I didn’t have to go to Jamie’s session, I wanted to go – and I’m glad I did. 

Jamie presented on the Open Professional Development (OpenPD) model that we were able to start working with last year. 

His goal for this session was to create a community in Texas where we can pool our resources, and compensate for the cuts in our travel and professional development budgets in Texas.  We can use free tools to provide PD, and collaborate/learn from people beyond our local districts.

Robin Ellis from Quakertown, PA and Darren Draper from Sandy Point , UT; the developers of the OpenPD Wiki Collaboration contributed to the session via VoiceThread and Skype.

The session was broadcasted using Ustream and ManyCam and embedded into Jamie’s wiki:  magnoliatech.wikispaces.com.

People can participate in this type of professional development either from home or school.  This allows everyone to receive training that may not be available in their own district.

One of the most powerful things about this type of PD is the connections that participants around the globe. Teachers that meet in these sessions have begun to collaborate in other projects involving their students as well.

ManyCam allows you to switch back and forth between your desktop and webcam.   Ustream and the wiki worked really well for allowing as many people as you want to participate. These aren’t the only services available, but these are the ones that we have used for the PD sessions. You don’t have to stick with one tool.

PD can be done in Second Life also. It used to be limited to text (which really didn’t seem to hold anyone back), but now that it is voice enabled it can be even more. Folks can meet and have opportunities to collaborate with colleagues around the globe. This also is a good way to participate in free professional development from you own home.

Great session, and a lot more people showed up than Jamie expected to see.

It has now been a full month since NECC 2008 which has proven to be one of the most eye-opening experiences of my career in public education, and here I am continuing my near perfect record of being late to the conversation. Where have I been the last several weeks? Well, when I wasn’t off summer vacationing, I was actively turning my new learning into practical application.  So, here at long last, are the people, places and things from my San Antonio experience which continue to resonate clearly:

Ian Jukes speaks my language!  When he began talking about the myelination of neural pathways, I felt like I was at a Reading Recovery Conference that I had attended over six years ago, which completely changed my teaching approach  to a consistantly multisensory model.  While the rest of the audience was pondering the differences between digital natives and digital immigrants, which you can read more about in this handout, I was experiencing a profound sense of relief that I had some background knowledge to bring to the experience.  As far as the my digital citizenship goes, I think I am probably more of a digital tourist on an extended vacation.  I really can’t claim digital native status, and I am a bit too nostalgic to truly be considered an immigrant.  I enjoy coming out to play and learn with the kiddos on a regular basis, and as a tactile/kinesthetic learner myself, it is fairly easy for me to adapt to the environment. However, I truly prefer spending time with my dusty old books, graphite pencil and Big Chief tablet too much to lobby the embassy for my immigration papers.

Among a host of other actionable gems, Chris O’Neal made an excellent point about how more and more parents are requesting teachers based on the way they use technology in their classrooms.  I can certainly see this happening as I speak to parents around my school district. Many parents have expressed concern that their children will not have the opportunity to continue to use the web based technologies that they had in my class the previous school year.  As a parent, that is a concern to which I can truly relate.  As a teacher, I simply try to be the kind of teacher I want for my own children. 

I learned what a NING was, joined one, and participated in the discussion, all during the Birds of a Feather Classroom 2.0 discussion/session.  I’m truly thankful my husband was sitting beside me at that moment, as I would likely have not been able to navigate to it on my own, even with Steve Hargadon’s kind and patient guidance, due to a sudden serious case of cognitive overload.  Following that session, I met and spoke with Karen Greenwood-Henke of the Long Tailed Learners blog, and found myself featured there not long after the conference.  As I’ve continued to follow her micro-interviews, with some really amazingly smart and influential folks through the summer, I  find myself becoming more and more overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything and everyone that is “out there” in the wide world of edtech.  The world may be flat, but it is still very, very big meandering place – and I am so unbelievably small, and totally out of my element as I continue my personal exploration.

The conversations that I just “happened into” throughout the conference were many, profound, and several of them are ongoing.  That is the true power of all of these tools – I actually feel more connected to many of the people I met, now that I am home.  They are only a click away, and unbelievably eager to help me with any confusion I may experience as I work to put all that I am learning into practice.

Then there was the Blogger’s Cafe, where I was able to happily ”lurk” and listen, as well as participate in many great conversations about making school a better, more connected place for kiddos to grow and experience their world.  It was a joy to meet many folks from the Open PD gang face to face.  Most of my favorite moments from the conference took place in this location, including the one pictured below: 

 This is the funny moment Darren Draper wrote about in his reflection post about NECC 2008.  Karl Fisch was a genuine good sport, sheepishly allowing several of us to capture this Kodak moment. No, that really isn’t the same shirt he was wearing for his cover shot, but it was so close – I wasn’t the only one who did a double take.  Chris Lehmann bringing his copy of the magazine that day:  priceless! 

Finally, the most pivotal moment of the conference for me came during the final panel session about viral professional development, moderated by Vicki Davis.  We were drawn to the session because the Open PD folks (Robin Ellis, Darren Draper and Kelly Dumont) were participating, and I left the session a changed and highly motivated teacher. During the session, Darren described Twitter as a really powerful tool for professional development.  Up to that point I had been a Twitter holdout, being way too busy for “social” networks. Powerful “learning” networks on the other hand are a completely different story.  So, the first thing I did when we got home was sign up for the Twitterverse . . . and I have been learning nonstop ever since.  I will talk more about Twitter, and how it has changed my learning paradigm in my next post.

Final disjointed thoughts:  NECC 2008 was a grand adventure in a beautiful city.  This post, outlining just a few of my personal highlights, cannot possibly do justice to the experience.  I learned about an overwhelming number of diverse tools which I have yet to explore.  I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned with my colleagues at school.  I am really looking forward to the endless possibilities that this school year holds for my new 1st grade apprentices.  For all of these things, I thank you NECC folks!  I look forward to continuing the conversation . . .