The Connected Educator Month is about to start in less than two week. Educators around the world are connecting to learn and grow together as professionals. The Connected Educator Month is an opportunity to give teachers the chance to show and experience self-directed and self-motivated learning as they are participating and contributing to the learning of others from around the world. Take your professional development and learning into your own hands. Choose what and when you want to learn. Make global connections that will continue supporting you and your students long after the month of October is over. Take a look at the sites and calendar of events from the following countries (remember you can participate virtually in any of the events from afar). Connected Educator Month: USA Connected Educator Month: Australia Connected Educator Month: New Zealand Connected Educator Month: Norway I am adding my two cents by being part of the Connected Educator month in a variety of forms and my hope is that this blog post inspires you to take action FOR your own learning: participate, contribute and connect beyond your zip code! Virtually, I will be part of Connected Educator Month New Zealand as an online panelist (Date and Time still to be determined and announced… so far the first week of October) Ng? kaupapa m? 2014 As part of the global Connected Educator efforts to distribute ownership of the event out to the community, all participating organisations were asked to nominate and vote on thematic choices, and hundreds of organisations and/or their representatives cast their ballots. As a result, this year’s CEM themes will include: Blended Learning Collaboration and Capacity-Building Diversity, Inclusiveness, and Global Connected Education Educator Professional Development and Learning Leadership For Change Student Agency, Student Voice, and the Maker Movement Whole Community Engagement (Parents,Teachers, Students, Community Members) Physically, I will be traveling to Oslo, Norway to be one of the keynote presenters (with Shelly Sanches Terrell, Kristina Alexanderson and Michael Furdyk) at the Connected Educator Month Conference. Hint: Copy and paste the text below into Google Translate in case you don’t speak Norwegian "Connected educators month" i Norge I oktober lanserer vi "Connected Educators Month" i Norge. Bak dette prosjektet står NHO, Norsk senter for IKT i utdanning, IKT Norge, Itslearning, NDLA, TV 2 Skole, Elevorganisasjonen, Utdanningsforbundet og Sandvika vgs. Det er Sandvika vgs som er initiativtaker og leder prosjektet. Selve ideen er hentet fra USA, som arrangerer dette for 3 gang nå i år. Initiativet kom fra kunnskapsdepartementet som så behovet for å få flere lærere på nett. President Obama støttet initiativet og deltok på noen av arrangementene. Mer informasjon om dette finnes på deres hjemmeside «Connected Educator Month»: connectededucators.org. I år ønsker Usa å synliggjøre at dette er et globalt prosjektet og de har derfor oppfordret andre land til deltagelse. Resultatet er at Australia, New Zealand og Norge deltar i dette globale prosjektet. Mål for arrangementet: Få flere lærere og skoleledere på nett slik at de ser nytten av å bruke sosiale medier til å dele, lære og bedre egen praksis Få flere lærere og skoleledere til å se hvordan digitalt innhold og tjenester kan øke elevenes læringsutbytte. Dele gode eksempler ved instruksjonsvideoer, webinarer og ressurser skolene kan nyttiggjøre seg på planleggingsdager og i etterutdanning av lærere. Støtte og oppmuntre innovasjon og nytenkning på dette området Støtte, oppmuntre og anerkjenne eksisterende ildsjeler I flere land har man nå fått øynene opp for hvordan vi kan lære i fellesskap ved hjelp av teknologi. Vi ser en voldsom vekst i online kurs, såkalte MOOCs som tilbys fra universitet og høyskoler. Flipped classroom og ressurser på nett hjelper elevene i sin læring og kan gjøre skolehverdagen enklere for læreren. Det handler selvsagt om elevenes læring og deres resultater. Når diskusjonene rundt på arbeidsplassene er sentrert rundt elevenes læring øker sjansen for at elevene oppnår gode resultater. Samfunnet for øvrig er i en konstant endring og skolene ved rektor og lærere plikter å holde seg oppdatert.  

Experimenting with sketchnoting as note taking and as visual summaries and slide design has been an area of intense interest for me over the past six months. Completely inapt, as an analog "artist" on paper, the use of a stylus and the iPad Paper app by FiftyThree, have allowed me to experiment with color, form, design, and typography. The process of sketchnoting … has made jotting down ideas, connecting them, visually representing the brainstorming, thoughts and visions as I am creating visuals for blog posts or designing presentation slides, a more metacognitive process … has allowed me to think through a concept, as I am drawing it out ….made me consider options, perspectives of interpretation and points of view more intensely … helped my recall by remembeing my thoughts at the moment of sketching, even weeks later Sketching has been a solitary task for the most part. That is not a bad thing, possibly even necessary to be able to take full advantage of the thinking process unfolding when doodling. I have drawn my sketches and sketchnotes, organized them in journals within the Paper app, then exported them as images. The social network aspect of sketchnoting has not gone further than uploading these images to my blog or use them as a visual tweets disseminated to and receiving feedback from my network. In one incident, my network even prompted the creation of a sketchnote as another aspect of a concept. In comes Paper’s new platform Mix, that changes the game and the possibilities completely. Get inspired—Getting started is often the hardest part of doing anything creative. With Mix, you’ll find a well of inspiration from creators around the world, both in Paper and on mix.fiftythree.com. Whether you’re skilled at drawing, or just comfortable coloring and doodling, you’ll be inspired to create and learn on Mix. No more blank pages—Professionals don’t start from scratch, and neither should you. On Mix you’ll find templates, outlines, and ideas ready to be remixed and transformed into something new. Say goodbye to the blank page. Get and share feedback—Mix is a big, visual conversation, and some of the best conversations happen when people are invited to tell their own stories. Mix is about leaving open spaces for people to fill in, and letting ideas evolve in unexpected ways.   Embedded in the app and connected to the Mix website, are now creators (or in Facebook and Twitter lingo, "friends", " followers and followees). You will receive the sketches, they chose to share, in your stream.  On the left is a stack of "papers" that you designed and have made available to everyone else on the Mix website. On the right, you will also have a stack of sketches that you starred (on the website) and are now able to edit in the Paper app on your iPad. You can  simply click on any of the images and your trusted Paper palette with your tools and colors will slide up from the bottom. Browsing on the Mix website, allows you to choose between a Learn, Sketch, Play, Write, Design and Think category. Featured creators invite you to check their stacks out or you can browse individually recently shared sketches in chronological order. Once you found a sketch that you feel inspired by, you can find the original creator and see all the other sketches the original one has inspired so far. It is truly a feast to see the creativity and different interpretations one sketch has inspired in others (ex. Ur Story by Brad Ovenell-Carter) .  Brad Ovenell-Carter, my personal mentor for starting to sketchnote, is already thinking about the implications for social sketchnoting in education In the following post, First Thoughts on @FiftyThree ‘s Fantastic New #Mix, he wonders It’s more challenging than it sounds: I can easily capture what I learn from the keynote and almost as easily leave room for what I know I don’t know-a point I missed or term that needs defining or elaborating, for example. But how do I leave room for what I don’t know I don’t know-those infamous unknown unknowns? Where do I leave space? I think that instead of seeing my notes as a sort of record, I have to see them as an invitation. What does that look like? I am envisioning, sharing with students: visual prompts to encourage, bring out and express their creativity their interpretation of a thinking prompt their visualization of a metaphor or concept crowdsourced brainstorm items how to come up with their own "inspirations" that others in their network would like to add to how social networking is about adding value, broadening horizons and building on each others The 5 random facts about…. by roav, makes me wonder how different a  book character analysis would turn out, if we asked students to choose and visually represent these facts in a social platform such as Mix? How would their classmates be inspiring each other and build upon their interpretations. Are these types of assessment "googleable"? Can students "cheat" and copy from each other to show evidence of their understanding? By moving you mouse over or tapping on the three dots to the left of the star, you can click or tap on "Go to Inspiration", which allows you to get to the template. Just start the template and open it on your iPad to edit. With a click on the heart under the original inspiration you can see all the "spin-offs" it has inspired. For a moment, consider the thinking that you would put into the task of showing your interpretation of creating a visual to demonstrate a sum from the simple prompt below by 2urn. What would you come up with? Need some inspiration? Check out the remixes already being shared on Mix! Mauro Toselli has already taken advantage of his fellow creators on the Mix platform and shared his ideas on visualizing the term "teaching" hoping to inspire others to add their visual interpretation of teaching to the pool. How would you represent teaching? As you were considering your options and drawing them out, what types of thoughts would you have? What would you be thinking as you would consider sharing your drawing? Rafa Pagés shared a wall of frames, which seems to be begging other creators to add their touch to the wall. What if we were to ask students reading The Giver to put themselves in the shoes of Jonas and choose what memories they would display on their wall? What if a history teacher would ask their students to take a famous person in history and create a hall of fame for them? I believe that the team at FiftyThree has truly giving us a platform to re-think how we expose to, connect with and allow our students to experience creative, collaborative and connected thinking. They have coupled the tool to facilitate visualized thinking, taking advantage of the metacognitive learning in the process. What are your first thoughts of the potential of such a platform? How would you add? What would you contribute? How would you take advantage of the possibilities to transform learning for your students?

