THis is my first post

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A couple of Firstclass How To’s

MaineED 08 – Live Blog on Magnificent Moodle

EDIT: Looks like liveblogging isn’t working right now. Network issues. Oh well. You can just follow the tag #maineed08 to see what people are twittering.

Click Here for the live blog of this session.

Final and Other NECC 2008 Thoughts

I was planning on blogging quite a but more when I was in San Antonia, but it wasn’t in the cards. I was blown away by the people, sessions, and buzz that made up NECC 2008. I got very involved with meeting people and making connections here and there, which left me with little time to blog. Now that I am finally caught up at the College (yes it took a week, and I am not really caught up), I wanted to put some thought down on the blog. In no particular order, here we go.

On day two of the conference I sat in on a panel led by Steve Hargadon on the use of social networks in education. The discussion was, of course, very social with a backend chat online and heavy involvement from the crowd. It seemed that the most vocal people at NECC were in this conference. The tipping point happened at some point and most people in the seesion believe that social networks have great potential as platforms for communicaiton. While there were those that raised the typical alarms, the majority was ready to implement. I walked out of the session wanting to do more PD around social networks. I think the concept has a bad wrap thanks to alarmist media. Things like Ning and even Facebook are powerful communication tools. They aren’t for everyone, but those who try them rarely stop because they see the wide array of ways they can collaborate with others.

My strand at Summer Tech 2008has started a Ning called Tech4Me. Our group started the community to support Maine educators and help them find resources about technology, education, best practices, tools, PD, how tos, and more. There are already 47 members and hopefully this group will turn into a viable platform to further technology integration in Maine schools.

I am also thinking of how great a course on social networking would be. If you are interested, drop me a line. I am going to start the process in developing such a course. It would most certainly be an online course. I will be blogging about this process in the coming months.

I also sat in on a make shift discussion on twitter and how people are using it. Just a bunch of teachers talking about how they are using it and if there was any way to use it in K-12 education. One thing that I noticed was how diverse the use of twitter was in this group. Some people just twitted what they were doing haphazzardly. Other were using it a little more like a micro-blog, posting resources and links for their followers. If you aren’t on twitter yet you should be. You may be in the camp that doesn’t get it yet, maybe thinking that it is just another thing to keep up with in a world of blogs, wikis, and emails. It is another thing to keep up with, but one that is so worth while once you find the power of the network Twitter creates. I constantly find new resources and relationships through my twitter network that I would otherwise not have. If you are unsure of the power of Twitter you should check out summize.com. If you missed NECC, this link had a running tab of what people were twitting about real time who mention NECC in their tiwtter posts. Awesome. Just awesome.

Most of my other sessions had one thing or another to do with Second Life. We are using SL at the college as you know if you read this blog. It was great to catch up in real life with education folks that I know only in SL. I met many of the ISTE people and I ended up volunteering some time docenting at ISTE Island. You may see me there in the coming weeks.

My apologies for the all over tha place post but I had to get these thoughts out. My hope is ramp up this blog to keep you readers up with my latest thoughts and projects here at UMaine. Have fun everyone.

Getting ready for the conference

For those of you who are virtually attending NECC you may want to check out the live summize feed. Hit is here. You will see twitter posts real time with those tagging their posts with necc. Have fun.

I am off to lunch before the welcome sessions start.

Maine’s Laptop Initiative Improves Student Writing

Make sure to check out this article from the National Writing Project about how the MLTI project has inproved student writing.

Internet Memes

I love the Internet. I work, play, and communicate on this very young communication medium. Every day I come across new information.  In the book, Information Anxiety, Richard Wormun estimates that the amount of raw information contained in a weeks worth of New York Times is more than a person living in the 18th century would encounter in their entire lifetime. We are truly living in the information age. For teachers, this means placing an importance on information literacy. That means learning to cull through the wealth of information out there to find what you are looking for AND creating your own content for the world to digest.

One new “thing” that has arisen out of all this information is the Internet Meme. Wikipedia defines an Internet Meme as:

The term Internet meme is a neologism used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads in a fast way from person to person via the Internet.^[1] The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.

Yes, I quoted Wikipedia. If you don’t think it is accurate, I welcome debate.

Humans have always had memes, but they have generally stayed local. The Internet has allowed information to travel around the world as easily as it can to the next room. Memes are no longer local. At least no longer geographically local. Diverse groups of people are sharing information in ways not possible before the Internet. While the Internet Meme is usually something silly, it none the less shows the viral nature information has in today’s society.

I recently came across an Internet Meme timeline at the time line creation website Dipity. It has a lot of the popular memes through out the history of the Internet. Hit the link and see how many you remember. What questions does this bring up in regards to how information travels over the Internet? How do we integrate it into pedagogy?

Here are a few of my three favorite Internet Memes:

3. Hamster Dance. This one is from 1998. Hamsters + Dancing + Music = Water cooler talk and email forward for years to come. There is no arguing this one effected social interactions.

2. All your base are belong to us. This one is a video of a very bad Japanese to English video game translation. Popular in late 2001. The term “all your base are belong to us” entered into the Internet vernacular for something that is screwed up.

The video below shows how pervasive of a meme “all your base are belong to us” became. Silly? Yes. Evidence of information spread, collaboration, creativity? Yes.

1. Diet Coke and Mentos. You probably remember this one. Changed science classrooms around the world. Not only did many people try this experiment on their own, they shared their results with the rest of the world. A search of youtube for “diet coke mentos” reveals 11,000+ videos created and shared by people all over the world. Could it be that science can happen outside the classroom?

Have fun out there.

Second Life Dance Party

If you didn’t already know, the College of Education has their very own island in Second Life. We are currently hosting a course on teaching in SL and it is going great. After a night of work and study, members of the class put on their dancing shoes and spend the night at the Black Bear Dance Club.

If you don’t already have an Second Life account, get one free at secondlife.com. See you on Black Bear Island.

Tim’s Video Games Are Good For You Presentation

Here are the slides from my Video Games are good for you presentation.

Click here to get the PDF version.

Hello world!

Welcome to our blog. First post, engage!