The conversation was rich, it was real and it was authentic.  There were lots of questions, lots of discussion, not lots of answers.

Is it making the task authentic?  Is it making the teaching and learning transparent?  Is it building relationships? Is it collaboration?  Is it using the right tool for the job?  Is it establishing the climate?  Is it transferring knowledge?  Is it accepting the differences?  Are you applying technology in the right way?

It doesn’t matter how you engage the kids – the key thing is that you are actually engaging the kids.  But is there a danger that it’s easy thinking?  Thinking of the guy that just lectures and the kids dig it!  I bet he’s passionate!

Teachers telling teachers what they are doing?  Find out what others are doing – are we overburdening our students?

If we make a list will that lock down what best practise is?  Is this dangerous?  Isn’t best practise really about meeting the child where they are at and moving the child on?

A conversation participant mentioned location – what was best practise in a classroom in Africa where she was teaching before is certainly not best practise in the International School classroom she is in now in.

We looked at Darren Kuropatwa’s blog to see the practise that he has going on in his class through technology. Building a community.  Megacognition – Scribepost – I want to look at that.  The blog has feed windows brings in classrooms from around the world.  His kids can virtually visit other classes.  All of Darren’s classes are podcasted – whiteboard work has been uploaded up to slideshare.  He has 4 of his own children, so this is not a man that spends all his time on the computer! It obviously has to be dead-easy system- apparently he has it set up so that this takes about an extra 10 minutes of his day.  All the work of the class is on the web.  Accessed and re-accessed anytime, anywhere.

So is best practise about offering the tools that are right for each student’s learning?  What does this mean for the teacher that is not comfortable with all this technology?  What if you think these are really great ideas and you strive to be the best teacher you can be and you just don’t know how to do this stuff?  I really admire the work of Darren Kuropatwa – but I don’t know how to begin with half of the stuff he’s doing?  I know that I have the resources at my fingertips and the personal learning network to learn how though – and is that really what best practise is all about?

So is best practise whatever engenders our students to learn whatever it is that they need to learn both within their own communities, and outside those communities?

At the end of the day does best practise mean it’s all about the relationships we build both inside and outside the classroom?

Unedited notes from actual session:-  reflection post to come later.  Posted through Posterous.  Will tag and edit later when edublogs can be accessed.

http://jakes.editme.com contains all of the information from this session

Make it personal, publishable and make it transportable.

Digital Storytelling, it’s participatory – as we move towards the saturation of this kind of content uploading to the web.  Video will be the standard way to communicate.  I need to check out the Last World – Obituary

Did you know ……….
78.3 million videos uploaded
152 thousand videos uploaded every day
aver. length 2.45 mins
aver age  26.5 years old
USA 34.5%
412 years to watch

What are we doing in schools to ensure that our students can build content and get across their message in a clear and concise way? http://ourstories.org see the stories from the Nijerian 1 to 1 schools

We would be remiss if we don’t teach kids about good content.  Dylan’s couch -  on YouTube (has had 1.8million views)
There’s an audience for the students we need to help kids craft their messages for the audience.

New Media
Creative Commons
Licence Attribution:  anytime someone wants to use the image they just have to attribute it back to the owner . Rights and responsibilities – using images appropriately and legally

Flickrstorm – you can search flickr very effectively
ccmixter.org take audio download it add to it and re upload it

New Tools
jamstudio.com (online garageband)

jumpcut – (imovie or photostory but online) no longer have to have software on your machines
mycadillacstory.com encourages you to write a story about your car

Teach kids to create content that is in a format for cellphones and iphones

You can put the embed code of voicethread in Google Earth
Flypaper – make a story that sticks
Dandelife – create a life cast.  Online timeline of your life.  Upload diff. kinds of media to add to it.

box.net – need to look at that.

New Composition Strategies
Crafting stories in the right way – Can we translate written grammar into visual literacy

There are samples online – on the wiki there’s a lot of these examples:
Here’s a few:-

Slow zoom in gently focuses the viewer
Quick xoom in intensifies drama
Panning adds animation ?????? best to do it slow
In most cases pan left to right
If you want the view to feel uncomfortable – pan right to left

New Message
Be careful – meaningful messages to be crafted

Provide kids with an entry point in their stories
Celebrate Pangea Day – show kids the content of this site
storymapping.org
Fox news – be creators of content – this is not going to stop it’s
going to continue, we need to teach kids because this is a life time of
contribution

New Networks
Stories for Change.net  – join this community  teach kids to be members of communities
YouTube – moderate the comments for your kids
AFI screen nation – provides students with a safe place to host their content

Digital Storytelling Process
It’s about writing – personal narrative.  Lead kids into getting their stories.  Digital Diplomacy (what’s it like to be an american, canadian etc)
Extract the essence – the script.  3 pages to 1 page double spaced.  Then highlight the parts that they have to say.  Originates form the spoken work 2nd meaning is Visual

Don’t illustrate their story – have their story be illustrated.
Storyboard
Put emotional terms into your visual search

Share
within your classroom first, then out in the community

Digital Storytelling Skills

Writing
Visual Literacy
Project Management
Intellectual Property
Network Literacy

Learned a lot from this session – definitely things to take back to the classroom and apply straight away.  Will definitely help with Lucy Caulkin’s Writer’s Workshop I think.

Posted by email from teachingsagittarian’s posterous

My twitter network was a-twitter last week with questions of “Are you going to Learning2.0?”  My excitement was pushed three more steps up as I began to discover that many of the amazing people in my twitter-network were going to Shanghai also. I’m looking forward to meeting lots of fellow educators/bloggers from Australia and Qatar (can’t wait to meet you finally Julie!).  There’s going to be so much meeting and greeting – I was beginning to wonder when we might get time to attend a conference?!

Who would have thought that my excitement could step up a notch after all that? I didn’t think it was possible, but Jeff Utecht made it so.  He asked if I would be interested in doing a 45 minute presentation at Learning2.0 Shanghai!  Oh my goodness!  Are you kidding me?  Me?  Present? With all those famous people you already have lined up?  What a fabulous chance to give something back to the very community that got me started on this amazing journey of Web2.0 in the classroom.  Thanks for the opportunity Jeff!

So here’s the blurb for my presentation ……….  now I just need to put the finishing touches on it.