REMINDER-NEW TEMPORARY BLOG LOCATION

For the month of July, while I am traveling in Greece (and Vienna, Austria) my blog will be at:

http://jfriesen.my-ecoach.com

Please visit there and participate in my trip!

Four Days and Switching Over

It is Friday. On Monday I will be on a flight (or several) to Athens, Greece and then on a train to Corinth. On Tuesday the official blogging project starts. I have only heard from a few people who are interested in receiving email updates about the trip. The main interest that I know about is Greek Architecture. Please email janicef@jfriesen.net if you have any requests! Last time I know that many friends and family followed along and commented on the blog, so you never know what the interest will be.

I am going to continue the countdown after today on the blog that I will be using for the project: http://jfriesen.my-ecoach.com.

Five Days until the Project

Well, I just got back from NECC. I really thought that my time there would be different than it was, but I am glad that I went.

Last Saturday I enjoyed attending the edubloggercon and meeting and learning from other bloggers. I met technospud and also had a chance to visit with a few friends from eMINTS. I enjoyed talking to lots of people about My eCoach and getting to know Roxanne in the booth. I followed Barbara Bray around to the Google and Gaggle parties on Monday night and met all kinds of people through her. So, I guess I was able to do a lot of networking. It was more like a vendor view of the conference. I wasn't able to attend any sessions during the conference and there were people that I thought I would see and missed (for example, Bernie Dodge-check out the updated WebQuest page).

Today, Thursday, I am home, but exhausted. I even missed a day of the countdown! The project will start in 5 days (on July 3)! I can't believe it. I had better get my act together for Greece!

Tuesday at NECC

Today was the second of two days in which I was overwhelmed with being in the booth for My eCoach. Time FLEW by as I talked to people interested in Coaching online. I am too overwhelmed to spend much time writing about it.

I was late for the session on PBS TeacherLine from 3:30-4:30 because there were so many people coming to the booth. Tonight I am going to sit in on the Women of Web 2.0 session which is being broadcast live from NECC.

Eight More Days

Dig Dog says, "If you are planning on following along on the trip to Greece you may want to check out the blog now! It is at http://jfriesen.my-ecoach.com. Each time I do a blog I am trying a different tool. My eCoach seems like a really easy one to use. I am helping out at their booth here at NECC and I have spent the day here.



Here are some pictures of fish and also the booth from yesterday.

Setting Up at NECC

This blog will be different than many NECC blogs. I am here because I have been asked by My eCoach to help with the booth. I am going to have the view of a vendor this time rather than the view of an attendee. Today I spent the whole day on the Exhibition floor at NECC helping to set up the My eCoach booth. I am not sure what I did all day, but it wasn't too hard. It was interesting seeing all of the booths taking shape and watching all of the activity that goes on behind the scenes.

We were finished with the booth just in time to hear Andrew Zolli, the keynote speaker. His talk was entertaining and thought provoking. A summary here would not do it justice, but a few times he mentioned http://poptech.org and I think that it would be worth taking some time to look at it.

After the Keynote I went with what seemed like millions of other people to the Georgia Aquarium. There was food for everyone. It was amazing that with so many people they kept refilling the tables. It was pretty hard to see any fish because of the crowds, but there is an amazing tank that you walk through and so we did get some of the aquarium experience. Tomorrow I will include a few pictures I took of the booth being set up and of the aquarium.

By the way, if you are wondering what the picture today is of, it is a plate of seafood which we ate last year when visiting Corinth!

Edubloggercon

I spent my day at the Edubloggercon. There were lots of people there and so much to think about . Right now my brain is too full to process what was talked about today and so I am not even going to try. I took some notes and maybe tomorrow I will take some time to review them and sort out my thoughts.

Two things struck me at first that were not really content related. First of all it was really interesting to be in the same room with a bunch of bloggers who read and comment on each others blogs. There are such interesting connections. There are a few people that most everyone reads (David Warlick, Doug Johnson, Steve Hargadon, etc...). It is interesting to think about all of the invisible lines connecting the people. Many people were meeting in person for the first time. Second there was a preponderance of Macintosh computers. I think that there were 90% Macs in that room when the proportion of Macs out in schools and in the world is more like 10%.

More tomorrow!

Off to NECC (and 12 Days til Greece!)

For the next few days I will be blogging from the National Educational Computing Conference in Atlanta, Georgia! If you are attending NECC be sure to look for me at the My eCoach booth #2136!

Hope to see you there!

13 Days

I have decided to try out a new blog tool for the Greece project this year. The Blog URL will be http://jfriesen.my-ecoach.com. I really like edublogs and highly recommend it, but I wanted to try this one out. I will also be blogging at http://classblogmeister.com, but not as often (you can look at it if you want by going to that web site and typing "janice friesen" into the login, no password. I teach ESL to adults and I am hoping that they will do some reading and writing while I am gone!

