Tammie Ciccarelli

I don’t know why I’m continuously drawn back to gaming in education, perhaps it’s my son who’s very bright, loves gaming and tolerates school. As I watch my grandson in awe and wonder explore his world, naturally learning and growing everyday I can’t help but wonder where we loose that awe and wonder. For my son I believe gaming is that small piece of the world where he can still use that innate desire to explore. What if we could bring that to the classroom? What if we could engage students, encourage them to explore, problem solve, think creatively and achieve our curricular goals at the same time? I just read an engaging post by Ewan McIntosh that makes me think it’s possible.

Photo by spaceninja  

Lately I’ve been overwhelmed by the abundance of the Internet.  For a long time I’ve used the Internet as my dictionary, encyclopedia, phone book, map and spiritual inspiration.  Only recently have I begun exploring blogs, wikis, RSS, social networks and more specifically the educational uses of Web 2.0 tools.  The journey at times can be overwhelming and almost always enlightening.  My personal question of late is how to share the best of Web 2.0 without contributing to the information overload.

Today like many others has brought an abundance of information.  I received a link to a recorded Women of the Web 2.0 session, I followed the link, began listening to the audio and skimming through the chat archive for the groups weekly WOWs, Web 2.0 tools that they’ve discovered and were impressed by within the last week.   There were so many links I gave up about two-thirds of the way through.  As I’m checking out the links and being wowed I’m thinking I need to share these with our PLP Team (Powerful Learning Practices).  Not by email though, with Web 2.0 that’s become taboo.  So I finally decide I can post them on the Ning (social network) we’re creating as a professional development and collaborative tool.  So I jump over to the Ning add a new discussion, share the link and decide to add a comment to share a few of my favorites.  One of my favorites is a YouTube video entitled A Vision of K12 Students Today which I embed in the videos section.  Realizing that today’s to-do list didn’t include this rabbit trail I’m again reminded of information overload.

As the day progresses I decide it’s time to check my RSS feeds and read up on some of the latest educational blogs.  Several blog skims through I come across a post entitled Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education as I’m reminding myself to skim when I can (information overload defense tactic) I begin to become engrossed in this post.  The writers engaging and I’m interested in his topic.  By the time I’ve finished digesting the ten trends I decide this guy knows what he’s talking about.  As I continue skimming through the bold items my eyes light on this: 

           “* Digest This Thought: The Answer to Information Overload Is to Produce More Information.”

Posted by Steve Hargadon on March 5, 2008 4:47 AM 

What?  How can that be?  What does he mean?…We’ll I guess posting things I’ve found elsewhere is producing more information, really re-organizing information. 

I’m still digesting this thought.  The post is a good one I encourage you to read it.  If you have any thoughts as to why ‘the answer to information overload is to produce more information’ please let me know.

I’m continuously impressed with the deep thoughts and relevance of the post made by the Student 2.0 bloggers.  Yesterday I read Amateur Education posted by Arthus, a deep thinker who is passionate about his subject.  In one post Arthus covers such topics as creating a love of learning, becoming self-learners, and breadth versus depth.  All of these are reoccurring themes brought up by passionate teachers here at my school.  He clearly and colorfully makes his point.  With my teaching experience being limited to 2^nd grade computer classes and 3 year olds I can’t debate the validity of study hall.  Although I have often wondered why young children absorb school like sponges, inquiring, questioning and pondering and seem to loose this innate desire as they grow older.  I think Arthus makes some good points.  Today I read What is Learning?  posted by Lindsea.  Lindsea focuses on the need to incorporate critical thinking skills and widen our focus to incorporate more than absorbing knowledge and rote memorization, again major educational topics.  The fact that via Student 2.0 these students have created the type of environment necessary to accomplish these major educational goals struck me the most.

Thrust into the Web 2.0 world last year I’ve found the amount of Internet change over the last few years shocking.  Since that time I’ve been trying to catch up and keep up in the Web 2.0 world.  Doing so has had a huge impact on my professional life.  On the positive side, I’ve begun using wikis to collaborate on projects and RSS to collect and organize content for personal learning and exploration.  I have a Google home page that I haven’t quite tapped the potential of.  So far it works nicely as a news feed from our website.  I struggle to keep up with my professional blog and sometimes agonize over what to write and how to say it.  I look forward to the day when everyone is comfortable with wikis and online documents knowing they both have the potential to reduce f2f meetings, email and phone tag.

I find it exciting that the tools that connect and engage students in their social lives are becoming much easier to use and integrate into education.  I find the idea of easily opening a classroom up virtually so that parents, grandparents and other classrooms can connect and participate awe-inspiring.  I believe the potential for cross grade level, school, country and continent collaboration will be one of the most powerful experiences for students and teachers.  Along with all of the remarkable possibilities I also see a critical need for those embarking into Web 2.0 to understand the Internet as a ‘whole new world’.  One in which you can find anything you look for.  For a look at this ‘new world’ checkout Growing Up Online.  As with most things balance is the key.  We can’t ignore this world we’re obligated to prepare for it and prepare our students for it.

