But I will say to all those that I met, conversed with, shared dinner or lunch with — Thank You for making my NECC 2008 experience so much fun and so meaningful!

I wasn’t a bothered by Pearson’s presence at EduBloggerCon as some people were — but that’s just me. I was bothered by the wifi situation, but I know that all of us were putting a great strain on that resource so it is hard to fault the convention center or ISTE for that.

I realized that I have lost patience for the exhibit hall. I felt frustration seeing booth after booth trying to sell packaged versions of tools that we can all use for free on the web. I didn’t stay there very long.

I loved the Blogger Cafe, but I didn’t experience it last year so I can’t compare the older version with this year’s version. I agree that NECC Unplugged should be nearby, but separate.

I would like to see more of us (edubloggers) reaching out to the many educators who attend NECC and other tech conferences but who are mostly unaware of how to incorporate Web 2.0 into their classrooms. As I listened to/read the wrap-up session facilitated by Steve Hargadon, I kept thinking about an idea for “topic tables”. What if we had a space set aside with a few tables that could be identified by concept or tool where “newbies” could meet one-on-one with some of us (serving as mentors — maybe in one or two hour shifts) to discuss uses or get hands-on help setting up tools/accounts for use in the classroom. It’s just a thought… my thought… and I know that is probably too structured for some people. I do see that idea as one solution for educators who are new to this to engage with those of us who have been exploring these tools/strategies for quite a while.

On that note… While I continue to stress the need for more of us to become more involved in the academic (non-tech) conferences, this year’s NECC opened my eyes regarding the size of our community. We are tiny. We are a minority. We still have an audience and a purpose at NECC and other tech-conferences. We need more than one “battle front” — we need to be more involved in the tech conference, more involved in the non-tech academic conferences, and we need to be more involved in our local areas with parents and community leaders. We need to be vocal and active advocates everywhere.

I apologize to anyone who wasn’t able to get in to my session. The interest in my topic really shocked me. It also sent a very strong and clear message to me regarding a need for more discussions and more examples of how emerging technologies support/enhance effective research-based pedagogy and student learning. It wasn’t just the enormous crowd who showed up for my session that gave me this message. Chris Lehmann’s session on School 2.0: Combining Progressive Pedagogy and 21st-Century Tools was one of the most popular sessions and someone even asked during the The Magic of Digital: Collaborative Interaction in Teacher Professional Development session, “What about student learning?” We — all of us — need to move beyond just talking about the tools. We need to bridge those connections between what we know works in the classroom and how these tools support that.

I loved EduBloggerCon. (See my reflections from that day here.) I didn’t attend last year, so like the Blogger Cafe I have nothing to compare with this year’s EBC. Yes, it was large. No, it wasn’t as intimate as I would have liked. However, it was still a fun experience and I did learn and share a lot with others that day. Thank you Steve Hargadon for all of your hard work on EBC as well as NECC Unplugged!

There is so much more I could say about NECC 2008, but I think I’ll end this post here and pick up some of those other thoughts — as well as expand on some of the above thoughts — in additional posts over the next week.

Technorati Tags: blocked_blogs, ebc08, EdTech, edublogs, education, ISTE, leadership, Marzano, NECC08, NECC2008, Technology, Ustream, Web 2.0, Web2ThatWorks

Scott McLeod has declared today to be Leadership Day 2008 and he has requested that we write posts related to effective school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs.

Scott posted some probing questions to get us started on our blog posts and in my post I would like to address the following questions:

1. What are some tangible, concrete, realistic steps that can be taken to move administrators forward?
2. What should busy administrators be reading (or watching)

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To begin, I want to revisit post I wrote back in April 2008 titled Shift Happens - Now What? I still believe very strongly with everything I wrote in that post and I want to summarize those points in this post:

So what should we do when we realize that the world has changed for our students?

Rather than immediately engage in a technology purchasing frenzy, take some time to begin discussions on your campus about how to transform your school into a place where teachers see themselves first as LEARNERS who are invested in improving their instructional practice through reflection and inquiry, and where students are more globally connected in a way that enhances and supports their individual learning. Collaborate with your faculty and staff — your learners — to learn more about how the world has changed and what that means for our profession…

Locate the “early adopters” in your district/schools and bring them in to a conversation around change — recruit them to help spread change…

Change adult behaviors and practices first… Change the way you work together, the way you speak with each other… Change your vocabulary… Begin by redefining yourselves as learners rather than educators… Acknowledge that in order to prepare your students for their futures of the 21st Century, all learners on your campus must be equally prepared for those futures… Commit to the belief that being “technophobic” or “technology illiterate” is no longer an option for 21st Century learners (and after you’ve redefined yourselves as learners, understand what that means for professional learning on your campus)… Be firm about this — it should NOT be okay on your campus for ANYONE to say “I don’t like technology” or “I’m just not very techie… can you do this for me?”… Banish the phrase “Kids these days” from the vocabulary of everyone on your campus… While you are at it, you should also banish the phrase “My teaching methods have always worked and I’m not going to change just because these kids (fill in the blank)…”

