What does it take to be a Quadblogger?

Quadblogger?  What is this quadblogging you speak of?  I ran across this term in an

Edublogs email.  I had to know more. It's a great idea. 

Having a class blog is a great idea, but what fun is it if you don't have an authentic audience? This makes that happen. 

• First of all, there is a site: http://www.quadblogging.com/.  

"Since its conception more and more teachers from across the globe have used Quadblogging to gain a genuine audience for their learners. Whether you are a Nursery teacher in Nigeria or an University Lecturer in Uruguay, Quadblogging will Quad you and your learners up with three other classes matching your preferences selected in the sign up process."

• It looks to be mostly English speaking countries, but I haven't dug in too far on that. 
• Here is a teachers blog post about her experience:  Quadblogging How To
• Here's an article from Edutopia   QuadBlogging Connects Student Writers with Global Audiences

Is anyone doing this? 

Just Wonderin'
Lee Anne

Like Walt Whitman Always Said, YOLO!

Yesterday we dipped our toe in the “conference” waters.  We held our first Eighth Floor Open World.  I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.  We are already making plans for next summer. 

The pupose of Open World is to help educators reignite their passion for teaching and learning.  At most colleges, universities, and K-12 schools, summers are a little slower and quieter.  Many of the people who attended can use this time to attend professional development events such as this.  Others were just taking a much needed break from a still busy schedule.  Regardless, there was definitely passion.  Educators amaze me.  They never stop learning and doing more for their students. The passion is always there. 

For me, Scott, Linda, and Katy, that’s what yesterday was about for us – doing more for OUR students.  Summers for us are crazy busy.  Classes are full and days are long and we absolutely love it.  Spending our summers with educators like these is what reignites our passion.

My favorite moment from yesterday:  “Like Walt Whitman always said, YOLO!” 

Great video - treat yourself for a minute. 

I hope we see you at Open World next year!
Lee Anne

SummerTime~FunTime~EighthFloorTime

Enrollment is open for summer.  We have some great stuff going on during June and July. 

 ________________________


Eighth Floor Open World - Reignite the Passion.  Wednesday June 18th. This is an all-day conference full of workshops, pop-up learning, SOL Trainings, vendors, and you.  For more details visit  http://eighthfloor.org/special.html#op or https://sites.google.com/site/8thflooropenworld/  

Open World is designed for all of our consortium members. Regardless of what or who you teach, there will be opportunities for you to reignite the passion for both you and your students. 

Would you like to present at the Eighth Floor Open World?  We were hoping you would! Deadline for proposals is June 3rd.  If you have questions, just let us know.  (Proposal Form)

______________________________________



NOW WHAT?  

Our summer workshop this year is a special treat.  We will be partnering with the Woody Guthrie Center to offer a two-week blended learning opportunity.  We will meet both online and face-to-face, July 21-30, 2014.  For details visit http://eighthfloor.org/special.html#now 


______________________________________


SOL Training! 
Synchronous Online Learning . . . Training. 
Our NOT boring version of the boring webinar!  Our sessions have "SOL"  Just sayin'.  We will have several scheduled throughout the summer, but also look for our SOL Training during Open World - for those that want to reignite the passion from home.  Check the details: http://eighthfloor.org/special.html#SOL
______________________________________

I certainly don't want to leave out our schedule of established online, blended, and F2F classes. 
http://eighthfloor.org/schedule.html


Questions?  http://eighthfloor.org/contact.html


We are looking forward to working with you this summer. 
Thanks!  Lee Anne

What are the rules for using your smartphone in a social setting

What are the rules for using your smartphone in a social setting?  Actually, a better question might be, what do you WANT the rules to be because apparently there are not currently any.  I do find it a little annoying when I go out for a meal or a social gathering and sit and watch someone else check their phone and/or carry on a text conversation with someone else – or several someone elses. What’s the point of being in the same place if everyone’s attention is on someone not there?

Beth Turner shared this article on Facebook.  It really struck an annoyed little nerve I seem to have.  What To Do With Your Smartphone While You’re Having Dinner

 “There is apparently a name for device usage while in places others might consider it rude: electronic displays of insensitivity, or EDI. And when author Joseph Grenny surveyed more than 2,000 of his newsletter recipients for a study, "Digital Divisiveness," they said these kinds of displays are getting worse. VentureBeat sums it up:”

So, EDI? Did you know there is a name for this behavior?  I’ve always felt there should be.

Just sayin’
Lee Anne

What are the Cool Kids Already Enrolling in for Spring?

