I’m in an excellent session now on Wikis in the Classroom at NECC 2007 Atlanta.

Visit the presenter’s wikis. To master wikis, she suggests:

• small edits
• communicate
• use the history
• discuss the content students add
• refresh before writing

The creator of Wikispaces suggests that we do not need email addresses for all the users. It can work without student e-mail.

You can e-mail a list of usernames/passwords to wikispaces.

Think of the structure of the wikispace before you start… assign roles to students for what you want to appear.

Installation options: Moodle, other providers, software for your own servers.

Resources:

• educationalwikis.wikispaces.com
• coolcatteacher.wikispaces.com

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Some personal thoughts on the first two full-days of NECC 2007 sponsored by ISTE in Atlanta, Georgia.

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The second full day at NECC has been great… I just came from an excellent presentation by Bernie Dodge, PhD from San Diego State, who asked us if technology could make us wise… and the answers were interesting! He encouraged us to seek wisdom-promoting practices in the classroom, because wisdom is teachable. And technology can make it happen.

Now I’m waiting for another session to start… on games and simulations. I hope it’s good.

The opening “keynote” discussion this morning was good too, with several different personalities on stage (a dancer, a creative marketer, an educator, etc.) that revealed to us what our focus for future workers should be focused upon…

The problem with picking sessions many times is… Where to go? I had 3-4 great sessions picked out for each slot. Open-source, gaming, wikis, communications, etc. I also captured some video today to use in a forthcoming podcast.

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This is a birds of a feather session focused on using Open Source software in schools. Sharon Betts from Maine presides, uses Web 2.0 and open-source products. “You don’t buy anything but the hardware.” Mr. Fitzgerald, 20Monkey, using Drupal with schools. Steve Hardagon, running the open-source pavilion at ISTE. The session has some classroom teachers, IT, and coordinators. Folks want ideas for the classroom. Many folks do not yet use open source programs, but many are interested. A select few are heavy users of Open-Source, and are great resources.

Some open-source examples are Moodle, Audacity, Celestia, Dia, Drupal, Firefox, FreeMind, FIMP, Nvu, OpenOffice.org, Scibus, TuxPaint, and Ubuntu Linux.

eduUbuntu comes with free elementary software.

FLOSSed conference is an event you can attend to learn more about OpenSource in schools.

A discussion ensued regarding the “free” aspect of open-source software. “Free” cost to distribute, but you may hire someone (an expert) to install the software. There’s another “free”–to customize, share, and manipulate.

FLOSS – free/libre open source software. A compromised term to describe the “freedom” in OS software. There is SIS and ePortfolio software being developed that can be used in the educational organization… other software is being developed to work in tandem with pre-existing suites, such as Drupal or Moodle.

Many schools begin using OS software because of the cost, but many are finding some apps are best-in-class options.

Distrowatch.org is a website that tracks Linux distributions if you want to start with Linux.

Nvu (now Composer) is a good analogue to Microsoft Front Page.

Hardagon believes we should be teaching PHP, MySQL and Apache skills to give kids employable skills.

Getting started? Go to an OpenSource matrix site to see examples. Focus on how systems treat users, and how they group users. Examine what is important, engage the support of the user community.

• How easy is it to install?
• How easy is it to maintain?
• How easy is it to extend?

Many give advice to network with other educators… and get their advice, share their experiences.

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I attended this session at NECC 2007 on Monday, June 25, 2007.

Some advice I have for presenters. I’ve seen this twice so far today… Too much introduction. Why ask how many people are in the room who are teachers, etc., when you’re not going to change the way you present? And participation – not my thing. When the presenter asked for people to “network” with one another, some people walked out.

The audience has some good ideas about what PBL is what the advantages are. “Good application of what you’ve learned,” and “authentic engagement,” and allows “deep learning.”

Who is the audience for their book? Capable, optimists, learners, connectors. I think we could have skipped this. If I like your session, I’ll get your book. We’re 24 minutes into the presentation and haven’t “seen” anything yet.

• The Arc of a Journey
• • Wiki for Planning
• • IM
• • Skype
• • Del.icio.us
• • Blog for the Public
• • Flickr Group for uploading pictures

At 11:30 we’re looking at the TOC for their book. I’d really like to see some examples, ladies. People are walking out of your session. As the lady who left next to me said, Show me the money.

This session was a waste of my time. In 15 minutes, they could have sold me their book… the content looks good. But there was little I could walk away with and use.