A bit tired, yet so inspired.

Friday was the last day of a 40-hour in class work week in my Emerging Instructional Technologies (EIT) at UNI. Though the experience has been physically draining, somehow I come away feeling exhilarated and encouraged. I have always enjoyed learning new things and though I'm not always the brightest or most disciplined student I feel at home in the classroom. Now, everyone seems to agree that the educational system in the U.S. is broken and after reading Christensen's Disrupting Class and witnessing final class projects created by my classmates that are designed to inject new life into K-12 curriculum. You can check them out for yourself on our class blog. I sense that we have reached a tipping point in education; a swift change is on the horizon and this time around the revolution will be televised - via YouTube ;).


So I ask my fellow IT 2010 cohort, now that we've got new tools and ideas can we keep up the momentum and put our ideas into action? I sure hope so, as Dr.Z mentioned in class, we are all change agents and you only need one person to start making a difference.

I wish us all wisdom, patience, and courage as we proceed. The next leaders of the world are depending on us.



image:http://www.flickr.com/photos/mellyjean/35207214/sizes/o/#cc_license

Security in Obscurity

In cities across the MidWest, Team Companies is housing secured data of millions of people in non-descriptive buildings. Today in EIT we went on a field trip to the Cedar Falls location. After our 'official government ID's' were scanned into their system ( I always wonder what they plan to do with that information) we were given a tour of the facility. It was pretty to wild to see so much real estate and technology set aside to secure, cool, and monitor data.

Apparently, the Midwest is an optimal site for data storage due to the lack of rolling blackouts, seismic activity, hurricanes, terrorist threats, and flood zones. Statistically, the only catastrophic natural disaster that could affect the region would be tornado and the facility seemed well equipped should the need arise.

I gotta say it makes me wonder, if this is our solution in the U.S. How is data being managed from a global perspective?

Can you repeat that?

First things first, it was great to meet everyone in person today. Having the option to meet up online is great but it doesn't hold a candle to actually meeting people. We've got quite a few characters in class and I know it'll be a fun week.

With that said, Dr.Z's assignment to collaborate on a team project without actually being able to discuss face-to-face posed quite a challenge. This afternoon - Darnell, Deb, Marty and myself - otherwise known as the 'Dream Team' started out strong in class today. We met briefly, assigned roles and we were off. Ten minutes later... When faced with a challenge, I broke down and attempted to ring a teammate via the old 'can & string' phone. But, after a quick phone call (on an actual cell phone) I was back on track. Our group decided to meet via chat this evening to make final changes and it became a marathon of edits and repositioning, deleting, and addition of questions and wordsmith'ing' galore! At first, my head was spinning. I was toggling between windows (chat and docs). I was being asked to change 'this' and update 'that'. Thanks to my teams' patience and my brain finally starting to adjust to the information overload I began to understand the flow of commands being sent my way. Thirty minutes into the chat session our communication process became a well oiled machine. Practice makes perfect.

So the lesson I learned today is similar to what Cool Cat Teacher, Vicki Davis mentioned during our Skype session about the roller coaster of new learning: first the challenge is new and exciting, then frustrating, and just when you're ready to give it up you began to see the light! Go, team :)

Not my Elementary Classroom

I went out of town on Monday. I had a speaking engagement with Job Corps in Minnesota. Afterward, I met up with my sister and I had a chance to sit in on my nephew's year-end class presentation. He had made a diorama of Alcatraz and had to present a 2-5 minute speech to his 5th grade class. Side note: I don't normally have an occasion to go to an elementary school but when I'm there it is always a treat. I enjoy the little chairs and desks, and all the pictures on the walls and all of the positive affirmations and rules painted everywhere! It was like stepping back in time.

While I was sitting (in a tiny little seat) and listening to presentations I noticed all of the technology equipment in the room. The teacher had a Mac at her desk - actually there were at least 5 computers in this room of approximately 25 children. I also noticed a 37' LCD mounted on the wall and a nice overhead projector mounted on the ceiling and speakers installed around the room. My nephew has Asperger's and he was using a hand held device to help with speech/writing, etc. I also saw a few other students with gadgets in hand. I had to remind myself that this an elementary school. I thought to myself "did we have all of this access when I in elementary school? I'd venture to say no. I wondered if this schools' access to technology was an exception in Minnesota or the U.S. at large or was it the rule. It was a real eye opening experience and nice to see first hand how the classroom has evolved.

