Special+Speakers

=Will Richardson Comes to Queens!=

Date:                April 8, 2008 Time:               11:30 - 12:30 and 12:30 - 3:00 Place:               MS 202 - 138-20 Lafayette Street, Ozone Park, NY 11417in the Library Location:         Library

http://www.weblogg-ed.com -- http//willrichardson.wikispaces.com

Will Richardson is an internationally recognized educator who has worked with teachers, administrators, parents and students in incorporate the tools of the Read/Write Web into their schools and classrooms. Will's blog (Weblogg-ed.com) is a main resource on how to create and use Weblog in schools. He is a leader in school reform through educational technologies and his book "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms" (March 2006, Corwin Press) is already being used by thousands of teachers to reinvent their practice. He communicates his vision of what schools can and must become to audiences around the world. He lives with his family in New Jersey and everyone blogs at Will's house!

Hope you can join us for this exciting speaker!

iTeach Team

Welcome!
__**We Are Living in a Different World**__
 * Live Streaming Television - Ustream.tv - online television - live conversations via SKYPE - 14 year old in his basement hosting the program.
 * Now extremely easy to publish, broadcasting live and changes everything we do.
 * Now we can connect around our passions - the world is open to us around the world.
 * USA Today - Article on "Grey Googlers" around a retired handyman who now sells ads on google.com and makes more than he made in his lifetime career.
 * How does a music/media company compete when everyone has a means of copying the work?
 * How many disks does a music company have to create? ONE!
 * Music companies now have to change their business model.
 * What now matters is what the public thinks about the product.
 * New gadget - Kindle: New Wireless Reading Device - selling on Amazon for $399.00.  Now we check to see how many stars the product has received before we purchase it.

__**Everything is Changing but Education**__

 * If business is moving at 100 miles an hour, education is moving at 10 miles/hour.
 * The kids are moving faster than we are. The government of Australia spend a huge amount of money on a porn filter and it took a 14 year old 30 minutes to hack it.

__**Will's Blog Is Now His Classroom- Seven Years Online - Over 3,000 posts - 5-4 times/week - www.weblogg-ed.com**__

 * Will's blog is now his classroom. You can not replicate this social networking in any physical space.  Everyone in the room (blog) wants to be there.  It's by choice.  Here's his cluster map of people who have accessed his blog.

__**Social Networking**__

 * We are not teaching our students about social networking - Are they prepared to be "googled"?
 * Educators in some locations understand the value of the Internet.
 * Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? We can now text 8441 and ask a question.  You can get the answer online in seconds.
 * Content is Everywhere - Schools used to hold the knowledge. It's just not true anymore.  MITOpenCourseware.com - everything for all courses are online - FREE.
 * Wikipedia is a challenge to traditional research. Eight year olds can now edit Wikipedia.  **Homework:  Go edit wikipedia.**  A lot of studies have shown that inaccurate information gets edited quickly on wikipedia.
 * We haven't taught our students to determine the validity of a website. www.martinlutherking.com is owned by a White Supermacy organization.

__**Teaching Has to Change**__

 * Will is not a happy public school parent. The system is not preparing his children for their future.  There is no sense of the future at public schools.  The schools are preparing his children for jobs that exist now in the present. What about the future jobs that don't exist yet?
 * So he and his wife have created a Tuesday supplemental school at home with speakers who come into their home via Internet and educate their children.
 * Scratch - a programming language - One of his children asked to he could learn Scratch. Will asked if anyone knew the program on the Internet and was willing to tutor his students.  Andrew from Scotland responded and taught his child how to use Scratch.  Andrew was 13 years old!
 * Teachers are everywhere. What we need to help our kids do, is connect to someone who can teach them and/or teach themselves.
 * Flatclassroomproject in Bangladish - Connected two classrooms.

__**We Have to Change How We Teach**__

 * Radio Willow Web - podcast - First Graders in Omaha Talking About Ants.
 * Kids can do real work for real audiences and we are doing them a disservice to our students.
 * We have to rethink our roles as educator. We will become more irrelevant to their education.
 * Our conversations can not be about our classrooms. It has to be about YOU ...how you are changing.  Your pedagogy has to change.  The challenge - first step - you have to begin to add dots to your map - to become a more socially aware person.  We have to be able to do this for ourselves.

Reported by Frances Newsom-Lang iTeach