Today is full day for me. I am at two David Warlick workshops Integrating Contemporary Literacy into the Classroom and Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Students Journalists & Information Masters.

One of the really cool websites that he shared was http://del.icio.us . This is a free site that allows you to save bookmarks and access them from anywhere over the web. Take a look at David's del.icio.us site. In our discussion he suggested that we might set up a shared delicious account to organize educational websites for our school. By using tags the websites can be organized for easier access.

I am thinking I will set one up and and create a link to it from this site.

Quote of the day from David, You're cooking my grits.

Let me take a moment and explain something about the making of "Raw Materials for the Mind". What's new in the 4th edition of this book (1st edition came to life in 1998) is a variety of tools that are coming together to dramatically change the shape of knowledge. As David Weinberger described it in his keynote address at NECC in June; weblogs, wikis, RSS, Podcasts, and a range of lesser known applications are transforming content from a product to be consumed to an ongoing and global conversation.

The first three editions of RMFM where written using a word processor, burned to a CD, and mailed to the printers in Florida. This cost us a sizable investment in the thousands of dollars, which returned in a freight truck, that met me at hour rented warehouse, where we stored the books. My wife handled the web sales, and I carried copies with me to speaking engagements. Conference sales usually paid for cab fare to the airport.

This last edition was dramatically different. The minute I finished writing and editing the book, I went to a web site that I had learned of at a local BloggerCon, Lulu.com. Here I described the book I wanted to publish, and then uploaded the book to the web site. Then I produced, with a $100 graphics program, the front and back covers, saving them as Jpeg files, and uploaded them as well. Finally, the web site asked me how much money I wanted to earn from each book sale. I typed in two dollars (or something like that), and the web site came back with, "We can sell this book for $14.25." I clicked "OK", click "OK" one more time, and my book was published. You could have ordered it that moment, Lulu would print it on demand, and ship it to you.

Three hours after finishing my book, it was published. This is traditional publishing, becoming a conversation.

Professional Development Tech/ 21st Century skills

David Warlick will be in NH September 26-29 as a dinner speaker at the NHSTE annual meeting on Wednesday and presenting 6 different sessions around the state. This is an opportunity not to be missed.

Integrating Contemporary Literacy into the Classroom Keene, 9/26 8:30-11:30am, Penacook, 9/27 8:30-11:30am, Manchester, 9/28 8:30-11:30 am

Harnessing Emerging Technologies for the Classroom Keene, 9/26 1-4pm, Manchester, 9/28 1-4pm

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts: Students Journalists & Information Masters Penacook, 9/27 1-4pm

Right & Wrong on Info Highway: For Love of the Truth, Exeter 9/29 8:30-1130 am

The Three T's of Teaching in the 21st Century 9/29 1-4 pm For more information or to register for sessions

Telling the New Story David Warlick will be the guest speaker at the NHSTE Annual Dinner 9/28 4:00-8:15 pm St. Paul’s Concord For more information or to register for the annual dinner

What's your baby step?
This is back to school week. On Monday and Tuesday we had the traditional teacher inservice days. I needed to make the a tech status report. After a variety of tech announcements I told them the baby step insight that I shared with you all. I tacked a colored piece of paper to the ceiling in the center of the room and passed out rubber bands to everyone. I asked them to think about one baby step that they would like to make this year. On the count of three we launched the rubber bands at the target. This was a figurative representation of our potential growth. People were amused and it broke up a potentially boring morning.

Reactions since that meeting have been very interesting. On an hourly basis people have been sharing or asking for help with their baby steps. We laughed and celebrated them. This has been a very positive and playful tone for the beginning of the year.

I am making my own baby steps thanks to Raw Materials. I have two blogs in addition to this one. One started out as a Necc share and has transitioned to a tech blog for our school. I did this after I after I was inspired by Chris Hunewell's blog Techjaki. The other is called OPUS. We are using it to promote discussions and sharing between those professionals who are often assigned independent study while other are doing more content related staff development on early release days. I also have become indebted to David for getting me into Bloglines. Otherwise I couldn't keep track of what I am doing.

I am still "struggling" with the differenced in purpose and effective use of blogs, wikkis, podcasts, stranded discussion ... Any thoughts?