Oh the sounds of summer…The crack of the bat (or ping if you’re talking about Little League). The pop of a ball being caught in the pocket of a leathery glove. The swishing sound of feet gliding across orange clay. These are sounds I grew up with for 15 years. My true formative years. Memories that to this day I can remember very vividly.

How many of you remember going out and “playing catch” with your dad? Or kicking around that soccer ball with your brother or sister in the backyard? Better yet, how many of you played whiffle ball or cup ball with your friends at a park, on the street or even in your swimming pool?

I for one can say yes to all of the above. I so cherished the time I was able to spend time with dad to play catch in the side yard. He would get all gussied up in the catchers gear that we had as part of my Little League team. As I got older, the more equipment he seemed to put on. By the time I was in the Senior Division (14-15 year old) in Little League he was in full catching equipment and double batting gloves under the catcher’s mitt. I’ve even had the true cool experience to play softball as a 19 year old with my dad and grandfather on the same team for two seasons. Nothing cooler than having 3 generations of Turners on the same field at the same time. We get to do that occasionally for golf, but the frequency is alot less now that my Grandfather’s Parkinson’s is really prohibitive these days.

The point is, I’ve been blessed with the fortunes of living a very active youth (we won’t mention how its gone downhill from graduation now will we?) The question is, where did this love of playing come from? Where was the spark? Sure, my parents encouraged me to play Little League. Heck, my dad was my coach from my 6 y/o Tee Ball first team, all the way to my 15 y/o Senior Division Team.

No matter what activity it is, the ability to succeed at these activities requires 2 things. Repetition and Practice. The two go together. How often do you see a big league ball player hitting in the batting cages? Pretty often I’m sure. I know when I was playing ball, I practice everyday. The routine is still etched in my head. We did infield/outfield fungo drills, followed by baserunning drills, then hitting practice (cage or game type situations or live bp) finished up with cardio/strength training exercises.

Again, I had the luxury of being able to practice extra to hone my skills. But where were the primary skills taught? Where are these primary skills taught today? What individuals are in charge of teaching our young children these life skills of being active and learning through sport and play? Those physical educators that you see coming and going with the nice sun tan, floppy hat and the sun glasses hanging either from their neck or sitting on their cap. I have a very soft spot in my heart for PE teachers. Little known secret, my initial teaching certificate is in physical education from the University of Central Florida. I’ve had to deal with for years being told that I took the ‘easy’ route to becoming an educator. “PFFFT”, I tell them. I won’t get into the ins and outs of what a physical education major program looks like at the college level. You can do your own research on that.

Back to the kids though and their PE curriculum…

I’ve shared at length my desire to see more gaming in the educational setting. The same can be said for the physical education curriculum for an elementary age child. We lived by a motto/creed at UCF. “Monkey See Monkey Do, Children Learn the Best as they are Doing.” The goal of any PE curriculum is to have the children actively engaged at ALL times. Movement, movement, movement. Active, active, active. Two things occur when this sort of engagement is not occurring: there is no retention of the activity that is being learned and there is a HIGH probability that the children will begin to misbehave.

Does this result sound vaguely familiar? All to often I’ve walked into classrooms where students are proverbially ‘bouncing off the wall’. It is not in my place to tell these teachers how to do their job. However, it is well within my role as a technology integration specialist to offer suggestions for engaging students. Why then do we not see as many brick and mortar classrooms being run similarly to those out on the PE fields?

My mind is swirling now that it is 2 am in the morning. I’ve been churning this topic in my head since I returned back from New York last week. I think it’s high time for me to hit the sack and return to this on Saturday when I return home.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

photo courtesy of: jimmywayne22, “Howard J. Lamade Stadium.” Flickr. 27 July 2008. 1 Aug 2008 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/61278305@N00/2706681401/>.

Yesterday I looked at the first part of play, that being structured. Today I will tackle the second form of play, unstructured. There are several avenues that children can partake in unstructured play. The conventional method is through recess. That time where teachers usually take their children outside and allow their students to ‘have at it’ so to speak. I’ve heard from administrators that this is a liability nightmare. Typical though, shying away from a productive part of the day for fear of litigation.