Edubloggercon in three days

On Friday I am heading to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the NECC conference. I am really looking forward to the Edubloggercon-a sort of un-conference on blogging which is taking place on Saturday before the conference begins. It will be a time to meet people whose blogs I read and to learn more about educational blogging. Here is what it says on the Edubloggercon Wiki:

All are invited--whether you yourself blog, are just an educational blog reader, or even just want to hang out with an interesting group of people. The event is free, and you can indicate that you are coming (and see who else will be there) at the Edubloggercon wiki. This event is an "unconference" is being organized by the participants in real time here on the wiki. Through the generosity of ISTE, we have access all that day to the Open Source Pavilion and other rooms at the Georgia World Congress Center and there will be free wi-fi: beyond that is up to you. So come and help us plan a fun and stimulating experience. It should be great!

You can visit this site to see who else is planning to be there and get more information about it. Hope to see you there!

One more thing technology changes

I find myself interested in the business page of the newspaper. Interesting!

Technology changes Everything

Today I have two more pieces of proof that technology has changed (and is changing) everything.

1. This morning my husband and I were searching ALL over the house for something. We had searched in all of the likely places and were still having no success with the unlikely places. Steve (my husband) said, "It is too bad that the house doesn't have a search feature." hmmmm.... proof for my brain-changing theory
   
2. While eating a delicious BLT with garden grown tomatoes I read in the New York times business page about a revolution happening in restaurant reservations because of technology. Restaurants are no able to keep information about their regular customers. They can be ready to seat you at your preferred seat, suggest your preferred food, or even add time to your reservation time if they know that you are habitually late.
   

17 More Days

Book Crossing

I think that on my trip I am going to bring several books that I can release to Greece with me! The article below is for my Missouri friends. There is a Book Crossing Camp-Out in Eminence. Could be fun!

Second Annual Midwest BC Family Camp-Out: Will You Be There?


Mark your calendars for some outdoor fun! The 2nd annual Midwest BC Family Camp-Out will be held July 20 — 22, at the Circle B Camp Ground in Eminence, Mo. Primitive campers (i.e., those who are sleeping in tents or directly under the stars rather than sleeping in RVs, cabins or motels) need to R.S.V.P. before June 25 so that everyone can be in the same area. There are no registration fees being collected for the event. Last year the folks attending had a blast. Don't believe us? Check out this article by eireannaigh and see for yourself. For more information click here or contact eireannaigh or alrescate. And, save a S'more for Ballycumber!

Countdown Continues

Project Based Learning Online

I guess that I have been doing this too long and seeing such slow change that I get discouraged. I am convinced that what computers can do in the classroom is to open the classroom to new possibilites of connecting with others. This enriches learning. But in order to teach this way a teacher needs to be doing Project Based Learning. In these last few years of intense test anxiety in schools fewer teachers are doing this type of teaching.

So, I was thinking of that when I reread the book Edutopia. It was published by the George Lucas Foundation in 1999, so I thought I would find lots of dead links. I am so excited to say that I was wrong! There are ongoing projects that were already a few years old at that time and are still going strong. I was so glad to see this. Here are a few of them:

Bugscope How would your students like doing real research on bugs using a real Electron Microsocope?

Global School House Global School House has been connecting classrooms all over the world since 1984! over 20 years!

21 Days and Counting

You don't have long to email me and join the Blogging in Greece project!

I know that many of you are in the northern hemisphere and so you have summer vacation while I will be traveling. You can still look in on it during July and then use it during the school year. It will be a good source of pictures and information. I just heard from a teacher of a gifted class who is going to use it as a resource when school starts because she is doing a unit on Greek Archeology.

Blogging and Making Friends

It was fun to see David Warlick mentioned in my ASCD Brief today:

EdBlog Watch: 2 Cents Worth
A recent winner of Edutopia's 2007 Readers' Survey, David Warlick's "2 Cents Worth" blog examines everything from why children find video games so compelling to how teachers might incorporate Web 2.0 into classroom instruction. This ASCD blog highlights Warlick's blog that concentrates primarily on technology and innovative approaches to education, and consistently provides useful insight into teaching in the 21st century. View the blog

He has been central in helping so many teachers learn about blogging, podcasting and rss.

I am looking forward to meeting lots of bloggers that I read at NECC and reading others. If you can't go and want to follow what is happening you can use Technorati and search for NECC, NECC07 or NECC2007. You can also read blogs that all kinds of people are doing right from the conference.

The Blogging NECC page went live on Friday:

Also: from the Blogging NECC sidebar:

==========
NEW! Blogging NECC Sessions

We invite everyone to blog the sessions they attend.

