Live Interview Tuesday, January 24th - Lee Crockett on 21st Century Fluencies

Join me Tuesday, January 24th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Lee Crockett, co-author of Literacy Is NOT Enough: 21st Century Fluencies for the Digital Age. "Educating students to traditional literacy standards is no longer enough. If students are to thrive in their academic and 21st century careers, then independent and creative thinking hold the highest currency.... Students must master a completely different set of skills to succeed in a culture of technology-driven automation, abundance, and access to global labor markets." (-Corwin book description). The authors write:

"In our present society we are seeing powerful technologies and information systems causing a parallel change in the knowledge base. Why are facts are becoming obsolete faster and knowledge built on these facts less durable? What are the new methods for learning, communicating and collaborating both in business and education? With so much information at our fingertips, how do we discern the good from the bad, the correct from the incorrect, and the empty from the meaningful? 

"In today's world, traditional literacy alone is insufficient for success in the classrooms and the workforces of the new digital age. The rapid advancements in technology leading us into the future call for a whole different set of skills to utilize it all to its full potential. "Literacy is Not Enough" defines the essential skills and mindsets our children need to survive and thrive in 21st Century digital culture, through the understanding and application of essential new 21st Century fluencies... and [presents] an effective framework for integrating comprehensive literacy or fluency into the traditional curriculum."

Date: Thursday, January 24th, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am (next day) GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-01-24.1328.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 recording will be available later this week at http://www.futureofeducation.com.

Lee Crockett is a national award winning graphic designer, marketing consultant, entrepreneur, artist, author and international keynote speaker. Lee Crockett is the Director of Media for the InfoSavvy Group and the managing partner of the 21st Century Fluency Project.

Lee Crockett is the chief architect of the extensive network of websites, web-based applications and presentations of which the infoSavvy group is comprised. Lee is also the co-publisher of the Committed Sardine Blog, which is electronically distributed to more than 100,000 readers in over 60 countries.

Lee is a "just in time learner" first and foremost, constantly adapting to the new programs, languages and technologies associated with today's communications and marketing media.

Understanding the need for balance in our increasingly digital lives, Lee Crockett has lived in Kyoto, Japan where he studied Aikido and Tea Ceremony as well as Florence, Italy, where he studied painting at the Accademia D'Arte. An avid Ducati enthusiast, when in Italy, he is on the track at every opportunity.

Live Interview Thursday, January 19th - Henry J. Eyring on The Innovative University

Join me Thursday, January 19th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Henry J. Eyring, co-author (with Clayton M. Christensen) of The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out. "The Innovative University illustrates how higher education can respond to the forces of disruptive innovation, and offers a nuanced and hopeful analysis of where the traditional university and its traditions have come from and how it needs to change for the future. Through an examination of Harvard and BYU-Idaho as well as other stories of innovation in higher education, Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring decipher how universities can find innovative, less costly ways of performing their uniquely valuable functions." (-Amazon book description)

Date: Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am (next day) GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-01-19.1713.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 recording is at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/henryeyring.mp3.

Henry J. Eyring serves as Advancement Vice President at BYU-Idaho. He received a BS degree in Geology from BYU in 1985, and then MBA and JD degrees, also from BYU, in 1989.

From 1989 to 1998, Henry worked for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Monitor Company, a global management consulting firm. He was Director of the BYU MBA Program from 1998 to 2002. From 2003 to 2006, he was President of the Japan Tokyo North Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since 1995, he has served as a director of SkyWest Airlines.

Henry is the author of two books, Mormon Scientist: The Life and Faith of Henry Eyring and Major Decisions: Taking Charge of Your College Education. He is married to the former Kelly Ann Child, and they are the parents of five children, including two current college students and one recent graduate.

