So it looks like I’m going to be a little busy this year…
January 14 – 17 - Annual National School Reform Faculty Winter Meeting
Attending
Participating in PreConference session on Moving CFGs Online on January 14th
February 5 – TCEA Annual Convention
Presenting
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. – Wikified Schools – Wikis for Leadership and School Improvement
February 28 – NASSP Annual Convention
Presenting
9:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. – Why Web 2.0 Works in the Classroom
March 16 – ASCD Annual Conference
Presenting (Ticketed Session – attendees must request ticket at registration)
8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. – It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere!
June 29 – NECC
Presenting
2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Marzano and Web 2.0: Ed Tech That Works
As each of these dates gets closer I will share links to my presentation wikis/handouts and other information on my blog. Looks like it’s going to be a fun year and if you are attending any of these conferences then I hope to see you there!
Just before our holiday break from work, I had the opportunity to register for an upcoming national conference on Critical Friends Groups that will be held here in Houston in just a few weeks.
As I read the information on the conference I noted with special interest that one of the pre-conference sessions focuses on the use of CFG protocols and strategies in online environments. I couldn’t believe my luck and yes, I did register for this pre-conference session which is described below. 
Moving CFGs Online: January 14, 2009, Houston, Texas
This session is for experienced facilitators who are interested in exploring the benefits, strategies, and challenges of conducting CFGs in an online environment. While CFGs have traditionally been face-to-face communities, online environments offer great potential for supporting teachers who are geographically dispersed or who desire a learning community outside their local building. Facilitating in such environments requires an expansion of skill sets beyond those of face-to-face facilitation. This group will analyze successful online sessions, discuss strategies for facilitating online CFGs, and share specific websites that can host online CFGs for free. Laptops are not required, but encouraged if possible. This pre-conference will be facilitated by Julie Moore, Co-Director of the BRIDGE (www.teachersbridge.org), a resource and learning community site for teachers and an outgrowth of the work of the Georgia NSRF Center of Activity.
I don’t know the exact agenda for the day (times, protocols, etc.), but I imagine from my previous experience with official CFG workshops that there will be ample opportunity for me to bring my own questions to the discussion. While I do have many questions based on my own experience in the Edublogosphere (as well as with wikis, Twitter, and many others), I want to give members of my PLN an opportunity to share your questions with me. I have set up a wiki to record my notes and work from this session, and I invite you to visit the wiki to share your questions with me.
If aren’t familiar with Critical Friends Groups, here is a very good description from the National School Reform Faculty Website.
Technorati Tags: professional development, CFGs, Technology, Web 2.0
I think it’s time we — the edublogosphere/edutwitter community — take some “downtime” to reflect on what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what outcomes we think may come from the work we are doing.
Tonight I actually “unplugged” from the network because I felt like my brain was gong to explode with so much new information, new tools, new possibilities, and new concerns (about our work, our online activity, and the tools we are playing with.)
So I am now laying down a challenge for my entire onilne learning network (you know who you are — no need to tag anyone). Let’s use a CFG protocol for this called “What, So What, and Now What” — and I’ll leave this a little open-ended because I know all of you have varied concerns and interests related to a general theme of education transformation around 21st Century skills and knowledge. (Or something like that!)
In a comment or on a blog post on your own blog — take some time to reflect on and address the following questions:
What? (…is going on with our work, with our blogging, with our exploration… OR …new tools are we discovering, playing with, trying to find classroom uses for?)
So What? (Who cares? Why is this important? Why is this not important? What does it matter? Will it ever matter?)
Now What? (What do we do NEXT? What kind of gameplan do we need? Do we need a game plan? Do we collaborate, start over from scratch, quit doing whatever we are doing altogether, or disappear somewhere deep in Second Life? Seriously — WHAT NOW?)
Okay gang — there’s your challenge. If you choose to accept this mission and you decide to respond via your blog, please be sure to post a comment here pointing us toward your blog if the pingback doesn’t work.
I will also be responding to these questions with my own thoughts. I’ve caught up a bit on Twitter with some of the things that occurred this evening (especially regarding O11), and have added that new information to the thoughts that have already been brewing in my head. I will compose my thoughts tomorrow after taking some time to rest and “sleep on it”.
Goodnight all!
Chris Lehmann (Practical Theory) has posted some ideas for hosting “Conference 2.0″ based on his, and others’ , experiences this year at NECC 2007. I won’t go into the history behind this — you can read it all (and grab links to other posts) by reading Chris’ post.
All I want to do in this post is list a few ideas and resources that I have used in the past to restructure professional development sessions & workshops so that they are much more interactive and often result in the production of useful artifacts such as revised lesson plans, action plans, and project ideas. I have been doing this for over five years, and some of the most useful resources include protocols that you can download for free from the National School Reform Faculty Website. This website is used by Critical Friends Group Coaches in preparing to facilitate CFGs (links to a .pdf file).
Protocols are structure to promote constructive dialogue, to ensure that all voices are heard, and are usually designed around specific time limits. They are very useful when you only have limited time to discuss certain topics or make decisions — and when you need solutions/conclusions rather than just aimless “talking in circles”. Usually there is a facilitator or co-facilitator who directs/guides and scribes the conversation (or at least highlights from the conversation), but I think in this case, recording the conversation (and then podcasting it) would work just as well for all participants.
Some specific protocols that might be helpful for some components of Chris’ proposal include the following: (Chris’ original ideas are quoted, and all of the links in this section point to .pdf files)
Issue Conversation Sessions (I’m making these titles up as I go along)
The mini-presentation — 20-30 minute lectures, all note-chatted, where a speaker takes a position on an issue, explains something, tries to define an idea or just tries to get their head around something. Listeners note-cast the session along with a live audio feed so others can take part. After the lecture, 30-40 minutes conversation where the speaker just joins the conversation around a table, followed by 15-30 minutes where personal reflection takes place.