Yep.  It's back to the grind.  No more dancing sugar plumbs.  No more, "one more snow day - geez it's so cold."  Put on your mittens and get on to work. 

Let's focus on the good news.  The days are getting longer. The temps are getting warmer. And, the best news of all . . . enrollment is open for spring classes on the Eighth Floor. Actually, enrollment was open before the holiday break, but it was hard to focus on with all those dancing sugar plumbs. 

So I was looking at what people are already enrolling in. I guess in more modern terms I should say, I was looking at what was trending on the enrollment site.  Here's what the cool kids are doing at the moment. 

• Online Learning Series
• Blended Learning - Is there a model for you?
• Anything to do with Excel (Geez - when did that get sexy again?)
• All of our SOL Trainings - those are so much fun for us. We hope you are liking them
• Technology in the Common Core
• Twitter
• Google the Next Step

Of course, those are not our only classes. We have TONS more - go see -   http://eighthfloor.org/schedule.html 

We have a whole new crop of SOL Trainings.  For those of you who are not cool or groovy like us, (snicker) that means Synchronous Online Learning . . . Trainings. Check out the whole list.  http://eighthfloor.org/special.html#SOL.  

If you have questions about the classes or enrollment, just ask. We know a lot of stuff, and what we don't know, we will make up. 918-828-5341  Just sayin'. 


Hope to see you in a class or two this semester!
Lee Anne

If you are still hoping for sugar plumbs, here ya go -- SUGAR PLUMBS! 

Teaching Writing . . . Online: Are we teaching old rules for a new game?

http://www.peanuts.com/

I've been thinking about this a lot. Writing for an online environment is just different than writing for “paper.”  Don’t you think?  Let me say more!

I have been wondering if I am doing students a disservice by insisting on rules that may not apply anymore to many of our newer writing environments – namely, anything that is online.  Some examples might be, discussion forums, blogs, wikis, Twitter, any social media really. You get the idea. Can we continue to ignore the internet?

Here’s another thought for all teachers.  Writing is a highly universal activity.  As much as we know that modeling is important to learning, are we modeling the best writing behavior/skills?

I really want to know what you think.  Are we willing to let go of the scholarly rules for a more mixed media world?  I agree that right now it may be easy to define a proper time and place for each.  But how long will THAT last?

Here are some of the points I want your thoughts on:

• Are bullet points okay in a graded discussion forum?
• Are emoticons okay in a graded discussion forum?
• How do you feel about hyperlinks?
• How do you feel about hyperlinks instead of a formal Works Cited?
• What about the more conversational style of online; is that okay for a grade?
• Can you have an online voice and a paper voice?  It’s kind of like inside and outside voices.
• What about the use of first and second person?
• Do we need a five space indent?
• The internet is meant to be interactive.  Are your online assignments addressing that?
• Is it okay to include video or images as part of your argument, instead of text or to take the place of quotations, summaries, paraphrasing?
• What if they really did write to their supposed audience and not their teacher? 
• Aren't we making some rather misguided assumptions about other readers? Do they care about a classic, five paragraph essay? Is that communicating in the 21st Century?

There are a number of issues that fall under the whole idea that reading online is just different from reading print:

• Screen size, lighting, being able to focus
• Are you familiar with the “F” pattern?  No.  That is not a new online swear word.  It’s the eye pattern for how we read a screen, not a “Z” pattern for a book or magazine. 
• Walls of words seem more like barriers than invitations to learning or conversation. Kind of like this blog post!
• How do you feel about blocking rather than paragraphing?
• Could you teach the inverted pyramid style verses the class five paragraph essay? The reader could quit reading at any time - click on a hyperlink or just get bored. 
• Do we have time to change all our rubrics? I guess the more important question is does anyone have a rubric for using emoticons I can borrow?

I know.  I hear you.  What does all this chatter have to do with the pursuit of excellent communication and writing skills? Most online writing is about persuading (and entertaining) a particular audience to make money.  What if you took the last three words off that last sentence? What’chu got now?

I am doing a short class on writing in online environments next semester, so I've been thinking about all this lately.  I am curious where you land, or if it is even on your radar.  

Just thinkin'
Lee Anne

What Does Woody Guthrie Have To Do With The Eighth Floor?

Yesterday afternoon Linda, Katy, Scott, and I were invited to visit the Woody Guthrie Center downtown.  WOW!  What a treat.  I am sorry I didn’t  to do this before.  I have attended many events at Guthrie Green – a good friend puts on a Sunday afternoon music series, Horton Records presents the Tulsa Sound.  Perhaps you have heard of it. Just sayin’.   Anyway, so it’s not like I am never downtown. Moreover, it’s not like I haven’t been right across the street many, many times. I honestly didn't even realize it was right there.  Did you?  Have you been?