The Connected Educator Month is around the corner. Norway, Australia, New Zealand and the USA have organized hundreds of events for educators to learn, connect and collaborate. As I am preparing to be part of a panel on October 2, 4 pm (USA EST)/October 3rd, 9am (NZ time) and keynote in Oslo, Norway on October 21st, I am looking at 4 big ideas around the connected educator through the lens of connected professional learning. I think about the isolation of a teacher within their classroom walls and how connectedness to a global network  of experts and peers could expose and add multiple perspectives to their world view and professional practice. I am amazed every time by the transformative nature of teaching and learning, when harnessing the power of a network to crowdsource authentic data, resources, connections and collaborators. Last, but not least, the idea of being able to model for our students what connected learning in an interconnected world means is a moral imperative for educators who are charged to prepare our kids for their future. Local Isolation as an Educator Interesting, that when thinking about being connected, my first thoughts turn to the opposite, of being isolated as a teacher. How to break out of the loneliness one can feel as a learner, reflective practitioner and someone looking for feedback when spending most of one’s work day inside a classroom with the doors closed. Traditionally, teaching has been and is one of the most isolating professions. Isolated in a physical classroom. Isolated as the only Spanish teacher in the entire school building. Isolated as the only member on a non existing grade level team. Isolated by being surrounded with children the entire day without speaking to another adult. Isolated when only hearing oneself speak when lecturing to a roomful of students, class period after class period, repeating the same lecture over and over again. 6 Ways to Avoid Feeling Isolated in the Classroom by Rebecca Alber (Edutopia) Being Exposed and Gaining Perspective How can teachers open up the walls of their classroom and become connected to experience and gain perspectives from other educators  around the world? Being connected to other educators and experts gives teachers, for the first time the exposure of multiple perspectives and constant opportunities to access different points of view. Opportunities from someone who does not live in one’s zip code Opportunities to connect with someone of a different country, culture and language Opportunities to learn from people regardless of stereotypes of age or sex Opportunities to learn from newbies and experts. Opportunities to see through the eyes of eye witnesses Take Advantage and Harness the Power of the Network Once connections are established, trust has been given and received, the network machine has started to function. It is the moment when sending a "shout-out" into your network is not just met with silence. A shout-out is met with a response, an answer, a re-tweet, a comment, feedback, a push back, added value, etc. This goes far beyond traditional  face to face network connections though. Traditionally one expected the response from a few people. Crowdsourcing though"is the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community". The response could easily be co-created by fifty, hundreds or even thousands of people contributing. Part of network literacy is the understanding of and harnessing this type of network intelligence. As David Weinberger in his book "Too Big to Know" stated "The smartest person in the room is the room". It is the exponential potential that makes being a connected educator transformational. Crowdsourcing for authentic data collection Crowdsourcing for multiple points of view and perspectives Crowdsourcing to collect resources Crowdsourcing to gather different approaches to solve problems Crowdsourcing to increase efficiency Crowdsourcing to assemble individual pieces to make a whole with small contributions of each individual Crowdsourcing to participate in and collaborate on projects The Moral Imperative to Model Network Literacy and Learning for our Students in an Interconnected World. One of the modern literacies is Network Literacy. In the Harvard Business Review, Eric Hellweg, outlines 4 key attributes to this network literacy. The capabilities to Obtain a basic understanding of network technology. Craft your network identity. Understand network intelligence. Understand network capabilities I strongly believe that if we want globally connected students, we need to have globally connected teachers. Students need teachers who model connected learning and not just talk about it. Students need teachers who have experienced connected learning in order to translate and tweak that experience into their classrooms. Students need connected teachers, who can connect them with an authentic global audience, peers and experts. Students need teachers to model building an academic learning network. Students need teachers who are adept in applying global pedagogy (approaches, strategies and techniques to facilitate learning) to their curriculum. When you think of connected educators, what are your big ideas that surface? Connect your thoughts, come out of your isolation, share your perspective, add to a crowdsourced collection of global pedagogy examples and how you model connected learning for your students.    Connected Educator Month New Zealand Connected Learning: Plotting pathways, navigating mazes Much is made of the opportunities that digital technologies offers both educators and students in terms of opening up possibilities for collaboration and learner-centred design. We must also keep our eyes open to the challenges and ask the big questions about why we design learning as we do. This session will debate the issues, gains and challenges for learning in a  digital work. With special guests, Audrey Watters (@audreywatters/Hack Education), Silvia Tolisano (@langwitches/), Tom Barratt (@tombarrett/NoTosh) and Togi Lemanu (@TogiLemanu/CORE Education), hosted by Karen Melhuish Spencer (@virtuallykaren) and Phoebe Davies (@rukuwai). Connected Educator Month Oslo, Norway The Connected Educator: Beyond Plugging in Towards Global Pedagogy With the increasingly interconnected nature of our global society and the need for a very different kind of literacy for our students, extending teaching and learning beyond the walls of our classrooms is especially vital in this digital age. If you want globally connected students, you need globally connected teachers who are capable of communicating, collaborating and connecting to experts and peers from around the world. These educators are harnessing the power of global connections for their own learning in order to bring the world to their students. What does collaboration, communication and connections mean in a connected world? What are the steps in becoming a globally connected educator? How do we move from being consumers to producers and contributors? How do we modernize and globalize our classroom practices while expanding our professional learning network to include colleagues from around the world?

