First, we had two computers running, one that “owned” the G+ hangout and was projected for the group (computer A) and one that was for a panel participant/moderator (computer B).

The hangout was started on G+ on computer A. Everyone who was on the panel (including one person who was actually in the room) was invited to hangout.

Computer A was connected to large room speakers. The mic was kept muted.

The person on Computer B used headphones and a mic. When she wasn’t talking, she muted her mic. When she was talking, we muted the big room speakers connected to computer A. (This mostly eliminated the annoyance of her hearing herself echo back through the big speakers a second or so after she spoke.)

We initially had some feedback issues, but doing the above and turning down the speaker volume seemed to resolve it.

We also had another session in a different room watching the hangout and that worked fine as well. (In fact, when we got knocked off the wireless and couldn’t get back on, they were able to continue on without us.)

Below is the end result. (One thing I learned was that when a hangout ends on the initiator’s computer, it will go on with others, but the broadcast cuts off.) Thanks to everyone on our panel and in the audience that made this possible.

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I did a session with Mike Agostinelli at NCCE 2013 this week about peer learning. I thought I’d try to model peer learning in the session, and the results were quite unexpected and very powerful.

The initial plan for the hour-long session was to ask people to start by sharing their experiences with peer learning, to share a bit of my thoughts about it, to show a few online tools that can facilitate peer learning (Twitter, P2PU), and then to spend the last 30 minutes on a live #connectedpd tweet chat about peer learning.

Here is the slide deck I planned to use.

I decided to sit out in the room instead of standing behind the presenter’s table, again to try to model a peer driven approach.

I started with my plan for the session and then asked everyone to share why they’d come and what they hoped to get out of it. (I also invited people to leave if the session wasn’t what they were expecting or if they didn’t think it would be useful to them. A couple did.)

When people shared their expectations and previous experiences with peer learning, they were predictably diverse. We talked a bit about PLCs and experiences with district-provided PD, and then a woman in the group said that she was starting a “teacher-led school” soon and wondered if we might talk about that.

My reactions were (a) how fascinating and (b) what a great way launching into this would be to model peer learning. There followed a spirited discussion of what a teacher-led school might look like, administrator roles, what systemic challenges schools have that may limit well-intended administrators, etc.

At some point, the woman expressed a concern that maybe we didn’t want to spend the whole session on this. There were indeed other things I’d planned to cover, but thought it was well worth diverging to experience this kind of peer learning firsthand.

As the scheduled time for the #connectedpd tweet chat approached, I suggested that we continue the conversation but move it to Twitter. I asked who had experience with Twitter and who didn’t and asked people to form small clusters to teach each other the basics of Twitter.

We jumped into the tweet chat with an unstructured format of small groups helping each other and me periodically giving some overall suggestions about how Twitter and tweet chats work.

It was a bit chaotic, but many meaningful conversations were going on. Much of that conversation continued to be verbal in the room, and we were trying to learn Twitter at the same time. At one point I said, “If we say these things on the tweet chat, we’ll also get the benefit of a whole lot more people talking with us.”

Did I mention that the wireless at this conference was a little shaky? And in the middle of the tweet chat, Howard Rheingold joined it? And that it was chaotic? (Here’s the Storify version.)

And man, was it fun! Afterward, I asked the participants – particularly those who had no previous experience with Twitter – if the format had worked for them. Most everyone said it was a valuable experience. Many of us connected on Twitter and agreed to stay in touch. Learning Twitter in the context of talking about peer learning seemed to bring a new level of meaning and authenticity. I suspect that more people than usual will come back to it after the conference.

At the end, I thought “this was kind of like an un-session!” And I would definitely do this again. I think that every time would be completely different.

I greatly appreciate everyone who took part and took the risk to participate in this experiment, including Claudia at #connectedpd. I hope you enjoyed it was much as I did.

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I consider myself “connected” — I’m on Twitter often; I use other social media tools to collaborate with others; I love online participatory learning. When I have a puzzling problem or a great discovery, I turn immediately to my PLN. Connected Educator month made me reflect on how important these connections are to me and to many others.

But perhaps more importantly, Connected Educator month made me realize what a great disadvantage teachers who are not connected face. I think this is becoming an equity issue for teachers. If you aren’t a part of a strong PLN, you simply don’t have the edge in your professional learning.

I think that professional organizations, state policymakers, and district and building leadership should be pushing this issue. Our teachers and our learners deserve it.

So the challenge for me has been thinking about how I can help more teachers get connected.

One thing I’m doing is helping coordinate a Teacher Boot Camp (hopefully, the first of many) with the specific aim of getting teachers connected. This day is for teachers who aren’t on Twitter, haven’t set up a collaborative Google Doc, don’t know what G+ is, and just haven’t gotten around to setting up a PLN.

This day will be in Portland, Oregon on February 27 and is a part of the NCCE “Make Your Future” summits.

If you know a teacher who might benefit from this, please let them know about it. (We’ve tried to keep the price low at $100 per person.)

And if you’d like to host an event like this in your own community, please do (either yourself or in conjunction with me or others)!

I think that getting more teachers actively connected is one of the most important things we can do.

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Another issue I have with ed tech conferences in general is that I think “ed tech” as an isolated area has outlived it’s usefulness. It’s time for technology to be integrated with other instructional pursuits. Having separate staffing, budgets, etc. for technology does not serve our students, in my opinion. (Yes, I know there are other considerations.) That’s why you may have noticed that I’ve been participating in more curriculum conferences and fewer ed tech ones lately.

Still, I believe deeply in technology as a tool to further learning and know that much of that is moved ahead by the “ed tech” agenda.

So this year, I’m doing something about this and trying to broaden the conversation with some innovative new models for professional learning.

At NCCE 2013 in Portland, Oregon, I’m helping to coordinate the “Make Your Future” pre-conference summit on February 27. We’ll have five different summits focused on a full-day of reflection, collaboration, and hands-on time focused on topics of critical importance to educators of all types.

• Leadership summit
  for superintendents, principals, and other school leaders
• Common Core summit
  for curriculum coordinators
• Teacher-librarian summit
  for teacher-librarians
• IT summit
  for information technology directors
• Teacher boot camp
  for teachers who are not “connected” in terms of using social tools for their own professional learning

I hope that these summits begin to build bridges for district and school teams to have thoughtful conversations across the disciplines. I hope that the participants find value in an entire day in which they can think about issues that are important to them and spend time planning how they can affect change in their own districts when they return home. And I hope to see you there.

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