I think it’s an excellent idea to start our online course by reminding us of the importance of lifelong learning.  As professionals I believe we all have a desire to grow in our fields but the day to day eats our time away.  I know I often get bogged down by to-dos.  I spend a lot of time making sure I accomplish everything on my to-do list.  Placing my focus on my to-do list causes things that aren’t immediate to get pushed to the bottom of or off of my list completely. I find myself investing time to meet the learning needs of the moment but miss the more exciting learning that comes from digging deeper and exploring new ideas.  Due to this pattern I believe that out of all of the 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learning, Habit 7 ½, Play, will be the most challenging as well as the most important habit for me to embrace.  I look forward to pursuing this habit knowing that doing so will bring a new dimension of excitement and joy to my professional life.  I view Habit 2, Accepting Responsibility for my own learning and Habit 3, Viewing problems as challenges as the easiest habits for me.  It may seem unusual but I just naturally accept responsibility.  And as for problems, I thrive on them; in fact sometimes I have to resist the urge to solve a problem that doesn’t belong to me.  

The amount of information via the web can be overwhelming.  There are so many good ideas, excellent tools and learning opportunities, most of which are free.  I think what overwhelms me the most is how to successfully transfer this information to the people who can use it the most without becoming another source of SPAM?  Every time I create an email to share something new I cringe at the impact on my recipients Inbox. 

At the same time I struggle with my commitment to keep up my blog.  So I’ve decided to combine the two.  My hope is that my blog will become a source of useful information highlighting resources and/or useful tools available to teachers.

Very clever short videos covering several excellent web tools which could be great classroom web tools.

• Video: Wikis in Plain English
  • Trinity’s Wiki
• Video: Blogs in Plain English
  • Trinity’s Blogs
• Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English
  • Trinity’s Bookmarks
• Video: Social Networking in Plain English
  • List of Social Networks in Education
• Video: RSS in Plain English

Videos of Curriculum Aligned Art Lessons 

• Art Snacks Click on ART SNACKS near the top of the page to view the videos.

Podcasts from the Georgia Educational Technology Consortium (GaETC)

• http://podcast.ksuettc.org/ 

Video recordings from the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC).

• Sessions: http://www.kzowebcasting.com/necc/sessions.html
• Interviews: http://www.kzowebcasting.com/necc/ 

I attended my first educational seminar in SL today. Very exciting stuff! So exciting that I’d like to attempt to take you on a quasi virtual tour of what I experienced. First of all I consider myself to be very techie but I’m not a gamer and I’m often uncomfortable when I try. SL isn’t a game. It’s a virtual world that works much like most video games today, especially the online ones. As I’ve been getting my feet wet in SL I’m uncomfortable, unsure and hesitant. I’ve managed to figure out how to move around and teleport to different locations. So making it to today’s seminar wasn’t very difficult.

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I walked in and sat down.

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So far so good, I’ve done all this before. The audio starts, the speaker appears and I’m excited. As the speaker continues I realize I should be seeing the slides change and a chat dialogue stream but I’m not. Have I done something wrong? Was I supposed to turn something on? I begin checking my menu options and clicking on the screens. A video begins to play on one of the screens,

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the speaker continues to talk and I’m having trouble absorbing anything. I think this can’t be right so I click on the screen and turn off the video. After several more minutes of feeling out of the loop and very uncomfortable I decide to try other things, finally after a restart I’m in the game.

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Now I can relax and enjoy the presentation,

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my fellow attendees,

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some good conversation,

[9:12] DocL Brandenburg: Are you using Second Life to teach?

[9:13] Wizzy Wezzog: I think I have it now. Are you talking to me?

[9:13] DocL Brandenburg: Yes.

[9:13] DocL Brandenburg: Iming

[9:14] Wizzy Wezzog: OK, I’m experimenting. I’m in an elementary school so the kids can’t go online

[9:14] DocL Brandenburg: I will be using 2nd Life next semester for inservice teacher training…

[9:14] Wizzy Wezzog: I’m thinking Prof Dev in prep for future possibilities

[9:14] Wizzy Wezzog: Oh, what type of training?

[9:14] DocL Brandenburg: but I am hoping to do something to do with Teen Life and reading.

[9:15] DocL Brandenburg: I teach technnology integration, visual literacy, and video production…

[9:15] Wizzy Wezzog: What do you do? Funny you answerd me

[9:15] DocL Brandenburg: my students are mostly inservice teachers…

[9:16] DocL Brandenburg: I teach in the Instructional design department at Western Illinois University.

[9:16] Wizzy Wezzog: We have a video studio here. The possibilities of integr in SL are staggering

[9:16] Wizzy Wezzog: Great, how long have you been on sl

[9:16] DocL Brandenburg: I am hopiong to try out Machinima for one of the video production projects….