I am excited to be sharing global pedagogy in the world language classroom with educators from NJAIS (New Jersey Association of Independent Schools). How do we make world language teaching more relevant for our students in the US? How do we move, as Jason Cummings pointed out, towards oral fluency and interpersonal communication through global connections? Global skills, literacies, and capacities need to push our teachers and students to not just talk about the world, but learn, speak, and collaborate with the world (HT to Vicky Davis). Globally connected students NEED globally connected teachers. Let’s explore examples and ideas to connect to experts, mentors, and peers from around the world as a way of teaching and learning. the amplified possibilities of global connections to move beyond your classroom, a global learning network at your disposal, using your imagination to bring the world (language and culture) to your students, opportunities to support and embed 21st century skills and literacies in your curriculum, a showcase of examples from the World Language classroom. Global Pedagogy in the World Language Classroom from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

From the moment in my first year of teaching, when a colleague told me that she thought I was bragging when I was sharing my work, I have been stumped that "sharing" among educators was not something given, not inherent to a… well… a teacher… I have written many blog posts from It’s All About Sharing & Collaborating, There is a responsibility of sharing among Educators, Sharing in Education- Is it Changing? to What Do You Have to Lose? I do want to understand WHY some educators choose to not share. I want to understand their point of view… I chose to crowdsource answers to that question. I consider crowdsourcing as one of the transformative big ideas around being a connected educator. Taking advantage of Mix by FiftyThree,  a new platform for Sketchnoting, I uploaded the following image below with the question: As an Educator, What is YOUR Reason for NOT sharing? Once uploaded to Mix, the sketch is visible to other members of the Mix network. Members can choose to star the sketch, then open it on their iPad Paper app and remix it, which then gets shared back to the platform.   Looking at the responses, I am gaining answers from the different perspectives I was looking for. Jonathan shared back that "sometimes nobody understands." Chris shared his reasons "being judged as a teacher’s pet", "I’m shy", "I have no self-confidence" and "people whisper about me". Mika is being held back from sharing, because of judgement, expectations, fear and feeling that she is not being smart. Brandon, changed the variable from "educator" to "creator" and lists as his reason holding him back from sharing as: fear, doubt, shame, etc. Levi adds to general fear, his handwriting, spelling errors and "having no imagination" to the reasons holding him back from sharing. These are just a few samples of the sketches that have been remixed from my original. In addition the following reasons were also given by several remixers why one does not share: haters bullies What is the point? experimenting people may not like it " I don’t know" Thank you for "sharing" your reasons why educators might not "share". It is painting a bigger picture for me, beyond my own perspective. I am amazed a the crowdsourcing capabilities of the Mix platform. Beyond that, the thinking behind creating a slide/image that invites others to add their perspective, their creativity to "the mix" is complex. I am trying to learn from other images that have inspired hundreds of remixes. What sparks inspiration to add in some, but not in others? How can I make the "variables" (the ones I want others to remix/add to) more obvious? In the above example, I would have liked others, in addition to adding their reasons, to change my signature "@langwitches" with their own Twitter handle and  ( as Brandon did) change "educator"  for another noun (ex. As a Creator). Just as we help our students "write for an audience", how do we teach and learn to "draw and/or write for a crowd"? What are your thoughts?

Transforming traditional conference experiences?… learning collaboratively in physical spaces…socially… synchronously… face to face… experiences that spill over into asynchronous learning over geographic distances, time zones and time periods?…. conference archives… conference (Institutional) memories… Those thoughts and questions have been floating around in my head for a while now and it is interesting to see how, since 2010, they have evolved and developed. Attending a Conference in 2010 Twittering at a Conference Documenting Conferences: Blog and Twitter Styl New Forms of Learning: How to Participate in a Conference 2.0 Style? As part of the AASSA team, I will be traveling to the GIN conference (Global Issues Network.) being hosted by Asociacion Escuelas Lincoln in Buenos Aires, Argentina. GINs are groups of students and teachers, working internationally, to develop solutions for global issues. GINs challenge students and teachers to immerse themselves in a chosen issue and to interact with peers and other international collaborators to create networks, think and act critically, creatively, and innovatively toward creating solutions to address real-world global issues. The key ideas are based on the book High Noon- 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them by Jean Francois Rischard My job, as the Social Media Coordinator, will be to "cover" the conference. I will be tweeting, blogging and documenting the work, collaboration, vision and learning taking place during the  three days in Buenos Aires. The job of a Social Media Coordinator at an educational conference (for teachers or students) is a new concept. I am sure that many participants and even organizers are not quite sure what my role is about? Goals One goal is to share resources and what is going on with students and schools who are not physically present in order to connect them and their projects. The documentation part is also at the forefront to make sure that the conference workshops, film festival and connections made do not end and are not limited to the actual days and people present. How will students take back what they learned, created and planned? How will what happens AFTER the conference be shared and connected? Continued connections beyond the conference Documentation and curation ("Digital curation is the selection, preservation, maintenance, collection and archiving of digital assets. Digital curation establishes, maintains and adds value to repositories of digital data for present and future use." via Wikipedia) Making thinking and learning at the conference visible Resources Resources shared and produced at the conferences need to be curated (searched for, selected, tagged, categorized, archived and made accessible) links (external/internal links) embedding media (of produced and shared content) pdf background info Production Create/produce by using and remixing a variety of media images videos interview curation platform (tweet, blog, Conference Documentation tweet storify blog multimedia sketchnotes I am also looking at documenting and archiving the conference from the following angles: Teachers How can teachers model for, support students and share their own unique perspective of the conference with students and other educators? How do teachers prepare their students to be successful participants at the conference? How can teachers support students at the conference? How will teachers help connect their students beyond the conference with other students, experts, organizations and a global authentic audience? Students Students are part of the overall conference crowdsourced documentation team to connect with and disseminate to each other and a global audience via social media Students contribute their unique perspective. Students voice representation. Students start building a global network beyond a face to face network. Students document in a variety of media in order to contribute to a larger pool of resources Students see an amplified vision of an "awareness-research-learn-present-action" process that does not end with the end of the physical conference, but continues to play a significant role with follow-up documentation and connections. What are some other considerations and examples for educational conference documentation? How do we answer the questions I started out with? How do we transform traditional conference experiences through Social Media, documentation and archiving? How can physical conference learning experiences spill over into asynchronous learning over geographic distances, time zones and time periods? How do we produce conference archives (as part of a crowdsourced effort) and conference (Institutional) memories?

I continue to practice my note taking skills when listening to a live keynote presentation at a conference. I am currently at the GIN conference, a student led conference for students and by students, centered around solving global issues. To read more about the presenters or to watch their recorded keynote presentations, please visit the GIN conference website Marina Mansilla Hermann- @marinamansillah John D Liu- @johndliu Sarah Dupont- @saradupont3

More and more people have asked about the sketchnotes you see sprinkled throughout the Langwitches blog. I was thrilled when Felix Jacomino, organizer of Miami Device, asked me to do a Sketchnoting 101 workshop at the conference this upcoming Friday. Here is the slidedeck, I have been working on and a few resources that have helped me wrap my mind around Sketchnoting FOR learning and develop a few skills and strategies along the way. In a nutshell, I have learned 3 things, since I started dabbling with doodling You don’t have to be an artist ( I am not…) The process of thinking involved AS you are creating the sketchnote about a topic is "mindblowing". Sketchnoting helps me process and digest a talk, wrap my mind around a large amount of information and organize my thoughts better. I am using sketchnoting as part of my learning process. Sketchnoting FOR Learning from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano Links & Resources: Mix FiftyThree Paper App by Fifty Three Sunni Brown: TED Talk: Doodlers Unite Sunni Brown on Twitter Langwitches’ Sketchnoting Pinterest Board Sketchnote Scribes Google+ Community A Sketchnote Primer by Brad Ovenell-Carter Langwitches’ Diigo Social Bookmarks about Sketchnoting Books: The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently by Sunni Brown The Sketchnote Handbook: the illustrated guide to visual note taking by Mike Rohde  