So where is the outlet that our children need from the daily grind of learning?  Our students are bombarded by  a HUGE mountain of required learning for standardized testing, one fatal mistake is being made on a daily basis. Our students are not being allowed to be children. They are not being given a chance to learn to ‘play’ together on the playgrounds and playfields. Broken down, this means that students are not being given a chance to learn collaboration on their own. I remember growing up playing ‘war’ in my neighborhood with at least 2 dozen other boys and girls. We gave ourselves objectives for opposing teams to complete to be able to win (usually a capture the flag type deal). This would NEVER happen in today’s society because of the whole guns today looking alot like plastic/toy guns. But it was play like this that taught the power of leadership and working together as a team to accomplish a common goal. I will ask the same question that I asked in my previous post, does this have anything to do with learning what a noun is or how to divide by double digits from double digits? Probably not, but as most of us already know, there is more to education than the proverbial “X’s and O’s”.

What does this all have to do with Technology? Tons. I remember a few months back my daughter came home and said she was able to log onto her Webkinz account from school when she was finished with all her work. My wife was AGHAST. I was pretty ok with it actually. For those that don’t know, Webkinz is a virtual world. The only way to get in there is to buy a Webkinz pet of some sort. You get a code to create an account. You are responsible for feeding the pet, taking care of it, putting it to sleep and bathing/hygiene type things, or the pet will get sick. Haven’t asked my daughter to go so far as to allow that to happen yet, just to see what happens. As it stands now, I’m pretty positive I have well over 30 Webkinz pets strolling around my house (bleh! is all I can say about that!). Not only does my 3rd grade daughter have many pets that she tends to in this virtual world, so does my 6 year old son (just turned 6 less than a month ago, which is important to remember).

As with the real world, money in the Webkinz world is key. The economy is driven by “kinzcash”. You get so much for creating a new pet in the world. You can get kinzcash for selling off gems that you can search for in a cave. You can also earn kinzcash by playing different type of games, or doing jobs. The moral of this is, it is NOT very hard to earn money in this virtual world. It is important though to be able to purchase items for your rooms for your pets, as well as food and other luxury items that you may desire. Back to my son though. Being 6 now, but 5 for the time that this example is taking place, he really has zero formal education in economic issues and concerns. Being 6, his mother and father take care of all of his wants and needs. One thing is for certain though, my son is VERY understanding that when his kinzcash amount reaches 0, he needs to sell off some stuff that he knows he doesn’t need or use, or he simply plays a trivia game to earn money. The humor in that lies in the fact that he knows not a single answer to the trivia questions….he perfectly knows this and has said as much. He merely clicks on an answer and he still is able to earn money, whether the answer is right or wrong. Somewhere in there, there is an argument for getting something for nothing. Now’s not the time or place for that discussion. What I take the MOST out of that example is this: my five year old son was able to ‘learn’ on his own, a way/plan to get money in a virtual world to fulfill his wants/needs. Better yet. By looking at the curio shop (virtual store’s name), he knows how much the item(s) he wants costs. And he plays these games, sells off other items, to allow him to save enough money to get what he wants/needs (***Cough***Math Skills****Cough****)

By explaining this all to my wife, I brought her back to my daughter and her playing this Virtual Game at school. With the in game environment as safe as it is going to get (no chat allowed as of yet, only friends on her list are allowed to gain access to her house map, but unable to move anything) the academic pros well outweigh any cons that might be there. The fact of the matter is this, the face of unstructured play at school has changed, this is what that face looks like. I applaud my daughter for the hard work she does in this virtual world. She works very diligently at making sure all her pets are tended to and that her garden is weeded everyday, lest the weeds get out of control. I would show screen shots of the map of her ‘house’ but I’ve been unable to do so. I keep trying to get her to log onto her account on my macbook or to give me her account user info to which she won’t. I really cannot complain about her not giving me her account info (I know mom has it, but I’m not going to push that), it goes to show that she is listening to the ground rules that I’ve laid out for her to continue using it.