On the Program Search Results and Details pages, we'll list the tag specific to each session.

On the Details page, we'll list the tags again, AND include a session-specific Technorati link so you can read all the entries on that specific session.

Bring your laptop and give it a try!

Laptops: Beneficial or Superficial?

An article a few days ago about a one on one laptop school in Tiberon, California was more balanced than some I have read recently. It talked about both the positive changes that have come from every student having a laptop (increased student engagement, teachers as facilitators of learning, connections to school that continue after the bell rings) and the negative changes (more time for teachers, easy for students to be distracted, cyber bullying).

One quote that I thought was interesting points out that there are qualitative differences when using laptops which cannot be measured in the traditional ways that we measure success.

"We hosted the Ministry of China here," said Chris Carter, superintendent of Reed Union School District, of which Del Mar is a part. "A man who wants to know what we do, how we do it -- and take it back to 230 million students. And here, we get negative press for it."

How do you measure the value of the international connections that opening the school to the world this way can bring?

24 Days until the Greece Blogging Starts

Also, I wanted to say that I am starting to get excited about attending NECC in Atlanta and the edubloggercon also. There are only 13 days until I travel to Atlanta! Exciting!

A New Picture for the Countdown

My friend Mark Ahlness sent me this idea for creating a picture for the countdown! What do you think? You can create your own animations extremely easily at this site. Now you can look for a new one every day here!

26 More Days

I would write more, but I can't think of anything right now and I don't want to let the day go by without the countdown! I am getting a little tired of the dog... are you?

27 more days

Maine Laptop Program and Comments

I highly recommend reading this article about the Maine Laptop Program and the comments that follow. It is really interesting. The article is a counter to the articles that have come out lately against laptops. It talks about how significant the changes in Maine have been and makes you feel that everyone has swung from being against it to supporting the program. The comments tell you a different story. What to believe?

Booksellers in New York Times

Today's New York Times has a very interesting article about what effect technology is having upon the annual Book Expo. In the beginning they make the point that last year there was more of a defensive tone about what was happening with technology. A quote from a speech that got a standing ovation was "defend your lonely forts".

In only one year the overall tone has changed, although the issue of how booksellers will deal with the huge onslaught of digital bookselling (and writing and publishing) hasn't gone away. The article gives the impression that the effects of the digital world are SO pervasive that this year they cannot just be defended against. The article talks about booksellers embracing some of the new technologies and trying to figure out how to enhance what they are doing already with them.

The article says that there is a rocky time ahead for the industry as it figures out what to do with the digital world. A symbol of "not getting it yet" was one small bookseller who urged authors not to link to Amazon from their sites and not to sell copies of their own signed books from their sites. Booksellers who see these things as threats rather than trying to figure out how to use them creatively for their own benefit probably will go out of business.

It is shocking how long it has taken booksellers to get the idea that the digital world is here to stay and changes everything. Should that give me hope for the public school system?

Mandated Testing and Math

Have you ever thought about how multiple choice tests influence how we think about math? I hadn't.

I had usually thought about the problem including higher level thinking and authentic writing. Today a math teacher I know said something really interesting. She said that the standardized tests create a focus on finding the right answer. What really matters is getting the right answer rather than understanding a concept. So, that is the way we teach. Or possibly we teach that way and so it is the way we think about testing.

I am convinced that I quit taking math class because in my school years I always (eventually) could get the right answer and follow the procedure, but didn't really understand the concepts. Math was all memorization and procedure and so when I got to higher math it was frustrating and difficult. So I quit.

Now, I might never have had a "math brain". Maybe it never would have been my favorite subject. As an adult though, I can see how math is beautiful and is a part of everything we do. I wonder if I would have been able to have that sense earlier if the focus wasn't so much on getting the right answer.

Don't Forget!

I am actually writing this late. Yesterday, June 2 was the second day of the countdown. It is now 31 days until the beginning of the project (July 3).

Countdown to Greece Project

Today, June 1, the countdown begins for the Greece Blogging Project which begins on July 3. You can get an idea of how this project works from looking at the two past times that it was done.

• October 2005
• June 2006

I have the opportunity to spend three weeks this year in Greece at an archaeological site in Corinth on the Peloponnese. I will do some traveling to other archaeological sites especially those relating to ancient games like Olympia. I welcome questions and comments and ideas about where to go. I am staying with some of the worlds top archaeologists and have access to some parts of these sites that most people do not see, so this is a way to get an inside look at some things. I am also interested in modern Greek life and post pictures and share impressions of things that I see each day.

So far there I have received two emails of people that want to follow and comment on the trip. I would welcome anyone to participate. I will post pictures and write about what I see. I hope I will hear from some of you. You can write me at janicef@jfriesen.net for more information or to be added to the list of participants.