I speak at a lot of conferences. It is a rare opportunity when I am able to attend a conference without the responsibility of a keynote or facilitating several sessions. Last week, I was able to attend MiamiDevice, a first year conference put on by Felix and his Saint Stephens Episcopal School team in Coconut Grove, Florida. There were many fantastic breakout sessions, but the unconference opportunities (as most of the time) made the experience fantastic! Below are my "notes". Yes, not on a traditional yellow notepad, that I will never look at again or am unlikely to share with anyone else. I enjoy taking notes in a variety of ways, making sure that they are SHAREABLE.  My notes come in form of tweets, which I chose to curate from my and other attendees Twitter feed (#miamidevice hashtag) and connect with each other via Storify. My Notes can be in form of  sketchnotes from sessions or  photos shot to freeze a moment in time to remind me of the relationships started or strengthened. Wesley’ Fryer‘s session Help Students Show What They Know with Media Tablets, smartphones and computers should not be used by students just to CONSUME media: Students should regularly use digital devices to "show what they know" with media." In this session we will view and discuss different examples of student multimedia projects created by students including narrated art/photo projects, narrated slideshow/screencasts, Quick-edit videos, visual notes, and GeoMap projects. Link to examples and available tools to create each media product on the Mapping Media website: http://maps.playingwithmedia.com Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith session: The Power of Crowdsourced Learning Looking for ideas you can use in your classroom tomorrow? Time to learn how to crowdsource innovative teaching ideas in this hands-on, participant driven workshop. In this session, you will learn how to use the crowd to curate professional development and game-changing lessons that you can use in your classroom right away. For even more fun, we will ask the best ideas of the day to be on an EduSlam episode. Here are my  tweets from the session Culture of Selfies with Jeremy Macdonald strung together via Storify. Say cheese! Today’s over-saturation of mobile technology has created a culture of selfies. Though common (yet sometimes annoying), the selfie demonstrates the amplifying power of technology in today’s world. While the word "selfie" is fairly new, the idea and its implications are centuries old. Come explore the world of selfies, learn the history, the implications, and how we can leverage this new(ish) cultural phenomenon to create more meaningful learning in our classrooms and encourage more profound sharing of our ideas and ourselves. I also got to meet Anibal Pacheco  in person. It was especially sweet,  since Anibal is puertoriqueño (the language of our heart is Spanish, so our conversation was flowing in and out from Spanish and English) and he had lived many years in Germany… enough said.   Anibal was recording many short interviews, which you can view on his YouTube Channel.  with Jenny Ashby and Nerissa Raschelle photobombing us [View the story "The Culture of Selfies" on Storify] with Susan Bearden with Wes Fryer and having fun with documenting our culture of selfies I presented a session on Sketchnoting and was thrilled to see participants be so excited and eager to try Thank you Craig Badura @mrbadura for the audience perspective of the room… Thank you Greg Kulowiec @gregkulowiec for the "artistic" perspective and angle Thank you Tony Vincent @tonyvincent for and appsmashing Infopic. Here are a few of my images, documenting the session.   I was especially thrilled to see that sketchnoting practice was not over after the session ended, nor limited to the physical attendees. It looks like MiamiDevice will return in 2016. You might want to start planning [View the story "Miami Device 2014″ on Storify]

After my sketchnoting workshop at Miami Device, I was asked to record my process of CREATING the sketchnotes. I used Airserver to mirror my iPad display to my laptop Used Screenflow to record myself sketching the main points of the presentation Used Screenflow to speed up the recorded footage from 30+ minutes to 2.5 minutes Exported, then imported into iMovie to add credtits and music This was the first time doing a screencast this way for me…there are a few kinks that I still need to work out (how to NOT record the screenflow toolbar). [The sketchnotes created in the video below were NOT created live, but AFTER, I had created the slide deck already} Here is the slide deck for the presentation The 5 Cs in Education… What if… from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

I am excited to share with you a guest post by Mark Engstrom, head of school at  PACE. PACE is a new school planning on opening its doors in 2015. I am super excited to follow the school’s journey in terms of personalized and networked learning. At PACE, we have reimagined and redesigned student learning experiences so that students experience their world in a way that makes sense to them. Students and families have choices regarding what content they want to learn, the modality which they want to learn in or the pace at which they learn for each learning experience.  They will also operate within a new workflow that includes autonomy with regards to when to be assessed and reflection/documentation at the end of each learning experience. Take a look below and ask yourself: Who owns the learning  (HT to Alan November) ? What are the skills involved in this learning experience? (graphic and presentation design, typography, communication , network, collaboration, reflective skills, etc.) Guest post by Mark Engstrom: An excellent example of student learning at PACE is the development of the logo.  We connected Alex E., a PACE student, with Mariela, a professional graphic designer in Buenos Aires to embark on the project.  To start, Alex sent three ideas to her with the reasons that he liked each one (he mentioned colors that were easily visible, a variety of fonts and in the case of the middle one, a space theme since PACE will be located in the same city as NASA). The next step was for Mariela to send in her first round of logo suggestions, including some that were strongly influenced by Alex’s initial ideas.  What she sent to him was the following. Upon receiving this, Alex let Mariela know how he felt about the logos and was ready to collaborate so they could get to the next step in the process.  Their e-mail exchange is below: They agreed on skipping the underline idea and at that point Mariela thought about the specific hues that would represent the forward thinking model of PACE (she also noted that Alex subconsciously chose the colors of kung fu belts).  She decided on a variety of hues and the following suggestions were sent to Alex: Alex wrote that he liked Droid Serif and Sanchez Italic and we ended up with proposal number three from above which gave us the logo we have today (Sanchez Italic): In his reflection about the experience of collaborating on the design of the logo, Alex said, "It was fun working with a professional designer and an experience that most kids don’t normally get.  I have the feeling that I’m actually making a change and not just making myself smarter." Mariela thought the experience was a good one as well and stated, "In over 10 years of experience as a graphic designer, this is the first time I shared a project with a child.  I would say that the idea arose in his little head, I just contributed with my experience and knowledge to adjust and add meaning to what he proposed.  Children have skills that adults have lost over the years due to the amount of information they accumulate.  We have much to learn from them!  Thanks for making me part of this project!" This is a great example of how we intend to give students Purposeful (the logo is being used), Authentic (he went through a genuine collaborative process), Connected (he worked with a professional graphic designer) and Experiential (he didn’t read about someone else’s experience, but rather went through it himself) learning experiences every chance that we can.  We will embed as many of the four components that make up the acronym PACE as possible in our Passion Based Learning projects and other areas of student growth.

I am mulling Blogging FOR Learning over and over. It seems to be the glue that holds the puzzle pieces together in terms of contemporary learning and teaching. From 1. Documenting (video, audio, text, images, embedded content,manage online work, curated content) to 2. Reflecting (meta-cognitive, connected, goal oriented, as an assessment) to 3. Sharing (published, transparent, making learning/ thinking visible,  to teach others and contribute to a network) on to 4. Connecting (for authentic feedback, collaboration purposes, finding mentors and to gain perspective) Help me re-sketch Blogging FOR Learning. How would you create a learnflow? What would you add? What are your puzzle pieces? How would you visualize for others the flow and benefits of blogging for learning?

