Creating Immersive Learning Environments

This Slideshare preso is by David Jakes, Instructional Technology Coordinator at Glenbrook South High School, Florida.

Creating Immersive Learning Environments

View more presentations from David Jakes.

What is the biggest obstacle in becoming a true 21st-century classroom?

Take our latest Facebook poll:

What is the biggest obstacle in becoming a true 21st-century classroom?

Virtual Advantage Radio

Adam and J discuss having more than one DLA at a school.




See more Audio at TeacherTube.com.

Curt Bonk on e-books

Curt Bonk, author of The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education, discusses how e-books impact "learning" in an Open World.

The Flip Cam Revolution

What will the world look like when video cameras are ubiquitous? Take a look around . . . They are ubiquitous. They are on every device you can carry in your pocket, from phones to MP3 players to portable flip cams.

Remember this:

T-Mobile wasn’t advertising their new phones, they were advertising their new phones with video cameras. Go back and look closely at the crowd at the end. They aren't just watching the dancers, they are videoing the dancers with their cell phones. T-Mobile’s message: “ Life’s for Sharing.”

Remember the last elections in Iran? Tragic and revolutionary. All caught on video cams and broadcast to the world.

News organizations are taking advantage of this to deliver up-to-minute live coverage of events where their own reporters can't be, or at least can't be there in time. This has become a money-making venture for the once amateur video maker with projects like YouTube's CitizenTube, FOX's U-report and CNN's iReport.

So the marketplace, employers, technology, and products are in place for this new world of citizen reporting. This is the world in which today's students are growing up. Is education poised to step in and prepare students for that? Are we at least preparing students to be good digital citizens? Or are we going to be on the outside looking in again?

Ubiquitous video will transform the world. It will transform education, too. Educators can be the drivers or be driven. Active or passive.

What are we going to do?

Do you want to safely bring the flip cam revolution to your classroom? You can start with FIZZ.org from N.C. State’s Friday Institute: http://www.onfizz.org/demo/

Further Reading

Flip for Our Students at Carnegie Mellon University

Duke Digital Initiative

The Information Age

Education for the Information Age

Information on the Internet to Double Every 11 Hours

Mobile Device Content Delivery Shows Promise as New Learning Tool for Children

Director's Blog: Is Your Vision Cloudy?

This week, Glide Education and Wilson County Schools in North Carolina announced a launch of the Glide Education Cloud Computing Pilot Program. Glide Education is a comprehensive cross-platform cloud computing solution for schools providing students, teachers, school administrators and parents with a full suite of online and offline rights based productivity, collaboration, advanced web search and social networking applications.

The Glide platform is designed to support mobile classroom and distance learning, teacher training, parent participation and school administration.

The Wilson County School System has fourteen elementary schools, six middle schools, three traditional high schools, one early college high school, one alternative learning center, and one professional learning center. The Wilson County School System serves approximately 12,500
students in kindergarten through adult education. Wilson County Schools has a "cloudy vision".

Meet the Jetsons

Recent emphasis has been on Jetson's children in Fintstone's schools. Many, many 21-century educators, though, are eager to bring their classrooms into the 21st Century, but they are limited by what their districts will provide or allow. Those teachers are waiting. Patiently.

Remember that a recent Department of Commerce study found that education ranked 55th (last in the study) in IT intensiveness . . . behind coal mining.

Director's Blog: Is Your World Open?

I had the pleasure yesterday of hearing Curt Bonk, Indiana University Professor and author of the World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education at the SREB.org teaching and learning symposium in Atlanta, GA. In addition, I was able to film Curt over dinner on a high definition flip cam in 2-3 minute shorts that will soon appear on our interactive book study site here: http://sites.google.com/site/ncvpsgolive/book-study-world-is-open.

Next week, I’ll also post the shorts on our weekly videocasts in the upcoming series on our main web site at www.ncvps.org. To say that I learned a lot from Curt in Atlanta would be a huge understatement. So, instead of writing my usual blog this week, I wanted to give you some highlights of free open source links, tweets, and “approaches” with annotations that will hopefully draw you to our live, free, and open book study this week that goes live on Monday night at midnight.Our World is Open book study is asynchronous and free. Use it with your staffs, start the journey, and open the web to impact your district. This study is not about “cool tools”. It is about different thinking for different times. It is time to look up from the budget spreadsheets and start to think about “opening your world” to innovation. This is not the first time our country, our state, and/or schools have had it tough. And if you believe that necessity is the mother of invention, then now is the time to “open your world” and learn how to do things more effectively and efficiently with web 2.0 technology and the power of www.ncvps.org and www.nclearnandearn.gov.

Enjoy the open links and start using them with students and staff today:

NCVPS in Second Life

NCVPS Staff prepares for the North Carolina Technology in Education Society (NCTIES) presentation in Second Life. Just us on the NCVPS Second Life Island on Thursday, March 4, at 9 a.m.


Follow this SURL to join us:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/North%20Carolina%20Virtual/228/184/24

Director's Series: Are You a Gifted gatekeeper?

This past week, I spent some time in Washington, DC at the Virtual K-12 Public Schools Forum focused on students with disabilities. Several themes emerged from the forum, and our national group crafted recommendations for the United States Office of Special Education Programs. As the group was comprised of administrators, agency members, educators, and parents, I could not help but think of a consistent theme over the three days - Adults are often poor gatekeepers of opportunities for kids. Some adults "hem and haw" over policy, procedure, and roll out while kids every day are denied services to virtual education. Other leaders are "gifted gatekeepers" who continue to "learn by doing", "pilot", and ultimately just take risks if there may be a chance to reach a kid a different way.

As you read through this week's key themes at the forum, pay particular attention to the gifted gatekeeper strategies to make virtual opportunities a reality for kids with disabilities and for all kids in North Carolina as many of the themes cross over to why or why not "all kids" are being served with www.ncvps.org and www.nclearnandearn.gov.