Deana McCloud is the Executive Director of the center.  Some of you may remember that Deana use to teach at The Eighth Floor.  She gave us a tour of the facility and in the process shared her passion for the center and Woody Guthrie’s legacy.  This facility is something else, too.  Funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, this museum is the latest and greatest in presentation, preservation, technology, and resources.  Additionally, the museum was built with education in mind.  Deana and the Education Manager are both former teachers. They have created lesson plans aligned to the common core and are building a variety of workshop series.

One such workshop series is in partnership with Horton Records. Check out this Saturday’s workshop on Ownership, Licensing, and Publishing.  The next one is on Sept 29^th with Paul Benjaman and Wink Burcham, Songwriting Tips and Tricks. You don’t want to miss this one – two amazingly talented sons of Oklahoma.

Additionally, you will find short performances mixed with discussions, a partnership with Tulsa County Library, “One Book One Tulsa,” another partnership with the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers at OSU Tulsa, and just so much more. 

The Eighth Floor will also be partnering with the museum as part of our workshop series, “Now What? . . .  Mastering Technology Skills for Teaching and Learning.   We are still in the creative stages, but plan to do a blended workshop where the F2F time takes place at the Woody Guthrie Center.  Projects will revolve around the center – imagine the possibilities – writing, music, history, art, pretty much anything, really!  Our workshop last summer, Project Classroom, was a great success and so much fun. This is going to be even better.

As a special treat to our Advisory committee, Deana has offered to host our January Advisory Committee meeting at the museum.  How cool is that!

So, yeah.  You need to check this out.  Read a little about Woody, and see why this is such a shining jewel right here in the middle of T-Town.

Just Sharin’
Lee Anne

Last Fall . . .CLASSES ARE AVAILABLE FOR ENROLLMENT

It's true.  Enrollment is open and there is a spot for you.  

Here's what you need to know:   

• If your school is a member of The Eighth Floor consortium, you can enroll
• If you work at that school - whatever your position, you are welcome
• You can enroll in as many classes as you would like
• You can take classes more than once if you want to
• You will get a certificate of attendance for each class you attend
• We have online and face-to-face classes 
• You are going to have fun AND learn something new
• Link to the PDF  http://eighthfloor.org/SchedulePDF/FALL13_8thFloor_16pgs.pdf

Stuff of Note!

SOL Training - (synchronous online learning) All new for the fall semester - The Eighth Floor's much cooler version of a webinar. Less than an hour of hands-free learning and relaxing.  Better than a massage, I've heard people say. No?  Prove me wrong.  

• Who is Jamie McKenzie?
• 21st Century Teacher
• Digital Citizenship
• LiveBinderss and the Classroom Teacher
• Google+ You
• Wikispaces Classroom
• Trends and Stuff and Things that Make You Go "Ahhh . . . !" 

For details, visit our SOL Training Wikispace: http://soltraining.wikispaces.com/home. You will also find archives of past SOL performances. 

Other New Classes This Fall

Blended Learning - Is there a model for you?  (fully online) 

Blended learning is all about mixing different learning environments. We will look at some of the different options or models for combining online and face-to-face content delivery. No approach is one-size-fits-all, and the beauty in that is the ability to differentiate and help students personalize learning. How do you think blended learning might look in your classroom?
This class meets fully online. (8 hours)
November 12 – 19, 2013

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-World environment whose elements are supplemented by sensory input such as sound, video, and graphics. Using a tool called Aruasma we are going to construct our own augmented world and take a look at many of the ways we can use this in the classroom. 

Sept 18 W 4:30 – 6:30 pm

Nov 14 TH 10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Dec 4 W 2:00 – 4:00 pm

Special Offering

Jamie McKenzie will offer two classes: 

• Lifting the Bar for the Core Standards - Sept 24, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
• Questioning 101 - Equipping Everyone with Great Questioning Skills - Sept 25, 8:30 am - 3:00 pm
• Visit our website for more information http://eighthfloor.org/ 

Online Teaching and Learning Series

Fall is a great time to take this blended course. This class meets online and F2F.  If you are thinking about teaching online, either fully or in a blended format, you will benefit from this class.  If you have questions about the Online Series, contact Lee Anne Morris at lee.anne.morris@tulsacc.edu. 