Funny how a Learning Network trail can lead one to unexpected destinations   Follow along the bread crumbs to see where the trail came from and what it led to… 1. I shared a presentation on Sketchnoting For Learning 2. Sharon Bowman, left  a comment on slideshare and tweeted the link 3. I followed the link to Sharon’s website, and purchased one of her books titled: The Ten Minute Trainer: 150 Ways to Teach it Quick & Make it Stick. As a professional development provider, I enjoyed her suggestions of 1-minute activities with the objectives of: understanding reflecting reviewing focusing articulating one’s own thinking making thinking visible creating connections sharing Sharon used analog material, such as paper, pencil, index cards, sticky notes and face to face dialogue and conversation in her workshops. There is NOTHING wrong with that and EVERYTHING right with her approach to take  lecture type presentations and divide them into small easier digestible chunks,  then give the attendees time to review, reflect, discuss and share what they learned. "shorter segments of instruction are better than long ones, and learners remember more when they are involved in the learning" 4. My thoughts turned to ideas how we could amplify these short activities beyond the attendees of the workshop and at the same time include an activity that: exposes participants to network literacy helps them contribute to and build a Personal Learning Network collaborates and connects with a larger number of other workshop attendees, as well as a potential global audience documents their learning beyond the physical time of the workshop supports reviewing, reflecting, discussing and sharing their learning 5. Many of Sharon’s activities seemed to be a natural fit for amplifying them into Twitter activities, embedding the SAME learning objectives she has for her analog activities. 6. I sketched the following notes 7. I look forward to sharing the following 1-minute activities at my next workshop as an option for attendees in addition to some of the analog ones. Connections Share something you already know about the workshop topic use the #workshop hashtag follow someone who is also using the #workshop hashtag Pair Share share the most important fact or concept you just learning in the last 10 minutes tweet it out and specifically @mention someone else Shout Out shout out a number between 1-10 tweet (that amount) of ways that can impact your practice use #workshop hashtag Doodles Make up a metaphor of the most important concept you learned sketch the metaphor take a photo and tweet it using #workshop hashtag Signal make a noise signal, if you have a "tweetable moment" articulate and share your tweetable moment tweet it out use the #workshop hashtag Time Sponges tweet out two things you want to learn at the workshop reply to someone else’s tweet by answering their question Think & Write tweet one sentence that summarized the information you heard about use #workshop hashtag Exit Ticket Tweet 1 opinion about an issue related to what you learned tweet a question you sill have. "How about…" use @workshop hashtag Action Plan tweet out a sentence starting with "I plan to…" with what you learned share how you will hold yourself accountable

Microsoft launched a preview of its Skype Translator service, a real time translation service supporting over 40 languages. The preview was filmed at Colegios Peterson in Mexico City, an AASSA member school, and at Stafford Elementary School in Tacaoma, Washington. Interested in learning more about using Skype in the Classroom or about Mystery Skypes? Take a look at the following resources: Mystery Skype: Be the Fly on the Wall: Mystery Skype Digital Learning Farm in Action: Mystery Skype Mystery Skype: The Excitement of Learning Skype in the Classroom: Assessment in the Modern Classroom: Part Two- Taxonomy of a Skype Conversation Framing a Skype Learning Experience Behind the Curtains of a Skype Call Skype Jobs for Students

I am back on my soapbox… …because I continue to see great things happening in classrooms, but get blank stares, when I ask, if these things are being shared beyond the school building. …because I watch as administrators feel the need to "protect" their faculty from "one more thing to do". …because I continue to hear fear of transparency, competition, privacy and technology skills and tech phobia.   Setting up my soapbox to raise awareness of the "moral imperative of sharing" for teachers (Dean Shareski) goes back to his keynote in 2010 at the K-12 Online Conference. Since then I have stepped on that soapbox via my blog and at conferences advocating for the IMPORTANCE and NECESSITY of sharing. What is your Reason for not sharing? The Now Literacies through the Lens of Sharing It’s All About Sharing & Collaborating There is a responsibility of sharing among Educators Sharing in Education- Is it Changing? What Do You Have to Lose? George Couros, recently published 4 Reasons People Don’t Blog, which are in essence the same reasons why people don’t share (just substitute "blogging" for "sharing") Blogging is useless I have no time I’m a private person No one cares what I have to say He closes his blog post by pointing out the importance of sharing as an integral component of learning as well as underline "the willingness of others"  I have learned a ton not only from my own blog, but from benefitting from others that have been willing to share their teaching and learning with me, and because of that, as Dean Shareski stated, I am better off for the willingness of others to share. I DO want to understand WHY it seems so hard for some many educators to share…but only in order to build an airtight argument that SHARING best practices, reflections and documentation of learning is the essential fabric of education and the building block of networking, growing and moving forward. We need to stop looking at all the reasons why educators DON’T SHARE and start looking at and DOING all the  things WHY we NEED TO SHARE. So here is my list: 3 Things Why You (as an Educator)  Should Share 1. The shift of a culture of consumers to producers is built on sharing and disseminating. Our world, and in particular the world of our students, is build on the culture of sharing. Ex. Sharing your status on facebook, adding a book review on Amazon, leaving a comment on a product you purchased online, photos on Instagram and videos on Snapchat and YouTube. Educators need to acknowledge the shift outside of the classroom and take advantage of the shift for learning with our students. 2. Painting the picture of teaching and learning in your school Too many other people (non-educators, policy makers, politicians, media, etc.) are painting a grim picture of the teaching profession, teaching in general, schools and student learning. It is time to become our own storytellers. Sharing student successes and teachers’ professional and continuous learning MUST overshadow and outnumber the negative press and reputation that has been building up. 3. The future of learning is social and build on and around Professional Learning Networks. Networking is built on a concept of sharing. Networking is defined by the Merriam_Webster dictionary as "the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions". In order for an exchange to take place, someone has to step up to SHARE. Without sharing there is no network. Someone has to give and someone has to take, without giving the machinery of how a network works will not function. In our Information Age, where information is being generated at exponential speed, we need to rely on a network to filter quality and relevant information for us. It is our responsibility to be the filter and curator for others as well. So from 3 reasons WHY you should share… on to 3 Things you can do to start sharing… 3 Things What You (as an Educator) Can Do to Start Sharing 1. Stop resisting change We need educators, in particular administrators, to stop resisting change, take a deeper look at the world around them and LEAD by modeling!  Sharing is and needs to be a method, a strategy and a technique to improve teaching and learning practices, benefiting an entire school  learning community. 2. Create a workflow to document teaching and learning Great things are happening in your classroom and in your schools. Learn to embed documenting best practices, student learning and action research in a digital form to be able to easily disseminate via a blog, twitter, photo or video sharing site. 3. Start small. Add a comment on a blog you read, share a resource, a link, a book or an article you have learned from on Twitter. Let students take over in documenting learning in their classroom. Use your cell phone to take photos of learning in action, write a descriptive comment under the photo and share on a blog, Instagram, a classroom site, blog,  Twitter or Facebook account. You can start sharing right here by adding your reasons WHY educators should share and WHAT you can DO to  start sharing?