I will finish tonight with this one final thought:

I don’t know about you, but Mr. Fred Rogers is someone I trust and someone whom I feel can’t be stated unequivocally as an expert in this field.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Since the ‘new’ thing to do is to have every unit have a unit essential question (admins and curriculum specialists are ALMOST there, now they just have to get on board with Project Based Learning), I will ask one: What affect does play have on learning?

I’ve spoken in the past about my gaming experiences. I’m sure many can say that my present run in gaming has led to my recent hiatus in blogging. Can’t deny that fact is partially true. I see in my gaming experiences many opportunities to learn, cooperate and collaborate with other individuals (adults and teens alike, as I have both in my online gaming guild).

So where has play gone in the school day? I know at my school, recess is a forbidden part of the day. Taboo to even think of asking for permission to go out for? It seems that the only play many of our students are getting these days is through the physical education programs. And even that is pretty non-existent. Let’s step back a step or two first.

As some of you may or may not know, my educational background is in physical education. Playing at it’s finest. Playing within a set of boundaries, rules or guidelines. I’ve never regretted taking what many people call as an ‘easy’ route to getting an education degree. Hogwash I say. Try supervising almost 60 to 70 students at a time, outside with no walls to contain them, all the while making sure they are kept active and engaged. Anyone that can do that can handle a classroom job with NO problems. These experiences have taught me that there are two types of playing. Simply put: structured and unstructured.

Structured play is what you see out on the fields and in the gymnasiums of schools. Being taught by physical educators with sound pedagogical knowledge. Learning DOES take place. It might not have anything to to with A,B,C’s or what a noun is, even though many PE teachers are now expected to incorporate concepts dealing with standardized testing into their curriculums, our students must work within those sets of boundaries given to them, work collaboratively with fellow classmates for a common goal: To Win. Yes, I said it…that DREADED “C” word. competition.

I’ve contemplated making this one SUPER long entry, i don’t think I can express myself that much in one sitting and give it justice. My time at the Strong Museum of Play today in Rochester left me reeling and with many thoughts. Food for thought though:

Don’t know about all of you…but I think Dr. Brown got it right on. Don’t believe me? Video tape any class out at recess, if they are allowed to go out for it still.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

1. I’m still missing my friend Jen Wagner. Thankfully I was able to talk to her for a bit yesterday before David Jakes and Dean Shareski’s session yesterday morning. You too Diana, but you are off hammocking in the jungle somewhere.
2. ISTE’s done a better job  this year I think of keeping rooms from overflowing into the hallways. It has reminded me of going to Disney World and using the FAST Pass system for the rides. In the sessions I went to last night I averaged getting there almost 45 minutes early just to make sure I had a seat.
3. I made it through yesterday having successfully accomplished my daily goal of learning ‘one thing’. Thanks to David Jakes for making sure that happened. He showed Flickrstorm to help in finding Creative Commons images. 
4. Blogger’s Cafe. Wow….just like last year. Conversations, un-conference type learning and connecting with other like minded individuals. Finally getting to meet f2f many of the people that I follow in blogs and twitter is amazing. 

1. I miss Jenn Wagner. Yea I know we spoke last night on skype, but I still wish you were here!
2. I am not as young as I used to be, it’s getting harder and harder to wake up in the morning after staying out to wee hours of the morning with my DEN friends.
3. The DEN continues to amaze me with the experiences and opportunities they give to their DEN educators to network with each other. They are adept at putting us in the position to come away with great ideas, not from them, but from other educators from around the country.
4. Mogulus: wow…..I’m not happy I’ve been disconnected for four months. Wonderful idea for my ever dwindling ability to have PD for my teachers.
5. Did I mention I’m getting older and tougher to wake up in the AM?

Time for the REAL day to start. Going to break open my 2nd NECC with a session with Vicki Davis on wikis. Looking forward to it.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Then along comes my daughter. Yesterday she says to my wife and I that she is ready to get her hair cut, but instead of just throwing the hair away, she wanted to donate it. We had talked about it a few years ago, donating her hair, but she was still a little bit young, and I wanted the final decision to be hers, when she was ready. It seemed yesterday was the day that she wanted to do this.