[9:16] Wizzy Wezzog: What is Machinima

[9:16] DocL Brandenburg: I have only been on 2nd life one month, but it seems easy to use.

[9:17] Wizzy Wezzog: I’ve been on about 2 weeks but only 4 or 5 hours

[9:17] DocL Brandenburg: Machinima is real-world filmmaking techniques applied within an interactive virtual space where characters and events can be either controlled by humans,

[9:17] Wizzy Wezzog: I’m very technical but find it intimidating

[9:17] DocL Brandenburg: I think once you immerse yourself in 2nd life, it becomes easy

and make some connections.

[9:21] Wizzy Wezzog: Are you new to SL

[9:22] AvatarEnglish Lane: not so new - almost a year

[9:22] Wizzy Wezzog: Wow, I’m looking for someone that I might be able to explore with. I’m a techie but not a gamer so this is new to me.

[9:23] AvatarEnglish Lane: to explore what?

[9:23] AvatarEnglish Lane: what areas?

[9:24] Wizzy Wezzog: Educational connections. I work in an elementary school.

[9:24] Wizzy Wezzog: I’ve only been in SL about 4 or 5 hours now.

[9:25] AvatarEnglish Lane: We can stay in touch

[9:26] Wizzy Wezzog: Thank you, Can I add you as a friend?

[9:26] Wizzy Wezzog: What types of things are you doing online?

[9:27] Wizzy Wezzog: Oh, great thank you

[9:27] AvatarEnglish Lane: in terms of other tools - google docs, skype,

[9:27] AvatarEnglish Lane: and looking to use mindmaps for teaching

[9:27] Wizzy Wezzog: What do you do?

[9:28] Wizzy Wezzog: Opps, I already asked that ESL in Sl, is that working well?

[9:28] AvatarEnglish Lane: i don´t usually use this avatar, so i will send you a friendship request from my other when he feels better

At the end of the seminar the presenter handed out his presentation and some of the educational tools by dropping objects for the attendees to pick up.

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After I left the seminar I walked over to the EduNation sandbox to explore one of the tools.

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This particular tool is called a Treasure Hud. The student puts on the Treasure Hud and clicks on the Listening Post. The Listening Post displays a question at the bottom of the screen. The student answers the question via a chat box. If the question is answered correctly the student is teleported to the next Listening Post. In the sandbox I was shown pictures of famous international landmarks and asked to identify them. Unfortunately I didn’t make it very far.

I really enjoyed my first seminar and I hope you’ve enjoyed my recap. If you’re interested in joining me in SL please let me know and we’ll take a virtual field trip together.

By the way I entitled this post The Bleeding Edge because that is what the presenter called collaborating in SL.

Have you ever noticed that it’s easier to wash some else’s dishes?� I have.� It’s also easier to change diapers and soothe crying babies that aren’t yours.� I always thought that it was because I had a choice.� But when I think about it, I have a choice as to whether or not I wash my dishes and that doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy about it.� So what is it?� Yesterday I left school thinking I’m going to get here earlier and get a head start on this project some colleagues and I are working on so that they don’t have to worry with it and they have a chance at a better day.� No, I don’t think it is because I don’t have to, I think it’s because God designed us this way.� He made us to feel good when we serve others,�to feel good when we go out of our way to help someone.� Why?� Because it’s His nature, to create beings that love and serve each other, to give them pleasure when they do.� Perhaps that’s why some of the things we wind up doing for ourselves feel so flat.

I’ve been at Trinity for ten years this month. During that time I’ve seen a lot of change. I can remember when the technology lab was a 15×20 concrete room in which the computers faced the walls, the building was a��dull shade of gray and those concrete walls leaked when it rained.� I also remember that it was easier to stay in touch and I saw just about everyone everyday�in the smaller space.� We’ve certainly made a lot of changes and progress since I started here.

One of this years progressions is the move to a new progress report system.� With the new system all student data is in one place and we’re able to produce a very professional end product.� As with all progress the new system has required extra work and change on many levels.� Both physically and emotionally.� Our teachers have spent the last�few weeks using a new system, sometimes learning by trial and error.� As one of the people responsible for moving the data from input to output I’ve enjoyed seeing�teachers liberated from the old 2×2 comment ‘box’.� There’s nothing harder than trying to condence four passionate paragraphs into two.

Since all change creates stress I’ve included a link to some stress busters that I hope you will find enjoyable.

Tonight I attended a farewell get together for Nigel.� There was a huge turnout.� As I looked around at all the different people from different areas of the school I realized that it was a huge testimony to who Nigel is.� He’s a warm, compassionate individual with an empathetic ear and reassuring encouragement.� I can remember more than a few times when Nigel just listened and reassured me about something that was bothering me.� The world needs more people like Nigel, people who put people at the center of all they do.� Gentlemen who act with dignity and honor in all they do.� He will be greatly missed at Trinity; I know I’ll miss his humor, warm smile and tender heart.� Wherever life takes him Nigel will always be ministering to the hearts of people.� I can’t think of a higher calling.