…and…
Unsessions
This would be more like what we saw at the EBC, where one facilitator ran a conversation for an hour. I think these sesisons would work best around ideas where many people felt a level of expertise or previous investment. Goals for sessions like these might be action oriented? If we all are walking in with a lot of expertise, can a good facilitator build consensus toward a goal? Again, if the conversations were an hour long, I’d want to leave time for a half-hour to reflect and write afterwards. (And again, no reason not to have a Snowball mic on the table and make sure that others can take part. In fact, there’s every reason to.)
Future Protocol
Microlabs, and Microlab Guidelines
Constructivist Protocol for Adult Work
What, So What, Now What (this one is particularly great for examining new ideas)
Consultancy
Networking Protocol
A Change in Practice Protocol
Pedagogy Sessions
Here’s what I want to see more of… specific conversations around pedagogy. Could we have some sessions where folks had agreed to read an article beforehand around constructivist teaching and then had a conversation where we looked at Web 2.0 tools with the specific agenda of looking at how to take the best of progressive pedagogy and apply it to the new word in which we live? Maybe even looking at old language and looking at its limits and where we do and don’t need new language? Again… skypecast it, chat it and give time for reflection at the end.
Protocols For Text-based Discussions (these work best when participants have read the article or book passage beforehand and can quickly re-read for key ideas & highlights)
The Final Word
Four A’s Text Protocol
Save the Last Word for ME
Text-Rendering Protocol
Text-Based Seminar (and Guidelines)
Three Levels of Text
Cross-Pollination Lunch
Could we offer up lunch as a chance for people who went to different sessions to get together and talk about what they saw? (I’d say we could do that for dinner too, but we’d all want to head out for dinner and take advantage of Philly restaurants and pubs, methinks.)
Topic Tables — I don’t have a direct link to this protocol, but it is essential a process where people choose a table they wish to sit at based on a sign on the table which indicates the topic. The conversation at each table revolves around the given topic — and usually is facilitated in a round-robin sort of way so that everyone has a chance to express their thoughts, opinions, questions, etc. Usually when I have participated or facilitated this protocol, we give participants about 15 to 20 minutes at each table — facilitators scribe the conversations for each round — and people have the opportunity to visit topic tables of their choice for three rounds. However, this could be adapted for a lunch period — use topics from the conference (perhaps the strands), and let everyone stay at their chosen table for the entire lunch period rather than rotating (which may be a bit difficult if people are eating lunch).
There are MANY more protocols and everything I listed above is only a small sample. Explore the protocols listed here for many more ideas.
By the way — these also work VERY well in the classroom as instructional strategies
Just an FYI on all of the above — I have used all or most of these protocols, and very recently have recorded some of the structured/semi-structured conversations for podcasting. I have also started including some built-in time for blogging at the end of sessions when appropriate (CFG process usually includes time for journaling/reflecting anyway — so it’s not a huge stretch).
Other resources (books) that I have found very helpful in my work include the following:
“The Power of Protocols: An Educator’s Guide to Better Practice, Second Edition” (Joseph P. McDonald)
“Looking Together at Student Work: A Companion Guide to Assessing Student Learning (Series on School Reform)” (Tina Blythe, David Allen, Barbara Schieffelin Powell)
“The Facilitator’s Book of Questions: Tools for Looking Together at Student and Teacher Work” (David Allen, Tina Blythe)
“The Facilitator’s Fieldbook: Step-by-Step Procedures * Checklists and Guidelines * Samples and Templates” (Tom Justice, David Jamieson, David W., Ph.D. Jamieson)
“Leading Lesson Study: A Practical Guide for Teachers and Facilitators” (Jennifer Stepanek, Gary Appel, Melinda Leong, Michelle Turner Mangan, Mark Mitchell)
Technorati Tags: best+practices, edublogger, edubloggercon07, edubloggercon2007, NECC, NECC07, NECC2007, PLC
If you aren’t registered for the onilne Connectivism Conference, then you may not be aware of some very interesting conversations that are occurring on the conference moodle and on the blogs of some of the attendees.
One of the forum discussions, titled Breaking the Habits, touched on an area that connects to a concept about which I am very passionate — the concept of modeling what we want to see in our classrooms. Call it “walking the talk,” or “modeling” — or how about “Being the change” 
In this post I intend to expand on these thoughts a bit more and to provide some more concrete examples to help administrators get started “being the change”…
Technorati Tags: best practices, change, classroom instruction that works, curriculum, education, innovation, instruction, leadership, learning, School Improvement, teaching, Web2.0
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With a new year approaching I took some time today to change the layout of my blog and give it a slightly new look for the new year. I’m still not satisfied with everything, but I did manage to clean up the sidebars which makes the whole site load much faster. Hopefully readers will find the blog easier on the eyes and will find the information easier to access.
There is one change in particular that I do want to highlight:
I’ve changed the title of my “blogroll” to “My iCFG.” The rationale behind this stems from a recent conversation around the concept of blogging as a form of Critical Friends. The blogs listed on my sidebar — in my blogroll powered by Blogrolling.com — are blogs that I read and learn from frequently (usually daily) and are blogs that I considered part of my iCFG (Internet Critical Friends Group). So for the new year — a new beginning — I wanted to acknowledge this by eliminating the use of the term “blogroll” and replacing with the more accurate “My iCFG.”
Thank you to all of the excellent bloggers out there who have pushed my thinking and contributed to my learning!