Live Interview Tuesday, January 17th - Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach on "The Connected Educator"

Join me Tuesday, January 17th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach on her new book, The Connected Educator. "In The Connected Educator, authors Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall integrate professional development that is currently working in schools with a new model connected learning communities. Connected learning communities are a three-pronged approach to effective professional development using the local (professional learning community), contextual (personal learning network), and global (community of practice) environments. Connected learners take responsibility for their own professional development. They figure out what they need to learn and then collaborate with others to construct the knowledge they need. Instead of waiting for professional learning to be organized and delivered to them, connected learners contribute, interact, share ideas, and reflect." (-Amazon's book description)

Date: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am (next day) GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-01-17.0513.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 recording is available at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/sherylnb2012.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach is a 20-year educator who has been a classroom teacher, technology coach, charter school principal, district administrator, university instructor and digital learning consultant. Currently, she is in the dissertation phase of completing her doctorate in Educational Planning, Policy and Leadership at the College of William and Mary.

She is the owner and founder of 21st Century Collaborative, LLC, a digital learning consulting business through which she regularly delivers keynotes, workshops and supports nonprofits in their grant work.

Through the Powerful Learning Practice Network which she co-founded with Will Richardson, she works with schools and districts from across the US, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Australia to re-envision their learning cultures and communities. http://plpnetwork.com.

Sheryl is a sought after presenter at national and international events, speaking on topics of 21st Century reform, teacher and educational leadership,  community building, and educational issues impacting marginalized populations such as the homeless. Her latest book will be published in the fall by Solution Tree. She is also serving on the New Media Consortium’s 2011 Horizon.K12 Advisory board.

Sheryl lives near the Atlantic Ocean and spends her spare time playing on the water with her four children and long haired dachshund Itchy.

Live Interview Thursday, January 12th - Mitch Pearlstein on Family Fragmentation and Education

Join me Thursday, January 12th, for a live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Mitch Pearlstein on his book From Family Collapse to America's Decline. Mr. Pearlstein argues that very "high rates of family fragmentation in the United States are subtracting from what very large numbers of students are learning in school and forever holding them back in other ways," leading to reduced economic competitiveness and deepening class divisions. His "elephant-in-the-room" thesis of the family's impact on educational achievement is "neither a liberal nor a conservative opinion" (Glen C. Loury), and we'll explore with him the difficulties of addressing this topic from both the policy and reform perspectives.

Date: Thursday, January 12th, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am (next day) GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is available at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-01-12.1527.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 audio recording is available at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/mitchpearlstein.mp3.

Mitch Pearlstein is president of Center of the American Experiment, a think tank he founded in Minneapolis in 1990. He has made his career in education, journalism and government, having served on the staffs of University of Minnesota President C. Peter Magrath and Minnesota Governor Albert H. Quie; as an editorial writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press; and in the U.S. Department of Education, among other assignments. His newest book, recently released by Rowman & Littlefield, is From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation. Previous books include The Fatherhood Movement: A Call to Action (with co-editors Wade F. Horn and David Blankenhorn); Close to Home: Celebrations and Critiques of America’s Experiment in Freedom (with Katherine A. Kersten); and Riding into the Sunrise: Al Quie and a Life of Faith, Service & Civility. His doctorate is in educational administration from the University of Minnesota and he is married to the Rev. Diane Darby McGowan, a Minneapolis Police Chaplain and Deacon of an Episcopal Parish in St. Paul. They have four adult children, three grandchildren, and currently only two dogs. They live with the latter, Trevor and Bailey, in Minneapolis.

Live Interview Tuesday, January 10th - Ian Jukes on Restructuring Education and 21st-Century Fluencies

Join me Tuesday, January 10th, for a special live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with the incredibly prolific and dynamic Ian Jukes--who describes himself as a "registered educational evangelist," and says that his mission in life is "to ensure that children are properly prepared for the future rather than society's past."  Ian's focus has consistently been on the compelling need to restructure our educational institutions so that they become relevant to the current and future needs of children. We'll talk about the practical issues related to ensuring that change is meaningful, and about the pragmatic issues that provide the essential context for educational restructuring.

Date: Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am (next day) GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is available at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-01-10.1343.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 audio recording will be available soon after the show.