  We didn’t think of taking a before shot, so we had to recreate it as best as well could. Here’s an after shot as well. It’s times like these as a parent that makes it so easy to say that having a child  was the right thing to do. And for all the naysayers, like my parents, I know she will be a teenager soon, so I will just have to cherish these moments for as long as I can .

For those of you that have the ability donate, Locks of Love is the name of the organization that we are donating to. Thanks for letting me dote a little. Sometimes it’s just that necessary!

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Part of me is excited about getting a new teacher on campus who’s sought me out and asking if we had this and had that on our campus. I have made a concerted effort to make sure that she has everything that she needs to help make her students succeed in her class. I’ve already set her up with our last SMART board that wasn’t being utilized, a document camera and am in the process of setting up 3 more laptops for her to create some learning/literacy centers. It’s been a ray of sunshine to help me get out of my doldrums.

The other thing that came just at the right time is a blog post from Kim Cofino titled “Making the Shift Happen.” Alot of what she blogs about in this article I’ve been saying for the last few months. One of the phrases I used in my interview with the Women of Web 2.0 back in January was “Paradigm Shift”. I saw a question yesterday on Twitter to describe what 21st Century Skills were being developed in our schools. In theory, the paradigm should have shifted almost a decade ago, leading into the new century. Unfortunately, and sadly, many schools are still ‘trying’ to make the shift. As I described it in a followup tweet, “My school is in a quagmire of 19th Century learning practices.” I don’t really want to rehash everything that Kim writes about, I do urge you to go out and read it. It’s definitely an article that most schools/districts could sink their teeth into and utilize.

On a lighter note. I do want to finish with a SHOCKING development in the life of Tom Turner. I sent out the tweet for those that follow me on twitter this is old news. But I Tom Turner am now the proud owner of a MacBook laptop computer. I Tom Turner who swore up and down as early as 2 years ago that I would NEVER own a Mac now owns one. With the probability of owning another 2 within the next year and a half. Here’s some images of my new beauty next to a dinosaur in one of the pics. I’m ever so pleased about my purchase! Until later!

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: mac edtech education technology

Thursday was spent in panel discussions with one of the vendors off of the exhibit hall floor. It was a new experience for me, I’d never participated in a forum like that before. I felt no remorse about being away from the convention center area for 3 total hours. As I was looking through the conference schedule, the one thing that I noticed the most was the amount of sessions that were a rehash of older ideas, or basic how’to sessions that I really don’t need to go to. So for me, it was a win-win situation.

Friday was a different story. I attended several sessions that I was very pleased about . Digital Booktalks described a different way of doing digital storytelling to get students interested in reading. It involved making book trailers about the books that have been read in class. It forces students to read the book to be able to make the movie. The thing that really didn’t surprise me was when Dr. Perry shared that he saw students who ‘ratted’ out to other students about not really reading the book after watching their trailer. That became the impetus for a conversation to support their argument as to why they thought the other students did not read their book. Students driving their own discussions and education. Is that not what we are here to do.

The other ‘new’ thing to me that I tried on Friday was using/utilizing ustream.tv. As with everything, I’m late getting on the bus with great tools out there to help me learn and to share with my teachers. Steve Dembo and Hall Davidson were gracious enough to let me ustream their presentations. As I’m sitting there streaming out Steve’s, Marie Coleman is streaming Hall’s presentation at the same time from the other end of the convention center. The number of looks I got while sitting there with earbuds in my ear and listening to Steve’s presentation and Hall’s presentation at the same time was priceless. As with all of Steve’s presentations, I usually find one thing that I never knew, or one tool that I can use. This time it’s Jumpcut. I’m going to mess around with it some more before commenting. But first look, it’s pretty nice.

