Is 'Easy' the Answer?

In the Sept. 19, 2007, issue of Education Week, the article "No Easy Project" suggests that project-based learning is an uphill battle in the continuing era of standardized testing. To be sure, many of the teachers and administrators we've interviewed admit that the project approach raises challenges. But once they introduce real-world projects to their students, they invariably see the benefits: students who recognize the value of what they are doing; students who push themselves, and their team members; students who will remember the project and what they learned long after they leave the classroom. It's not as neatly summarized as a test score, but isn't that kind of result what your students deserve?

They're at it again!

Flat Classroom Project pioneers Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay are preparing to launch a new version of their wildly successful collaborative project. Julie's students in Qatar and Vicki's in Georgia will be teaming up again to show the world what it looks like when students have the go-ahead to create meaningful content, use digital tools, and collaborate with peers from around the globe. Stay tuned for updates.

Mashups, anyone?

In "Power of the Mashup," in the August issue of Learning & Leading with Technology, we profile two creative educators from opposite sides of the globe. Jerome Burg from California is developer of the popular Google Lit Trips, which turns Google Earth into a literary road trip. David Fagg from Australia developed iHistory Podcasts in an effort to turn a “classroom irritant” (those ubiquitous MP3 players) into a useful learning tool. We’d love to hear from others who have invented mashups to meet your students’ learning needs. Read the article for free through the month of September!

NECC Wrap Up
The peripatetic Wes Fryer (where wasn't he at NECC?) recorded our book preview session in Atlanta. His podcast, blog notes and links can be found here. Thanks Wes!
You can find our Reinventing session presentation, handouts and blogger responses on our NECC page.

Here's a last pitch asking folks to post a photo of their NECC magnolia blossom to a special flickr group: NECCBUD. This little experiment to see how far flickr (killer web 2.0 photosharing app) has penetrated the consciousness of NECC-goers leads me to believe that 1. people ditched their 4,000 flowers (too much to carry!) OR 2. flickr isn't essential to the average NECC attendee OR 3. multiple channels used to disseminate the idea didn't go very deep OR 4. it was a lame idea . What do you think? Other possibilities?

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