Ian Jukes has been a teacher, an administrator, writer, consultant, university instructor and keynote speaker. As President of the InfoSavvy Group, an international consulting group that provides leadership and program development in the areas of assessment and evaluation, strategic alignment, curriculum design and publication, professional development, planning, change management, hardware and software acquisition, information services, customized research, media services, and on-line training as well as conference keynotes and workshop presentations.

Over the course of the past 10 years, Ian has worked with clients in more than 40 countries and made more than 9,000 presentations. He typically speaks to between 300,000 and 400,000 people a year. In August 2002 Consulting Magazine Online named him one of the top ten educational speakers in America.

Ian has written twelve books, 9 educational series and had more than 100 articles published in various journals. Ian is also the publisher and co-editor of the Committed Sardine Blog which is electronically distributed to more than 90,000 people in 60 plus countries.

He is also the creator and co-developer of TechWorks, the internationally successful K-8 technology framework; and was the catalyst of the NetSavvy and InfoSavvy information literacy series; he has been a Contributing Editor for several journals and magazines. His published books include Teaching the Digital Generation: No More Cookie Cutter High Schools, Windows on the Future, and Net.Savvy: Building Information Literacy for the Classroom. He has currently released on four new books as part of the 21st Century Fluency Series:

Understanding the Digital Generation: Teaching and Learning in the New Digital Landscape
Living on the Future Edge
Literacy Isn't Enough: 21st Century Fluencies for the Digital Age
Getting it Right: Aligning Technology for 21st Century Learning.

Ian has also worked for several years with architectural firms to help facilitate planning new learning environments by taking the groups through a visioning process to help them align the thinking of the community (school board, administration, parents, students, community) about what new facilities should look like and how its design should align with the learning and instructional intentions of the school/district. Over the course of the past 20 years he has been involved in the design process for more than 60 new schools.

He also works with organizations and communities that have lost their market or economic base and wish to explore possibilities for preferred economic futures. When Ian is not travelling and speaking, he spends his time sailing in the Gulf Islands on the west coast of British Columbia aboard his boat, appropriately named "The Committed Sardine".

2012 ISTE Unplugged - EduBloggerCon's 5th Anniversary, Rebranding, and LOTS of Activities

It's hard to believe that five years ago 125 bloggers gathered in Atlanta before NECC (now called ISTE) for EduBloggerCon, and then kept talking in what now seems like a very small "Bloggers' Cafe" area during the conference. Both activities were the brainchildren of the ever-imaginative David Warlick, who had suggested them in a wiki (that I think I helped ISTE set up) to get ideas for the conference. Since I was the conference staff's emerging-technology go-to guy (bringing a lab of Linux computers for the sadly defunct Open Source lab), I took responsibility for organizing EduBloggerCon and the Bloggers' Cafe that year and ever since (a fuller history is available here.)

Since then, a number of community coordinated events now take place at ISTE in the form of a kind of "fringe festival" for those interested in Web 2.0 and social technologies. It says a HUGE amount about the ISTE conference organizers that they not only allow us the latitude to hold these activities, but also actively support them by providing space and wireless access for them.

This year, I'm doing some re-branding of the activities in an attempt to make these events more accessible to ISTE attendees (and easier to describe). As well, I'm adding a couple of new and (I think) incredibly fun meet-ups to the agenda! Everything described at http://www.ISTEunplugged.com is free, although you do have to be registered for the general ISTE conference to participate after Saturday because they take place on-site in the San Diego conference center. Here we go!

Saturday, June 23rd, 2012
8:00am - 4:00pm
In the Conference Center
EduBloggerCon no longer seems like the right name for our Saturday all-day unconference, since the topics stretch well beyond blogging at this point. While EduBloggerCon gatherings are still taking place at other conferences (they can be seen at http://www.edubloggercon.com), the annual ISTE event is now SocialEdCon and any and all--regardless of blogging status!--are encouraged to attend. This is a great event for beginners and regular attenders alike! Come join us for an amazing community experience filled with interesting conversations in a highly social environment.

