It has been a short 13 years that I have had the privilege of working to help educate the children of District 57. There are many kind folks that have wished me well with generosity and kindness. I want to thank them, and I would simply say that I wish you all the joy and happiness that I feel now, as I have entered this great phase of my life. 
 

Posted by: bfurst

Google, Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and 
Trilogy Equity Partners have entered into an agreement to invest $3.2 billion in a new wireless broadband company.  
 
Read the whole story at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/investing-in-future-of-open-internet.html. 
 
So if this comes to pass, could using wireless broadband exclusively replace the need for routers, network switches, and the like, in schools? 

Posted by: bfurst

Attended the Collaboratory Project's Eleventh Annual Symposium today. 
It is interesting to me that this Northwestern sponsored project has been around for well before Web 2.0 was in vogue. They always had the collaboration tools available for teaching and had a number of well designed projects ready to go. Now that Web 2.0 is in vogue, it seems that they may be in danger of stiff competition from the Google's of the World Wide Web. They were definitely ahead of the curve but now it seems the collaboration tools they have provided are readily available in a number of web portals.  
However, as I analyze further, what they do have that the others don't is a well built community with proven content in place for classroom use. I will definitely be in the cheering section to see them obtain the necessary funding to maintain the rich safe educational environment they have created.  
 
Sponsored projects of relevance 
 
* The National Poetry Project 
* A Day in Our Neighborhood - see what other neighborhoods are like and publish comparisons about your own.  
 
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has a number of projects that could be used for independent study, 
Spiders 
Frogs 

Posted by: bfurst

Great article from my favorite place to get great ideas -- Edutopia. 
Voice Thread
 
 
Taking the digital story telling tools a bit further and giving the Web 2.0 native the ability to add multimedia comments. In fact, the versatility of this tool could be defined as a multimedia wiki. 

Posted by: bfurst

Social, economic, and accelerating technological changes are extending the competition for U.S. jobs beyond our borders. Schools need to be more strategic, aggressive and effective in preparing students to succeed in this rapidly changing environment. District 57 takes its job seriously to plan our curriculum to prepare students for the future. 
 
There is a Framework for 21st Century Learning (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org) supported by a large number of global firms. These firms’ missions and constituencies are different, but they speak with one voice in saying that “We must synchronize our efforts to leverage technology so as to achieve results for every student and, ultimately, for the nation, states and communities as well.” 
 
The work environment of today requires more than thinking and content knowledge. Navigating the complexities of the global work environment requires career skills such as flexibility, adaptability, innovation, and self-direction. Mastering core academics is, of course, essential, but using the appropriate technology tools to communicate, collaborate, analyze, innovate, solve problems, and acquire new knowledge needs to be an important aspect of our children’s learning environment. 
 
Our school district is embracing these concepts in their strategic plan now being finalized by the Board of Education. These concepts are a component of the technology curriculum adopted in the 2006-07 school year. Our district mission states, “Students will acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of life-long learners to become contributing citizens of a global society.”  
 
We invite you to further investigate the 21st Century Skills web site (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org) so you may become familiar with future goals and strategies for delivering relevant instruction in District 57.  

Posted by: bfurst

From  
http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction 
 
Four key components of technology integration: 
1)active engagement,  
2)participation in groups, 
3)frequent interaction and feedback,  
4)connection to real-world experts. 
 
Many people believe that technology-enabled project learning is the ne plus ultra of classroom instruction. Learning through projects while equipped with technology tools allows students to be intellectually challenged while providing them with a realistic snapshot of what the modern office looks like. Through projects, students acquire refine their analysis and problem-solving skills as they work individually and in teams to find, process, and synthesize information they've found online. 

Posted by: bfurst

A report by CoSN  
http://www.k12opentech.org/implementation-study-3-moodle 
essentially gives Moodle a thumbs up for use in K-12 schools.  
 
As described by eSchool News in its March 2008 issue: 
 
"Moodle enables teachers to develop online curricula and lesson plans, administer assignments and quizzes, and participate in professional development activities from home. It also allows students to engage in lessons off-site if they have internet access, providing a valuable school-to-home connection that can maximize learning." 
 
The curriculum dept. in D57 has been "kicking the tires" on this open source product. With the help of Kim Stortz, staff at Lions Park and Fairview Schools have utilized the on line learning environment in some specific units of study.  
 
At  
http://moodle.dist57.org  
Kim has created Moodle learning units for the study of the Human Body, Space Technology, and famous people -- i.e. explorers, authors, inventors.  
 
 

Posted by: bfurst

My fascination with Web 2.0 applications and its relevance to education continues. Google is doing a great job to produce a suite of applications that I believe are taking a run at Microsoft's market dominance. Google Earth, Docs, Photos, to mention a few. 
Thanks to Dan Schmit and his KidCast Podcast series at http://www.intelligenic.com/blog/, I found a series of lesson ideas for using Google Earth. Cheryl Davis at Miramonte High School in Orinda, CA has produced a series of podcasts called Gone Google at http://web.mac.com/cheryl_davis/iWeb/Site/Welcome/Welcome.html. She shows some great examples of integrating Google Earth into classroom activities that  
• map 2008 candidates movements,  
• produce a mapped time line of images that influenced world opinion,  
•map out an outdoor education experience on a map 
to name a few. 