Don’t form a committee to “study this and bring back suggestions for change” — committees take too long and you just don’t have time… change needed to happen yesterday…

Don’t create a “pilot project” — same reasons for not forming a committee — it takes too long and change needed to happen yesterday…

Do not purchase any new technology hardware until you have first ensured that your network is up-to-date and accessible… How many network drops are in each room? Do you have wireless access across your entire campus?… Drops in every room and wireless access across the campus are “must-haves” before you start buying anything else!…

Give your teachers time to “play” with Web 2.0 — to explore the use of Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc.) for THEIR professional learning BEFORE they attempt to use the same tools in the classroom with students. In fact, put a moratorium on classroom use of blogs and wikis for at least four months until teachers have used them weekly for their own learning by reading and writing and connecting with other edublogging educators…

Inform all new first-year learners on your campus that their “learning” is just beginning and will never end… and that it certainly did not end upon completion of all degree and certification requirements…

Begin all interviews for new hires with “what is the most recent thing that you learned and how did you learn it?”…

Understand that all of this can and should happen in conjunction with other changes in professional practice such as Professional Learning Communities and Critical Friends Groups, and along with structural changes such as Smaller Learning Communities, varied student grouping strategies, and/or early college campuses… Transforming your school into a 21st Century Learning Center does not mean that you throw out other initiatives and other research-based best practices…

Campus leaders should model the professional learning use of Web 2.0 tools through transparent blogging and wiki use with the faculty on a weekly basis… Begin putting all of your professional “knowledge” on a wiki (accessible from anywhere — NOT on the campus intranet) and when your learners ask where they can find certain documents, policies, etc., smile and tell them “It’s on the wiki!”… Give your learners password-protected access to edit the wiki so that knowledge on your campus is collaboratively developed… This is as much about being transparent in your own learning and in your communication and collaborative decision-making with all of your learners as it is about modeling the use of new tools…

Don’t know how to use these tools for professional learning, collaboration, and communication? Take time THIS SUMMER to learn… A few great places to start include a wide variety of edublogs as well as “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” (Will Richardson), “Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century” (David Franklin Warlick), “Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition” (David Warlick), “Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools” (Gwen Solomon, Lynne Schrum)…

If our students need to be educated for a globally connected workplace rather than educated for factory work (and yes, they do), collaborate with your learners to make system, process, and structural changes so that your school looks, feels, and functions less like a factory and more like a globally connected communications and learning center…

Remember that the most important thing is a change in behaviors and practices — a change in pedagogy — NOT just buying new technology…

Finally… when you do make technology purchases — provide support… provide support… provide support… AND provide training… but provide training that is a model of effective instruction and learning practices… create cheerleaders who will coach other professional learners and promote continual learning around changes in the world, economics, technology, and workforce trends that have an impact on our work as learning professionals…

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As for what leaders should be reading right now, here are the books that I strongly recommend in order to understand the changes that are affecting our world and our education systems:

“The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can Do About It” (Tony Wagner)
“Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” (Clayton M. Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, Michael B. Horn)
“Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” (Clay Shirky)
“Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” (Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams)
“Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder” (David Weinberger)“The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life” (Richard Florida)
“The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent” (Richard Florida)
“A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future” (Daniel H. Pink)
Leaders should read the following to get “primer” on what 21st Century instruction can and should look like in the classroom (Instructional Leadership):

“Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” (Will Richardson)
“Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century” (David Franklin Warlick), “Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition” (David Warlick)
“Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools” (Gwen Solomon, Lynne Schrum)
“Using Technology With Classroom Instruction That Works” (Howard Pitler, Elizabeth R. Hubbell, Matt Kuhn, Kim Malenoski)

Technorati Tags: 21st Century, EdTech, education, Fear, Instructional-Technology, leadership, leadershipday2008, School 2.0, schooltechleadership, Technology, Web 2.0

Wesley Fryer & Darren Kuropatwa, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

Wednesday, June 2, 2008
NECC, San Antonio, TX

Technorati Tags: education, n08s422, NECC08, NECC2008

Don’t forget that this week — all week — is “I Read Blocked Blogs Week”…

What are YOU doing this week to promote better/more informed filtering of the internet in schools?

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The following comments were retrieved from Google cached pages after accidental loss of this blog’s database.  If you are one of the authors included below, feel free to restore your original comment using the comment form below.

1. The Science Goddess June 30, 2008 11:51 pm

   I gave you a plug. Keep the charge going!

Technorati Tags: ad4dcss, blocked_blogs, digital_access, EdTech, education, Web 2.0