Over the past few years, I had many conversations with colleagues and teacher friends what it would be like to start, build, run and work at our own school. What would we do different in "our" school? Who "all star" faculty team from our PLN would we recruit to develop a school that would give our future students an incredible learning experience. What types of teachers would we hire? How would we assemble a collaborative team, eager to work with each other, share their work with a global audience and bring these experiences to their students? What curriculum would we adopt, adapt and develop? What kind of administrators would we be? What types of parents would be sending their children to learn with us? How would Professional Development look like for our faculty and students? Have you ever dreamed of opening your own school? What would you do? How would you promote your school? What would be the key characteristics of your own school? What would you do differently? Mark Engstrom, a former vice principal of mine, is doing exactly that. He dreamed and is making his dream a reality when PACE, his new school that is planning on opening its doors in August of 2015. Even before these doors open, Mark has started blogging to share his school’s philosophy, have potential parents and students get to know him and to start making connections. Langwitches recently cross-posted an article about one PACE Student’s Learning Experiences- Collaborating on a PACE logo. I am especially excited about following PACE’s journey as they : * are looking to hire teachers who can demonstrate skills (not just talk about them) and are experiencing  a connected learning network as they are building their own digital presence (not just having heard about it). A video/film which includes the candidate him/herself- no more than 3 minutes- describing why you would like to work/be a good fit at PACE or An example of the candidates digital footprint and an explanation of how that online presence indicates why they would like to work/be a good fit at PACE   * will be supporting networked students At PACE we want our students to realize that they are part of a larger web of people out there learning about the world.    *are including documenting and reflecting as an integral part of the student work flow /learning process To learn more about the school, or if you live in the Houston, Texas/USA area and are interested in sending your child to a school who is re-imagining education or are interested in becoming part of the founding faculty take a look at the following videos to learn about PACE or like them on Facebook. Pace Philosophy What Will Learning Look Like at PACE? Have you ever thought of building your own school? What would be key characteristics you would showcase or market for your dream school, if you could build one from scratch?

Slideshare has silently become  another one of my go to sites for research, design inspiration, and ideas on a particular subject over the last few years. Since 2006, I have almost uploaded 100 slide decks of my own to be able to embed and share them online. I am honored that Slideshare.net has selected The Globally Connected Educator as one of the best slide decks in 2014. 4.4 billion views. 4.2 million uploads. SlideShare had its best year yet, thanks to users like you. What’s perhaps most astounding, though, are the powerful stories, insightful data, forward-thinking thought leadership, and big ideas that were shared this year. Take a peek at the other categories and selections. The Globally Connected Educator shares the spotlight, in the "Best Decks For Educators" with Dean Shareski  ‘s The Classroom of the Future  (on slide 17). The Must-Read SlideShares of 2014 from SlideShare

Someone monolingual is one who speaks one language. Someone bilingual is fluent in two languages, trilingual is fluent in three languages and someone multilingual is fluent in multiple languages. Speaking one language connects us to other speakers and the culture of that language. We are able to communicate, discuss and learn of different perspective through face to face interactions, literature, books, blog posts, newspaper or journal articles, videos, images and other online resources It is not  a secret that being bilingual or mulitlingual has its benefits. From being better at multi-tasking, decision making, sharper reasoning, holding off the onset of Alzheimer and being able to see or read about situations from a different perspective or cultural point of view . Larry Ferlazzo has in incredible resource page if you want to learn more about the advantages of being bilingual or multilingual. Especially in the age of global business, the value of employees being able to speak more than one language has increasingly been highlighted over the last few years by pointing out that multilingual employees earn more money and have "practical benefits in a globalized economy". Reality is though, that many American are monolingual. With many foreign language programs in the US being delayed (until students are older), reduced or directly cut, not everyone is or will be bilingual in the foreseeable future in the US. Unfortunately many still don’t see the personal need for a native English speaker to go outside their language capability (Why? Examples: "I have everything I need in my language". "I don’t travel much to countries who don’t speak English". "I expect everyone else to speak English".) I am continuing to examine how the concept of what literacy has been and is continuing to evolve. Does literacy include a certain degree of language competence beyond our native comfort zone? How can a monolingual still take advantage of gaining multiple perspectives, amplified resources and be part of a global conversation? In dem Google Zeitalter, ist es einfacher als je, trotz Sprachunterschiede und Beherrschungsgrad zu kommunizieren und miteinander zu lernen. Es is wichtig Sprachfertigkeiten im digitalen Zeitalter zu erweitern, um Perspektiven und  Zusammenhänge ausserhalb seiner Sprachkenntnisse zu sehen und erkunden zu können. Interested in what the quote above said? Why not copy and paste the above into Google Translate and find out in what language it was written in and what it means? Three things need to happen: 1. Monolinguals need to be AWARE of one-language limitations, the options open to them as well as the need and benefits by extending their available resources, voices, opinions in languages OTHER THAN their mother tongue. 2. Ability to use tools, which will simulate as best as possible the logistical language translation component of being multilingual (I am not aware of a technology yet, that will "translate" the cultural component of being able to speak another language) 3. Increased fluency in using and switching between situation-appropriate tools to understand and communicate in a variety of languages In case, you continued reading and did not choose to have your browser, website or app translate the quote in German above, here is the translation side by side. While it is not a perfect translation, I believe Google Translate did a decent job in communicating the meaning of the quote. One would realize that a native speaker did not write it, but for the purpose of understanding content, Google Translate can be an invaluable tool to amplify one’s reach outside of one’s comfort language. How far are monolinguals developing the skills of reading text in languages other than English and  for comprehension in their own language ,when the text came digitally translated? Is this a natural skill all monolinguals possess or one that needs to be practiced and developed similar to the way younger students are being taught? What will it take for all of us (monolinguals and multilinguals) to REGULARLY and FLUENTLY go beyond the comfort zone of our native languages and tap into the resources of the network of speakers of other languages? Challenge: Choose an article written in another language than one you speak or choose one of the articles listed below. Translate the article into your own language Read the article for content and mean (ignore grammar, phrasal verbs, expressions or sayings that don’t make sense translated, etc.)  Use another online dictionary, app or translator for individual words, if necessary Write a short reflection on your own blog, linking to the original article to: raise awareness of expanding our language horizon to our readers break down skills of using tools to overcome "not speaking the  language" the article is written in ask yourself, how do we translate these language competence into our classrooms?  Articles: Cultiver son réseau d’apprentissage personnel, comme un jardin by Jacques Coole - (French) Leitmedienwechsel und Lernpraxis by Torsten Larbig (German) 10 años de estar juntos: En lo bueno y en lo malo by Juan Carlos Guerra (Spanish) ????? ????? ?????? ???? ?-21 ( Adapting the Education System for the 21st Century) by Seham - (Hebrew) Resources: An interesting article about using Google Translate to learn from news articles written in different languages Getting Lost in Translation by Ann Michaelson An experiment with Google Translate by Steven Wenz  

