Face Time

One of the highlights of NECC is getting to meet face-to-face with the amazing educators we've been interviewing and learning from at a distance in recent months. We stopped by the Flat Classroom Project poster session to say hello to Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis. We met Jeff Whipple, Wes Fryer, and Jerome Burg for the first time during our session. I was lucky enough to meet Anne Davis several years back when she first started blogging with her elementary students, but it was great to see her again. And Linda Hartley from the UK and Tom Hemingway from Ankara, Turkey, couldn't make it to Atlanta, but they were game to join our discussion via Skype. The whole experience has helped us imagine what global projects must feel like from a student's perspsective. Through these conversations, the world becomes not only flatter, but friendlier as well.

Think (and Teach) Globally

In session after session at NECC, global thinking was a recurring theme. Lucy Gray moderated a session about Preparing Teachers to Lead in a Global Society, where Apple Distinguished Educators described how international experiences have changed their perspectives--and shaped their instruction. Good questions to consider: Is teacher education addressing global standards? Is professional development emphasizing global viewpoints? Look for resources for doing both on the Global Education Collaborative wiki.

Alan November made a compelling case for integrating global thinking across the curriculum. One strategy: Give students a global voice by using the social networking sites and technology tools that the majority of schools continue to block and confiscate.

One NECC Blossom Comes Home to Eugene, Oregon

NECC bud comes home to Eugene
Originally uploaded by jkrauss

A NECC magnolia bud looks just right on my salmon egg-to-fry specimen display.

As I admired my NECC magnolia blossom this morning I got to wondering, where did the other 3,999 go? If you got a bud at the opening keynote (or if like me you received one from a kind stranger), why not take its picture and upload to a flickr group just for NECC flowers? Add the tags neccbud or necc2007, and a geotag, too. I wonder, how many will we see? My inspiration is the paper crane project hosted by Eshu, who is folding and then sending 1,000 paper cranes around the world with one request: Show where they alight. (You won't find better photographs on Flickr than those in the paper crane project. Here's one of my favorites.)

The neccbud group at flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/442796@N22

NECC - We're here!

Look for our book flyer, L&L article, and slide presentation the Reinventing session page at NECC Web.
If you blog and flickr snap our session (please!) use this tag: necc, n07s606.
More after the session!! -Jane and Suzie

Join Us in the Flickr Group: Reinventing PBL

SPI: On TV
Originally uploaded by carpe icthus

Ryan "I shoot everything" Brenizer, an NY photographer, worked with Bronx high school students as they honed their journalism chops through the Student Press Initiative (SPI).

Ryan, or "Carpe Icthus" on Flickr, is one of 25 contributors to the Reinventing Project-Based Learning photo group on Flickr. Please join the group and post photos that express the power of pbl in the digital age.

As Ewan McIntosh said on learning of the new group, "Why Flickr screenshots and pics? Because sometimes all you want is a visual flash at what is possible before trying to apply the principle to the culture and framework in your school or classroom." Exactly! Join in, inspire, and be inspired.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/reinventingpbl/

Power of Connections

When it comes to just-in-time professional development, do edubloggers have the edge? That's what educators like Wesley Fryer and Clay Burell told me in recent interviews for the article Connecting the Lonely Profession in Worldchanging. How are you using Web 2.0 tools to customize your own professional learning?

School Galadima in Nigeria gets busy with the XO

Galadima gets busy with the XO
Originally uploaded by jkrauss"[Teachers are guided to change practice, in order to turn children] from passive students who just absorb, memorize, and repeat, into active constructionists who actively collaborate, investigate, experiment, and create solutions." -from Carla Gomez Monroy, Learning Consultant, One Laptop per Child (OLPC). I'd really like to talk to Ms.Gomez Monroy about implementation and student, family and teacher responses to the new tool. A discussion of localization and potential for impact on community and culture has started on the OLPC wicki:http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Localization_Common_Room.

Image from One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC) wiki: wiki.laptop.org/go. Used under creative commons license 2.5.

Footnote: Reality BITES. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkrauss/557934007

Reinventing Project-Based Learning - The Cover

ReinventingCover
Originally uploaded by jkrauss

Here's the hot-off-the-designer's-desk proto photo of our book cover.
The size and shape of the book are like the field and travel guides we carry on adventures. We intend for this "field guide" to become an indispensable resource, a trusty guide for educators to use when they embark on their journey into projects.

The book keeps the metaphor of travel and field work going: getting your bearings, identifying fellow travelers, planning for your adventure, packing up, setting out, having marvelous experiences (and solving problems that inevitably arise), documenting all along the way, and celebrating and reflecting on the journey when you arrive back home.

Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age will be available in the fall.

Jane Goodall's Camp - Capturing the Ephemera of School Displays

Jane Goodall's Camp
Originally uploaded by lewiselementary

Sophie in Grade 3 recreated Jane Goodall's field camp in a lovely diorama. Click on the photo to go to Flickr and mouse over "note" squares that identify the different elements in the display.
This picture, posted to Flickr by Principal Tim Lauer, is included in the Classroom Displays group, which gives a window into the ephermera of school displays.

Classroom Displays serves a growing community of practice and is featured in our book Reinventing Project-Based Learning.

Look at displays contributed by 113 group members and ask yourself: What do class displays tell us about what goes on in school, and about what we value in student work? Visit Classroom Displays Group on Flickr and read host and Edublogger Award Finalist Linda Hartley's blog. Linda describes her purpose and what she's learning on her research site Acting to Improve.