An Unnatural Act

***WARNING: This is a RANT and probably has less value than your average posting***

Wanting to post on this blog is about as natural for me as puppy drinking from a straw. Sometimes, I hold this blog in contempt because I'm forced to come here and write something that matters to me. Are there things that I find important and news worthy, certainly. Unfortunately, I'm not the type that assumes writing or ranting will change anything. By nature I am a doer, so it's frustrating to wait for some higher authority to allow cloud computing, wiki's in the workplace, facebook book pages, twitter accounts or any other web application that makes my job of interacting with our constituents -18-24 year old service members- any easier.

As I'm reading other blogs, I'm starting to see that most educators really have a lot of freewill when it comes to what you can implement in your classrooms. Your ideas are only limited to time and resources - big hurdles to jump; but at least you have flexibilty. I envy that sometimes.

I rarely mention new ideas I'm working on such as an internal office management wiki or using Google applications to share information or more importantly comment on how ideas in the blogsphere directly affect specifically my workplace. This is because my blog is open to public and can be shut down at any time by the federal agency I am employed because it is may not represent the agency in the best light. Moving foward I'll have to work on the balancing act to remain gainfully employed while sharing my ideas on subjects that matter to me.

Whine & Cheese

Since last week, I've been looking for blogs that 'spoke' a language I could understand. Though I've been following Jane Hart's Social Media in Learning blog and David Warlick's 2 cents Worth, I've felt like something was missing. So, after a quick Google search I did find a few blogs that focused on Social Media in Government. I found this blog, which although it had quite a few postings was quite old - the last posting was back in 2009! I often wonder how a blog feels when it has been abandoned by the author. I know what you're thinking, 'blogs don't have feelings..' or do they?

I digress, even though the blog Government Social Media was a bit outdated, the topic was certainly relevant. I found the posting on "Rules of Engagement for Twitter" very timely and informative. As I mentioned in last week's posting the agency I work for is in the process 'writing our rules' and Twitter is definitely a sticky situation for a fully federally funded program like ours.

Finally, I have found a blog I could relate to with all the frustration that often comes with working with the big G, and J. Nick Hoover, Senior Editor and blogger for Information Week is speaking my language.

I want government agencies to stop talking about all of the limitations that are keeping them [us] from using Web 2.0 tools and cut the cheese already. We've got work to do people!

Social Media Tuesday's

I work for The Corporation for National & Community Service (CNCS) and each month our HQ office in Washington D.C. hosts a monthly educational session that provides information on a variety of things from workplace netiquette to introducing new policy. Well, the newest item on the docket is Social Media. As a matter of fact, Social Media is on the agenda for the next six months and it will cover a variety of items such as: Twitter & Facebook 101, Blogging, etc. This week's focus was on our Interim Social Media Policy that the agency has just adopted. So, the lawyers got on the phone an essentially read up the 'do's and don't of the WWW. I found it quite amusing; not because I'm a renagade. Mostly because most CNCS agencies have had blogs, facebook, myspace, and twitter accounts for at least 2 years. This cemented in my mind just how fast Social Media is moving in the workplace and allows me to echo the 'ol addage "with great power comes great responsibility". Social Media is not just a hot topic anymore, it has slipped into the workplace and will now require full time management-I'd better get on the ball with this graduate work; that job could be mine someday :)

Here are a few examples of how CNCS is using Social Media to promote our mission to develop leaders through community service:

LEARN & SERVE
Learn and Serve America Student Social Media Initiative
LSA on Twitter- over 700 followers!

AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America)
VISTA on Facebook
VISTA Alumni on Facebook
VISTA on Twitter
VISTA on Flickr which highlights - VISTA's 'V' is for... campaign.

AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps)
NCCC Blog - or WaterLog - Nat'l blog following the service work of an NCCC team at the Denver, CO campus.
NCCC Facebook Fan Page - over 4000 fans!

The above links are just a few examples of how a large agency can utilize Social Media in a variety of ways to promote their agenda.

For teachers and other practitioners, how is your workplace using Social Media? Do you have a Social Media Policy in place? If so, who's regulating it?