Readers of the Langwitches blog know the passion I have for sharing my work and own learning path around of 21st century, modern, contemporary, the "now" literacies with educators and students from around the world. Specifically, I am interested in contemporary upgrades and amplification of the curriculum, documenting for learning (from digital portfolios, digital storytelling, new forms of teacher observations, to building institutional memory), blogging as pedagogy, visualize learning and developing & maintaining a Personal Learning Network as a transformational professional development practice. I have been fortunate to be able to combine that passion with traveling and connecting schools, teachers and administrators globally. Now is the time to think about working with me for the 2015/2016 school year. Especially, if you are interested in going beyond "drive by" workshops, but are looking at a long term coaching relationship to support and mentor your faculty in contemporary learning (collaborative, connected, social, global, amplified, digital media infused self-directed, self-motivated) with evidence of learning from their classrooms. Contact me to schedule a (free) initial consultation. To view the full range of my keynote, workshop, blended coaching and webinar offerings, please take a look at my consulting website: http://www.globallyconnectedlearning.com, my work here on the Langwitches Blog or on Twitter. Keynote, Workshops and Conferences I have been a presenter and keynote speaker around the world on a variety of topics in the areas of 21st century contemporary teaching and learning, heutagogy, blogging as pedagogy, personal learning networks, digital storytelling, world language teaching, presentation design,  visual literacy and globally connected learning. Keynotes: Let me help set the tone or kick off your conference or professional development day by sharing not just the big picture of the educational paradigm shift, but also concrete examples from the classroom. Workshops: Teachers need to live the new type of learning we wish for our students to experience.  In my workshops, educators will get exposed to hands-on learning experiences with selected tools and modern literacy pedagogy. Contact me, if you are interested in having me speak or conduct a workshop at your next conference or in-house Professional Development day. Blended Coaching Model Schools are struggling to keep up with the demands of curriculum design and upgrades to prepare students for modern skills and emerging literacies. Professional Development needs to offer opportunities for teachers to transform traditional experiences and redefine their own learning and in consequence their teaching practices. This consulting framework includes onsite consulting, job embedded instructional coaching and workshops, blended with online coaching, workshops and feedback in the areas of modern learning skills and literacies. Research, as well as anecdotal and personal evidence, has proven that a reflective learning culture is one of the best indicators to increase student learning.  The blended coaching model uses" Blogging as Pedagogy" as a deeply reflective year long learning opportunity to allow teachers to experience a shift in their learning and make documentation, reflection and sharing part of their practice. Embedded in this process are learn-by-doing technology skills that support the shift into a blended learning environment for ongoing lifelong learning habits and mindset. The model relies heavily on self-directed and self motivated professional learners to put new learning practices into action, document, reflect, receive feedback, and keep redefining learning in and out of the classroom. Cohort participants will be building a learning network, share their practices, successes and failures to benefit the school community, including parents, colleagues and students. Contact me, if you are interested in a finding out more about the possibility of starting to work with a cohort of educators at your school. Webinar & Video Conferences For a cost effective alternative to bringing in a consultant, consider inviting me to support your teachers online. I am available for online 1:1  coaching, small group or large group professional development in the areas of modern teaching & learning. Please contact me, if you are interested in webinars or video conferencing via Skype, Facetime or Google Hangout. Take a look at a variety of topics I offer and schedule a (free) initial consultation. We will discuss your learning needs and customize a one-time coaching session or a series of online conferences to support your faculty’s learning journey. Blended Coaching Model Pedagogical Documentation Strategic Documentation for Coaches and Consultants Social Media & Networking Assistance Download Globally Connected Learning Flyers as a PDF  

C.M. Rubin from the The Huffington Post just published  The Global Search for Education: Our Global Top 12 Teacher Blogs. It’s a New Year Teachers! Are you ready to start that new blog? Want some tips from some pros around the world on how to make it a great one? Everybody was blogging in 2014, and especially teachers. After all, blogging is an incredible way for teachers to share first hand knowledge with their peers. We asked The Global Search for Education editorial team and our blogging advisors to submit their favorite teacher blogs and blog posts from around the world. We reviewed many great blogs. These 12 were our favorites. I was honored to be one of the twelve teacher blogs mentioned, along  Karen Lirenman, Vicki Davis, and Craig Kemp among others. Time to check out some of the other blogs, I have not been aware of and adding them to my RSS Reader.

Living in the USA (in certain regions), it is sometimes easy to forget that NOT EVERYONE speaks English, or is comfortable with English as a foreign language.Even hanging out on Twitter, the bloggersphere or other social media platforms, it can be easy to become complacent and forget or just assume that everyone speaks English. We speak of global network, conversations across timezones and borders, global collaboration and global amplification, but what we truly mean is a global "English speaking" network, conversations across timezones and borders of "English speakers", global collaboration among "English speaking" partners and global amplification within the "English speaking" world. I recently blogged about Literacy: Language Competence Beyond Our Comfort Zone to bring awareness of the possibility to listen in on conversations of languages other than your own by taking the extra step of using online translators for example. In the past I have been thrilled when my work, which I license under Creative Commons, inspired other multilinguals to build upon my work by translating it into another language in order to make the content easier accessible to speakers of languages other than English. It’s All About Sharing and Collaborating, a post I wrote about a Russian educator who had translated material from Langwitches into his language in order to SHARE the content with his colleagues who spoke no English. Alec Couros, told the Amazing Story of Openness and his diagram of the Networked Teacher as it has been translated into many languages now. It am tremendously honored, when my work gets AMPLIFIED into other languages, reaching educators, I would not have reached otherwise. Dico Krommenhoek contacted me a few days ago via Twitter. I was thrilled to give permission, without hesitation, when he asked to translate the iPad App Evaluation checklist into Dutch. It gives me a sense of COLLABORATION across time, space and language, when I can "teach" via my work and materials without ever speaking the same language or meeting these teachers face to face. This is a beauty of CREATIVE COMMONS and an amazing story of openness (as Alec Couros puts it).Read more at: http://langwitches.org/blog/2013/02/10/further-amplification-other-languages/ | Langwitches Blog I believe this is important  to truly work on global collaboration and engage in global conversation. We should not underestimate the relationship between creative commons work, multilinguals and their willingness to contribute their time and energy to amplify content and conversation to a whole new world of other-language speakers. I am thrilled to be able to add another chapter in [language] amplification via collaboration when Monica Maramotti contacted me via this blog to ask permission to translate my infographic about Blogging in the Classroom into Italian. Thank you Monica for the new Infographic below which will hopefully inspire more Italian speaking educators to take the plunge of blogging with their students.   Download Blogging in Classe  (Italian) as a PDF

Next month, at the beginning of the school year in South America, I will be starting a year long blended coaching relationship with the Asocación Escolar Goethe, The German School in Buenos Aires. I will be working with a small cohort of educators to coach them in" learning how to learn", the "now" literacies, documenting for learning and peer coaching. [I am extremely excited, since the school is MY high school. I graduated with the Bachillerato en Sciencias y letras (Argentinean High School Diploma) and the German Abitur (German High School Diploma).] My graduate degree in Education was completed in the US, which is also the educational system that I have worked in and with my entire adult life. In preparation of the work ahead, I am sprucing up my German and Spanish vocabulary in the educational content area around modern literacies and competencies. I chose to combine my sketchnoting practice of typography with my educational keyword research of German terms. An observation worth mentioning, especially to World Language teachers and students, is that the time spent in sketching and arranging the words, seemed to better cement the words in my mind  and allowed for better recall.  

