PodCamp Boston 3 was amazing. The venue this year was unbelievable, thank you, Harvard! It was easier to run into people this year, which was fun. PodCamp Boston 2 was nice and big, but this year the event was very close knit. I was more social at PCB3, and this year overall – last year I was very reserved. I also knew more people in general, those I had met on Twitter and at various Social Media Breakfasts. (For those interested in the Academic Technology session I led at PodCamp, check the end of the post.)

My junior achievement award. Photo Credit: Gradon Tripp

I won a Junior achievement award this year! Thank you, Adam Zand (I think, at least.) Unfortunately, I was the only teenager (I knew of) at PodCamp Boston 3. Last year, I was 1 of 2, this year, I was 1 of 1. I had hoped more teens would show up. I did know a few who wanted to come, but couldn’t. Next year!

Jamming at PodCamp.

Being social and having fun makes a huge difference. Don’t be afraid, introduce yourself to everyone. We have so much virtual, or digital, contact with each other, it makes such a huge difference to get together and have fun in person. Twitter went down for maintenance on Saturday July 19th, during PodCamp, and I think it actually was for the better – it helped people actually connect with each other. Not to say that Twitter is bad; sometimes, the best part of the session was the conversation taking place on Twitter. Check out the PCB3 tag on Twitter Search.

Steven Sherlock.

My Session

I led a session at PodCamp Boston about Academic Technology, mostly outlining the work I did at the Cambridge School of Weston, for my Capstone Project. If you’re interested in the presentation, you can see it on Slideshare, download it as a PDF, and download the audio recording.

Here is the video from my capstone presentation. It’s about 35 minutes, and the audio isn’t great (I was only using the built-in microphone of the video camera). Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Here are the materials associated with my capstone:

• Presentation in PDF Format
• Reflection in PDF Format
• Recommended Technologies Wiki

The Video

Capstone Presentation from Kabren Levinson on Vimeo.

I will be streaming my capstone presentation tomorrow, Wednesday May 21st at 12:00 PM EST. My capstone was all the Academic/Educational Technology work I’ve been doing over the past many months. Check it out. Join in in the discussion remotely! I hope the stream will work, school Internet is slow.

Click here to watch the stream, or look below. Here’s the Facebook event.

Stream:
Broadcast powered by Ustream.TV

Chat:

Read this blog post to understand what I’m talking about. Also, those videos I’ve talked about will be put up on Sunday – I got a little busy.

A Tech Fellow

Working with Martha was a job for a “tech fellow,” a crucial part of my educational technology program. Over the past few days, with the help of the assistant head of the school, I’ve been rethinking the roles of the “tech fellow.” Much of our conversation had to do with the marketing and branding of the “Tech Fellows” program. We used the Geek Squad as an example; they have uniforms, they’re easy to identify; they have phone numbers, they’re easy to contact; they have cars, they come to YOU. A “tech fellow” just doesn’t sound right – if I were a teacher, and was deciding between contactacting a “tech fellow” or the “tech squad,” for example, I’d probably call the “tech squad.” We need to make it known who we are, make sure it’s easy to contact us, and make it clear that we (the student) will come to YOU (the teacher). Of course, since this is high school, we won’t actually have the uniforms and cars (I wish), but metaphorically, we will.

Customer Service

Another aspect of being a “tech fellow” or on a “tech squad” is customer service. Instead of walking into the job with an agenda, we need to make an “ego-less swoop.” A tech fellow neds to make sure the teacher is in control; we ask what the teacher wants to accomplish with technology, before jumping into what we think they should be doing. Even though my school is a progressive school, for teachers, suddenly having students be the “smart ones” will be tough, and perhaps, frightening.

It’s a Brand

A lot of the issues I’m facing right now have to do with marketing and branding – how can I get teachers to use and enjoy an educational implementation of the Geek Squad. As the assistant head of my school said, you’d be more likely to call upon “Mr. Fix-It” than “Boston Electric” because “Mr. Fix-It” contains the word fix – Mr. Fix-It will fix my problem.

Video

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing primarily on the Tech Fellows aspect of my EduTech project. A few weeks ago, I began working with Martha, a History teacher at my school, to figure out how she could use technology more in her classroom. We talked a lot about her use of the school’s discussion forum – she’s an early adopter. I figured she should start a blog that would allow her to post items for the class and would require students to post, comment, and respond to other students’ work. You can see her blog here: http://marthasclass.edublogs.org.

Conversation

One of the problems with her use of the forum, was that it wasn’t being used to start a conversation – basically, it was an alternative way for the students to turn in the homework. Even though a discussion forum is a fantastic way to have a group conversation, conversation and response weren’t identified as requirements. On her new blog, students are being graded on their ability to comment and respond on other students’ work.