As I close down, I’m sitting here listening to the live panel discussion for Sunday morning at Educon2.0 in Philadelphia. I wonder if there is a place for Huge conferences in a box like FETC and the other state conferences for me? I’m sitting in my garage for the second day in a row running a garage sale and listening and learning and conversing. But more on that later too. I encourage all that have not watched and listened to some of these presentations to check the archive of the presentations on ustream.tv. Well worth it. One of the best quotes I’ve seen so far is from @ijesspederson during one of the sessions. We were talking about Twitter in the channel. Her quote sums it best: “ijesspederson : you are in charge of your own quality control on twitter”. Just food for thought.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: FETC edtech education technology Educon ustream jumpcut

I also saw myself going to FETC, NECC, Discovery’s Summer Leadership Seminar (on a cruise ship no less) and TechLearning Orlando (where I got to finally see David Jakes and David Warlick speak in person, and to see my good friend and colleague Kay Teehan present on digital storytelling, again!) Along the way I’ve made MANY new friends and contacts within the realm of educational technology. I can’t say one has been most helpful, or intriguing, or dynamic or special, because everyone I’ve come in contact with has been great.

Just before the new year rang on, I also saw myself begin to play World of Warcraft again. For all you WoW’ers out there, I’m Mithryss (Mithrass was already taken darnit!), a Blood Elf Priest, on the Zul’jinn Server. If you have never played WoW then you are probably not understanding any of the stuff I just mentioned, that’s okay! If you are a player, do let me know. I know that Evan Scherr is playing, as well as John Pederson.

The other big WOW is pretty humbling really. I don’t often get to listen to the show live, but it IS on my podcast feed and listen to it whilest I’m out walking, and I am speaking of the Women of Web 2.0 show. Back in late June, I ventured as I said to NECC 2007 in Atlanta, GA. I arrived a day early hoping to be able to go to edubloggercon, but that didn’t work out. Travel plans made that not happen. But ISTE decided to put up a little ole place called ‘The Blogger’s Cafe’. I figured, I’m a blogger, I can sit in there too. I can type up my session reflections for my blog, maybe talk to a person or two. I’d met Jen Wagner earlier that day at the DEN precon event held over at Stone Mountain. It was a case of mutual, “I’ve been wanting to meet up with yous” so that there was not a clear cut winner. Out of our conversations that day, and in the Blogger’s Cafe, she asks if I would be interested in coming onto the WOW 2.0 show. I said sure, not knowing what I’d be getting myself in for. Well, the date we talked about is closing in on us FAST. I will be their guest speaker this Tuesday. I’m very much looking forward to it.

And I’m going to close with this. I can finally say that my gaming life has met up with my professional life.Since 1999 when I joined “The Syndicate” (online gamings PREMIER GUILD), we’ve use IRC as our main communication tool. Tonight, the edublogosphere has finally hit the old school and continued some great conversations from Twitter, rolling right into IRC. Please email me @ thomas.turner@polk-fl.net if you wish a copy of it.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: WorldofWarcraft WOW2.0 WomenofWeb2.0 Twitter edublogosphere IRC

I wanted to share this last little bit of wisdom that was shared with me this week. I recently opened up a 3rd computer lab on my campus. Again, I’m very, I MEAN VERY, blessed to have a School Technology head who purchased 40 extra workstations to use on campus. This alone allowed me to open a second and a third computer lab on campus, which I think makes all the difference. The first 2 labs are being used as a skill n’ drill type lab, so my goal was to open this one up as a research and projects lab. Now for the nugget, “There is no time to use the computer lab for such trivial things as  research and to type projects.” So what is this teacher’s response to this? “Mr. T, go ahead and take me off of the lab time schedule, I’m just not going to go.”

This was just the latest one, there were more over the last few weeks. I won’t go into great detail into them, as I don’t want to harp on them. Frustrated? Yes, why yes I am. I’m sure it will pass. As with every time that I sense becoming highly frustrated, I tend to stay away from my office and work around the school. The last two days I’ve spent in the Media Center setting up (I will say FINALLY) the workstations for up there. It only took 5 months, but they are definitely done. In the end he has a pretty nice set up: 6 desktops and a movable 10 wireless laptop lab. Not even 10 minutes, while I was packing up my stuff to go down to my office, a class working on a project (this is where the hope comes in) on Lewis and Clark were having HUGE issues in finding books. Between the 2 of us, we worked with the class in using our online card catalog system to find the books they would need.  To put the icing on this story this particular teacher’s response to the decree on computer use/projects was a basic “I don’t care, they need to learn how to do it anyways, so why not now!” made me feel much better.

Sorry for the rant, so </rant>

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.