Posted by: bfurst

In a prior post, there was an article about "Internet Safety in the Emerging Collaboration Economy". The intent was to make us think more seriously about the social environment of our “digital natives” -- it is here to stay, and we need to provide “proper direction” for its use. Just as we discuss “stranger danger” topics with our children, we should also teach them skills to help them identify their “internal alarm”, warning them to retreat from threats to their safety on the Internet. 
 
A group of state's attorneys general have formed a Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking. The intent is for the group to find ways for Social Networking sites to become more responsible in protecting children from Internet dangers. According to Enterprise Security Today (enterprise-security-today.com), in mid January, social network giant MySpace had reached an agreement with the Group on creating a new set of guidelines for protecting the "young members in its community". They have identified four categories of principles to guide the protection of children on social networking sites: 
1) site design and functionality;  
2) education and tools for parents, educators and children;  
3) law enforcement cooperation;  
4) an online safety task force. 
Not the final answer but a good beginning we all could learn from. The group is intent on moving these principals throughout other social networking providers such as Facebook.  
 
To reiterate, as uncomfortable as we digital immigrants are, we need to provide proper direction for our children. Our classroom teachers are weaving these skills into their classroom activities, utilizing collaboration along with the delivery of the curriculum content. Lincoln Middle School classrooms are blogging about novels and science experiments. Fifth grade classrooms are creating wikis from their research in topics of the Human Body, Geography, and Space. Of course, the students enjoy these types of activities, but we are learning along with them -- which is most interesting and fun for us, as we emigrate from our world to theirs.  

Posted by: bfurst

•mobile broadband 
•collaboration webs  
•data mashups  
•grassroots video  
•collective intelligence 
•social operating systems. 
This according to a new report released this week by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative, the 2008 Horizon Report. 
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf 
 
Also, keep an eye to future on: 
1) the growing movement to "cloud computing" aka "software as a service" aka "utilize your favorite internet browser for any software application you need"-- from Word processing to managing your life. 
2) The application aware network(Information Week 2/18/2008). Will the openness and commodity products like network switches and routers give way to a one vendor solution with less devices (combining switching and DB applications for instance) with better manageability for the tech support staff?  

Posted by: bfurst

Another great video with a message much like Did you Know 2.0.  
http://dist57.org:8081/weblog/bfurst/Podcasts/2007/11/14/Aninterestingviewoftheworld.html 
 
This one though addresses the 3 R's AND all these 3 R's really begin with "R" 

Posted by: bfurst
Podcast: Pay Attention.m4v

Did you Know 2.0 

Posted by: bfurst
Podcast: Did You Know 2.0.m4v

Carnegie Mellon University has composed a short game to help kids and parents identify web sites that can trick you into believing they are authentic.  
For instance, is www.citizensbankus.com really a banking web site? If you are unsure, point your browser to http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil/ and play the game. 

Posted by: bfurst

Internet Safety in the Emerging Collaboration Economy

As adults, when we think about safety and security, we recall our parents telling us to stay out of certain neighborhoods, keep a close eye on personal possessions,  
and of course, “don’t talk to strangers." As the virtual world  
grows, we see more and more that safety and security lessons apply the same  
way. When walking down the street, we need to be aware of our surroundings --  
so too in the virtual world.

However, parents know that if they simply shelter their children from the world,  
they will not afford them the experiences to be able to make the right decisions  
in this ever-changing society. Over the pass 10 years we have moved from an information economy to a knowledge economy, and now to a collaboration economy. From a book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams called Wikinomics:  
How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything: “Today, teams numbering  
in the thousands or even millions are creating encyclopedias, jetliners, operating  
systems, mutual funds, and many other items... Smart firms can harness collective  
capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.” The  
book has success stories telling how firms like IBM, Proctor&Gamble, and  
Boeing have leveraged these technologies for large productivity gains and cost savings in product  
development, sales, and marketing.

MySpace, Facebook and other collaboration sites such as these, have been given bad press. However, the collaboration technologies they utilize -- with proper direction -- can cultivate the skills our children will require in this collaboration economy. The piece missing, of course is “the proper direction." We can make a case that it is very difficult to stop these digital natives from utilizing these tools, so logically, our task (as parents and educators) then, is to join in, and engage in parent-child conversations -- to better understand this virtual world and provide direction to the net generation for proper utilization of these social networking tools.

The district complies with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)  
by providing appropriate filtering and supervision of students on the Internet.  
We encourage parents not only to seek resources, but also engage in Internet safety conversations with their children to provide the same, if not better protection in their homes.

The District is collecting resources for parents to direct their children -- please see http://dist57.org/i-safe . 

 
Comments to this weblog entry are welcomed.

Posted by: bfurst

Thanks to our friend Jordan Stephen, Technology Coordinator at  
EPSD, we have seen that blog comments and trackbacks can be abused by folks on the internet. It's a good idea to check your blog regularly for inappropriate content in these 2 areas. Turning them off may not be a bad idea. 
Go to  
/Library/Tomcat/blojsom_root/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/ username, 
then textedit the file called blog.properties 
and make the entry  
blog-trackbacks-enabled=false. 

Posted by: bfurst