This mod, each of you will be responsible for writing 1 starter post (about 250 - 500 words) and commenting on other people’s posts 3 times a week.

Right now, a students posted homework assignment has 22 comments! To me, that’s a successful conversation.

Confidence

When Martha first asked students to post their homework assignments to the forum, students started complaining about the use of the forum, on the forum. I saw two major complaints: they didn’t understand why they were posting to the forum and they were uncomfortable with their work being available to other students (they were nervous). First of all, I was amazed that this conversation hating on the forum was happening on the forum – without the forum, the technology, the students would never have shared their ideas in such a way. Martha and I decided that one of the goals for her new blog needed to be about helping them become more confident in themselves and more comfortable sharing their ideas with classmates. I have gotten a lot from blogging; these days, I’m not afraid to write to the world, and my writing skill has improved (practice makes perfect).

Is it working?

So far, I haven’t heard, or seen, any public outcry about the blog on the blog – seems this is working out. There’s one other teacher at the school I know of using a blog to post homework assignments, and hopefully, I will be able to use these two teachers as evidence that installing WordPress MU (Multi-User) would be a good thing for the school.

Version 2.0 of the video I released then promptly removed on Saturday!

On Viddler:

Enjoy!

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post – and that doesn’t mean that nothing has been happening. In fact, a lot has been happening, in life, in technology, in everything. I’ve been accepted to two colleges in the past week! It’s reassuring, you know, to get into a school or two.

To start this off, spring is right around the corner. I love spring, it’s my favorite season, fall comes next, and summer and winter can fight it out. Everything just feels fresh in spring, metaphorically and literally. But spring isn’t all new beginnings, because, as a student, you’ve still got about a quarter of the year to finish up. So, spring is the earth refreshing itself, but it doesn’t forget what went on. Damn.

My technology program has been going well. I successfully deployed my technology survey around the school – now I am beginning the process of evaluation, going through each one and extracting the data we want right now. What we’re most interested in is laptop ownership around the school, and whether students thought computers were a vital educational resource. The main aspect of my project I’m focusing on now, is a Student Tech Fellows program, which would allow for students to work one-on-one with faculty and staff members on technology, whether it be designing course curricula that employs technology successfully, or simply learning how to set up a projector. Students would be able to get School Service credit for participating in the program, and they’d also have an official title, “Technology Fellow,” they could put on resumes and college applications. I’m designing the “rigorous” selection process for the program, because if it’s too easy to get in, or become a member, it won’t be as successful – we need to make sure people feel like they need to work to accomplish the title of “Technology Fellow.” Things have been going well, I think.

I got accepted to the beta of Aviary, “a suite of web-based applications (RIAs) for people who create. From image editing to typography to music to 3D to video, we have a tool for artists of all genres.” So far I’m impressed that this is all happening on the web. A few weeks ago, when I applied for the beta, I thought that this was like Adobe Creative Suite. So far, these seem to be amazing web applications that are taking the web in another direction. Expect a full review soon. The one bad thing: it seems to be based off M$ .NET ASP architecture junk. Eek.

I’ve missed blogging. I’ll do more.

Photo Credits:
Kabren Levinson
Aviary
visbeek

Edit: Sorry guys, my parents made me remove the video. Maybe I’ll rerecord it tomorrow, we’ll see.

-Kabren

Frozen from Kabren Levinson on Vimeo.

Thought I’d post another video. Here’s an update on my technology project.

Let me know what you think.

tech@csw from Kabren Levinson on Vimeo.

Yesterday morning, I found out about Educon 2.0 from Whitney Hoffman on Twitter. I really wish I could attend the conference. Yesterday, I was watching a session about “Learning to Teach: First Year Teaching in a Progressive School,” and today I’m watching two sessions, one on Student Voice, and one on Student Led Technical Support. It’s right up my alley. These educators have radical ideas about the future of education.

Sometime in the next two weeks, I will be leading a 1.5 hour faculty seminar at my school, the Cambridge School of Weston, about podcasting. I spoke for about 5 minutes at the faculty meeting on Thursday about my project, they seemed impressed. My hope is to get some of the faculty/staff to sign up for my course which will be offered in Mod 5 (starting February 11th and lasts approximately 5 weeks). The course title is “New Social Media: Podcasting, Blogging, and Internet Journalism”. I can only fit 10 people in the class, so far, I have three or four faculty/staff members interested (I have 10 interested in my seminar so far). This is really exciting for me. Right now, I’m designing what the seminar will look like and creating a Keynote presentation.

(photo credit: taylorkoa22)

I realize now that my program is less about technology and learning/teaching technical skills and more about radically shifting the power paradigm in education. I need some help. I need resources on education, teaching, and technology. What do you think of the course? Would you take it, as a student or a teacher?

Feel free to email me.