I have been a fan of Visible Thinking Routines which were developed by Project Zero from Havard, for a while now. I have used these routines with students, as  blogging routines and in professional development workshops. The Visible Thinking Routines website explains that: Routines exist in all classrooms; they are the patterns by which we operate and go about the job of learning and working together in a classroom environment. A routine can be thought of as any procedure, process, or pattern of action that is used repeatedly to manage and facilitate the accomplishment of specific goals or tasks.[…] Classrooms also have routines that structure the way students go about the process of learning As I am trying to make 21st century, modern, contemporary or  "now" learning visible, it seemed a natural step to point out "Modern" or "Now" Learning Routines. Here are my 5 routines that promote modern learning: 1. Read > Write> Comment Read as much as you can on your subject. Read books, blog posts, tweets, news articles, RSS feeds, etc. Write about what you read, write about connections you are making between the content you have read, write about things you wonder about and write your reflection of your thoughts. What did you think about? What does that make you want to explore further? Why do you agree? Why don’t you agree? What steps will you take, now that you learned about something new? Comment or annotate on the things you read. Leave a public comment on things you read online, annotate on the margins of physical reading material with sticky notes, highlighters or pencil. Make your mark by leaving your initial reaction or thoughts and connections visibly in the space. 2. Learn > Reflect > Share Learn the way you learn best, listen to a lecture, watch a demonstration, write and organize your knowledge in a mindmap, discuss an area of interest with a friend, watch a movie, go to a workshop, attend a university class, etc. Reflect about an experience, be cognizant of what and how you are thinking, be aware of where you are coming from, of different perspectives, influences that are and have guided your thinking and choices. Jon Dewey said: " We don’t learn from experience, we learn when we reflect on our experience." Share your learning and your reflection with others. Make a conscious effort to not only reflect quietly in your own mind , but make your reflecting visible and shareable, preferable in digital form. The digital form can be archived, duplicated and amplified beyond a limited amount of face to face colleagues. 3. Contribute > Feedback > Grow Contribute to the learning of others, add value by answering questions, share your expertise, bring in another perspective or a different point of view, Contribute by sharing examples of what works and doesn’t work in education. Be a building block for others to remix and build upon your work, so we can transform learning together, across time zones and geographic borders. Be open to receiving (and giving)  Feedback by being transparent with your work. Take feedback into consideration to see your work through different eyes. Let feedback push your train of thought in a different direction or receive affirmation that you have been looking in the same direction. Feedback will allow you to gauge interest of others in your area of interest. Connections that you make via feedback (left by you or for you) will help you build your learning network. Grow from critical feedback you receive. Grow your learning network by giving more than you take. Learning is a process, where you will be in a different place from where you started out from. Grow by achieving goals that you had set for yourself and grow from the experience in overcoming obstacles. 4. Watch > Do > Teach Watch someone use a tool, you have never used to learn before. Observe someone take a traditionally taught lesson and transform it by using technology to amplify learning. Watch how students take ownership of their own learning as you watch a video of another teacher documenting a lesson from their classroom. Watch how a mentor skypes into your classroom and co-teaches virtually. Watch a coach model a lesson about digital citizenship for your students. Watch a consultant share workshop material. Do, try it out, test it, experiment with what you saw to make it your own. It does not have to be perfect the first time you DO (Remember: FAIL means "First Attempt In Learning"). See what works and what does not in your individual situation. Teach it to others. Aristotle already proclaimed: Teaching is the highest form of understanding. One of Alan November’s Digital Learning Farm jobs is that of a Tutorial Designer. In order to be able to teach a concept or content to someone else, higher level of understanding of content knowledge is required. 5. Document > Present > Disseminate Documenting FOR Learning is a supporting piece for the study of self-determined learning (Heutagogy) and a strategic approach and technique to facilitate learning (Pedagogy). Document learning as it is happening. Use different media (text, images, audio, video) to archive what you are teaching, what your students are creating. Document the timeline of events. Document student voices and understanding. Make the process  visible for others. Documentation allows teachers to share best practices with colleagues and to make teaching available for students outside of classroom hours. Documenting is a tool to inform further instructions and a way for teachers to reflect on their own lesson plans, delivery and teaching pedagogy. Documentation allows teachers and students to build their footprint in a digital world. Present your documentation in a form that makes it easy to share and is visually appealing to others. Become the lead storyteller of your learning. Create slide decks that "readers" can view in their own time. Show process by creating a visual timeline. Allow others to be a fly on the wall in your classroom by making a video of learning taking place. Create a video that summarizes your learning, easy for others to take a look at. Create infographics to visual represent numbers that tell a story. Create a space online (website, blog, Instagram account, Facebook, etc.) to be able to give others access to what you are presenting. Apply and present at conferences (face to face and virtual ones) to share with other educators and students. Disseminate your documentation. The movie quote from Field of Dreams:  "If you build it, they will come…" is NOT true. Simply documenting and presenting your work on a public platform will not necessarily bring in the masses to give you a global audience. It takes strategic action to disseminate your work. Send out a tweet, leave a comment with a link on a relevant post. Create a visual with a relevant quote to disseminate with a link. Create video trailers or teasers to make others interested in your work. Write a guest post on someone else’s blog. Write an article for a journal or magazine. Write a book. Offer to be interviewed. Create work capable to be disseminate on different media platforms (Images, audio, video, slide decks, infographics, etc.)

I am currently in Argentina getting ready to work with a cohort of teachers at a German school here in Buenos Aires. Andrea Hernandez, a former colleague of mine and current 4th and 5th grade Language Arts teacher from the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, in Florida has traveled with me. Her current students (some of them my former students) have been following her travels by staying in contact via email and their classroom Twitter accounts (4thMJGDS / 5thMJGDS). This post is a documentation of a Twitter conversation and a Skype call and our reflection of authentic assessment of these 9/10 year olds in the area of modern skills and literacies. What a pleasant surprise this afternoon when the student in charge of being the Twitterer (Global Connector) of the week, tweeted me asking if we could connect via Skype. [Reminder: These students were with a substitute teacher, as their teacher Andrea was here in Argentina with me!] I immediately responded with a Twitter reply and a conversation started. Skills & literacies observed: awareness of global connectedness network literacy: what type of platform is best suited for what type of conversation or connection communication skills: Twitter grammar, syntax, etiquette critical thinking: problem solving of fluently and quickly switching to new Skype account when the teacher one was not available, then searching for and finding my Skype username to send a connection request. [ Again… student driven] digital citizenship: following school guidelines in not using last names in social media   Within a few minutes, my Skype account rang and we connected with their class, who had a wonderful day celebrating "hat day" at their school.   The kids were excited when we took the webcam outside to show the summer blue skies over Buenos Aires. We quickly talked about Argentina’s geographic location and reverse seasons, compared temperatures (38 F in Florida vs 95 F in Buenos Aires). We gave them a quick challenge when we asked what the time difference was between our two locations. Their time was 3:35 pm while we gave the clue of 17:35 as our time. Not a problem for these information literate students as they quickly googled the time in BSAS and converted military time to am/pm to know that we were 2 hours apart. It was not a long Skype call, but reassured their teacher Andrea, that her students were able to transfer skills learned with her in the classroom to fluently and independently take advantage of authentic opportunities when they presented themselves. This fluency of modern skills and literacies did not happen overnight or come naturally to these students. They have been blogging for a minimum of 4 years. Their teachers have strategically been bringing in Skypportunities, and starting in 4th grade they earn the right to ownership of a classroom Twitter account to make global connection and build a learning network. [With teacher supervision… with embedded digital citizenship lessons throughout the year as well as taking advantage of every teachable moment…with trust relationshop between the teacher and her students] Take a look at the Twitter profile of 4th and 5th grade. 4th grade students using Twitter to thin the classroom walls. This Twitter account is 100% student owned and operated   We are a 5th grade class interested in sharing our learning & connecting with other clases. This Twitter account is 100% student owned & operated.                 Students are learning to reach out and make connections with other classroom Twitter accounts.