EduBloggerCon 2011 Philadelphia

Many past attendees will tell you that this is the event to attend at ISTE because it's all about connecting and sharing. SocialEdCon is based on the idea of an "unconference," and is organized by the participants in real time on-site. It's maybe better referred to as a "collaborative conference." There are no formal presentations, just "conversations" that you or others facilitate. To lead a session, it is not expected that you prepare material but that you have a topic you want to open to discussion. Every year is different but equally fun! There is no formal signup, but for planning purposes and connecting with others, it's helpful to have you indicate your attendance at the Classroom 2.0 or Facebook event (coming soon) pages.

THE BLOGGER'S CAFE
Monday, June 25th - Wednesday, June 27th
In the Conference Center
The Bloggers' Cafe is a location set aside by ISTE as one of their "lounge" areas for the conference, and is open the full duration of the conference. Often filled well-beyond the seating capacity generously provided, in 2011 there were often over 100 people gathered in this area in small groups, engaged in passionate discussion (one "bay" of the cafe is shown in this photo by Collette Cassinelli). Base camp for some, a landing place for others, the "BC" can often be intimidating to the beginner as they recognize the names of well-known bloggers or social media folks--but the name of the game in the BC is "EVERYONE'S WELCOME!" If someone doesn't notice you or introduce you to the group they are with, it's not for lack of manners, it's just because they are so involved--so please, introduce yourself! The location of the Bloggers' Cafe will be available when the official ISTE program is published.

ISTE LIVE!
Monday, June 25th - Wednesday, June 27th
In the Conference Center
Originally conceived as a "salon de refuses" (thanks, Jane Krauss!), ISTE LIVE! provides an opportunity for anyone attending ISTE to sign up and present a session--whether they were turned down by ISTE, or were too nervous to apply to present, or have a topic to present on that wasn't current when the official presentation proposals were due. ISTE LIVE! runs the full three days of the conference, with sessions during each concurrent session time for the regular conference. The signup materials, and the schedule, will be posted in the early spring at http://www.isteunplugged.com.

NEW ACTIVITIES!

There are going to be three new activities this year, and while they are experiments, we have high hopes! EdIncubator is tentatively scheduled as a Saturday night social event after SocialEdCon, and will be the chance for some start-up ed tech entrepreneurs to do quick presentations and get feedback from the crowd. The 2012 Global Education Summit will be a physical get-together on Sunday afternoon before ISTE's Global Poster session, and will be a mini- and physical-version of the virtual Global Education Conference and all about helping connect students and teachers from around the world. And finally, we're hoping to schedule an Education Apps Meetup during and after one of the "birds of a feather" time slot for talking about mobile/tablet computing and to share apps and ideas.

Hope you'll consider joining us at ISTE this year!

Live Interview Thursday, January 5th - Scott McLeod on School Leadership in the 21st Century

Join me Thursday, January 5th, for a special live and interactive FutureofEducation.com webinar with Scott McLeod, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. We'll be talking specifically about school leadership in the 21st century, administrator use of social media, changes to teaching and learning because of technology and social media, video games in education, data-driven decision-making, and much more! Scott is someone who is consistently thoughtful and I'm delighted to have him bring his perspectives to our discussions on the future of education.

Date: Thursday, January 5th, 2011
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am (next day) GMT (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in at http://futureofed.info. The Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit the support and configuration page. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording is at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2012-01-05.0952.M.9E9FE58134BE68C3B413F24B3586CF.vcr&sid=2008350 and a portable .mp3 audio recording at http://audio.edtechlive.com/foe/scottmcleod.mp3.

Scott McLeod is the Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the nation’s only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators, and was a co-creator of the wildly popular video series, Did You Know? (Shift Happens). He has received numerous national awards for his technology leadership work, including recognitions from the cable industry, Phi Delta Kappa, the National School Boards Association, and the Center for Digital Education. In Spring 2011 he was a Visiting Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Dr. McLeod blogs regularly about technology leadership issues at Dangerously Irrelevant, Mind Dump, and Education Recoded and occasionally at The Huffington Post.