If you have questions about enrollment, please contact katy.hoppa@tulsatech.edu. 

Hope to see you in class this fall!
Lee Anne

Look! A Squirrel!

Please welcome guest blogger, Janice Airhart

Sorry, but I couldn’t resist.  If you haven’t seen the 2009 animated film Up, you’re probably thinking I’m crazy about now.  If you have, then you’ll recall that the evil dog pack hates squirrels; they just can’t resist chasing them.   At a critical point in the story, Dug (the good dog) distracts his nemesis from tracking down his human friends by pointing out an imaginary squirrel.  It throws the whole pack off the trail.

While I generally have a healthy ability to focus on tasks, I admit to being easily distracted by technology.  Like Dug’s nemesis, I can be thrown off my trail by bright and shiny online toys: links to more blog posts or articles, web sites recommended by a friend, fellow blogger, or Tweeter, free account setup for an educational web 2.0 tool, another educator’s Pinterest board, and so on.  Sorry to say, I sometimes find myself chasing digital squirrels.

In an effort to reign in my addiction to chasing web links (seriously, they wouldn’t be there if you weren’t supposed to click them, right?), I enrolled this summer in the Eighth Floor class, What Now?  Mastering Technology Skills for Teaching and Learning.  Doesn’t that sound like a power trip?  Who doesn’t want to “master” technology? 

The first week of the class was entirely online on the Eighth Floor Moodle site (See? They already had us navigating the world of learning management platforms—very clever!).  The seven other class members and I watched the posted videos, read articles, completed activities, and interacted through class forums.  As we carried on our virtual discussions and shared goals, I discovered a process for first identifying learning objectives then creating a structure for the technology that supported them.  By the end of the week, I’d drafted a lesson plan for a problem-based learning unit.  But wait; there’s more!

In the second week of class, we met face-to-face for three days in a workshop atmosphere.  Each of us worked on our individual projects, and while we all had different goals, spending that much time together figuring out how to use various programs and tools sparked everyone’s creativity.  I was genuinely energized and inspired by the other teachers. 

The beauty of the course was that the eight of us had as much individual or small group instruction as we needed to complete our projects, no matter what tools we needed to support them.  Some of us wanted to learn about curating sites like Diigo and Delicious, so Linda gave us a mini-lesson.  Some wanted to produce video, and Scott introduced WeVideo.  Want to blog?  Lee Anne’s the go-to instructor.  Ed Hodge could help with logo design and assorted other essentials.   And if something wasn’t working the way you wanted, someone could help you troubleshoot.  I now have a fully developed project plan for use this fall.  In my opinion, this is the best kind of professional development.  Not only did I learn something, I produced something.  How great is that? 

To cap off the course, on Wednesday we presented our projects via a webinar that’s available on the Eighth Floor Wiki site.  Check it out, if you have the time.  I think you’ll agree that the quality of the projects is phenomenal.  Click here to watch the webinar video, but don’t forget to come back when you’re done.  You can’t spend all day chasing squirrels.

Janice Airhart teaches science and English at the Margaret Hudson Program/Broken Arrow Public Schools, and is a Freshman Composition adjunct instructor for Tulsa Community College.  She blogs at http://learningisthereward.com. 

Pop-Up Learning – Wave of the Future?

You guys have seen the pop-up shops, right, especially around the holidays.  These are great little establishments that pop-up on the side of the street or at a park or in small lobby fronts or wherever crowds may gather.  These are artist or business owners that are literally taking it to the people.

So, follow me on this, what about pop-up learning?  Pop-up teacher professional development?  What if The Eighth Floor were to pop-up just when you needed it? Learning with an entrepreneurial flavor. Are you curious? 

I know!  This all seems like crazy talk, but honestly, I can envision it.  I think it would be worthwhile AND fun. 

You can thank Samantha Reid and Edutopia for putting these goofy little ideas in my head. Check out this short article:   Five Future Trends That Will Impact the Learning Ecosystem

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/5-shifts-regenerating-learning-ecosystem-andrea-saveri

Here’s a vocabulary list to help you pick the more interesting ideas – can you figure out what they mean?

• FabLab – Did you know we have one in Tulsa?  We are quite lucky
• Learning Entrepreneurial Style
• High Fidelity Learning Environments
• CYOS – Create Your Own School
• Talent Clouds (love this!!!)
• Classroom/Student Projects that solve problems and change communities.

Are you at all intrigues by anything in this article?  I can’t stop thinking about it.

Just thinkin’
Lee Anne