CyberCamp 08 » Learning

Today’s the REAL First Day of CyberCamp

manni14 — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:36:39 +0000

I’ll admit it – I’m already suffering some CyberCamp withdrawal. But that’s okay – as I suspect there’s more on the way from the CyberCampers. Plenty more, based on what I saw happening in our classroom and here on the blog.

In a sense, today is the REAL first day of CyberCamp – the first day when posting or sharing isn’t in some way mandated by someone else. I hope folks will continue to sharing their work and learning here, in this space. I look forward to reading more from you, CyberCampers, from learning from you as you continue to learn.

I’m grateful for all of your hard work so far, and I know there’s plenty more to do. I’m eager to see your projects happen, and to participate as I can in them. To paraphrase Garrison Keillor’s catchphrase for his daily Writer’s Almanac podcast, I hope you’re well, doing good work, and that you keep in touch.

CyberCamp Authors Day – The Archive

manni14 — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:34:13 +0000

If you wanted to return to yesterday’s conversation with Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss, or you missed it the first time around, I’m pleased to report that the recording of the session is now available. I want to again thank Suzie and Jane for their time, thoughtfulness and investment in our learning, as well as their excellent book, a resource that I suspect will become dogearred and sticky-note strewn as I return to it again and again. Also, one more thank you to Steve Hargadon and Classroom 2.0 for the use of their Elluminate classroom, which did exactly what we needed when we needed it to.

How fortunate we are to have colleagues like these.

Ow!

manni14 — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:27:23 +0000

Ok. That hurt! (for those of you not in the room – the lab can be a dangerous place!)

Last night I had an amazing discovery. After doing my reading, I found a site by David Fagg about podcasting. It is a wonderful site to visit if you are starting podcasting. David has broken down the process into simple steps. I wish I had found this earlier.

Excuse me…your passion is showing

manni14 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:40:03 +0000

I’ve been learning a lot during CyberCamp. Not just about Google Apps Education, my project structure (chaos), and using some great tools, but I’ve been learning so much on how to learn. There’s a lot of great energy in the CyberCamp lab — some “deer-in-the-headlights” moments, frustration, and some a-ha moments as well. But the one thing that is evident, with every camper, is the passion with which they are experimenting, researching, questioning, and building/rebuilding their individual projects.

Many are here to create relevant, engaging, and meaningful projects for their students, but what is becoming very evident is that our own project-based learning model is working quite well. If only we could bottle this passion for learning — learning not for just an end product, but for the process.

Another observation: Sarah, in her presentation today, said that the tools are still just the bells and whistles, the “magic” being performed by little elves somewhere. What I see in the CyberCamp presentations is that good teachers will be good no matter what the tool — a piece of chalk or thousands of dollars worth of technology tools. But, when you hook up a great teacher with engaging tools — that’s when magic happens. The tools become transparent.

Every presentation thus far in CyberCamp, regardless of the presenter’s doubt that they were ready, has been wonderful. We can see the vision and see the pieces starting to fit together. We can see the passion. Very cool.