True+Stories+2010

**WANTED: STORIES (to share!)** We all start out in our educational careers (meaning when we were in kindergarten) knowing intrinsically the value of sharing. Somewhere between there and graduate school, we lose track of this simple concept, be it worrying about intellectual property rights or fearing theft.

The open ecology of the internet can undermine this learned and limiting stinginess. In this session for the Adobe Education Leaders, we (Alan Levine and John Ittelson) want to celebrate the True Stories of things that happen to educators when they share something openly on the web. We are asking our colleagues to share with us a video of their own stories of something surprising, valuable, powerful, or just plain inspiring that happened when that piece of media, that document, that video, that blog post, became valuable to someone they did not know before.

This is a version 2.0 of True Stories of Openness presented by Alan Levine at the 2009 Open Education Conference, where you will find plenty of examples that may kindle your own memory neurons.

HOW TO SHARE YOUR TRUE STORY
It's pretty simple. The easiest way is to create/log into your YouTube account, turn on your web cam, and tell a story as a reply to the invitation below. As an alternative, submit your details via our True Stories Form -- we just need some way to get to your video.

Here's the rub! Our timeline is short, so please try to post your story ASAP, before midnight Sunday July 25, 2010. What will you get out this? Glory! Fame! Our eternal gratitude! An invisible coupon entitling you to ask a return favor?

WHATS IN A TRUE STORY?
You, of course! Make sure you include your name, where you live, and any other brief anecdotes (no vitae reading please) about yourself. Try to make the video short, 5 minutes or less preferred.

In our live session, we will pull out the key sound bite, so try to include at least a statement that succinctly cuts to the True Openness, like in D'Arcy Norman's story "A random photo I took without even thinking, was posted to flickr, and because I shared it via creative commons, it ended up being chosen to be printed in a regional magazine." Wow, isnt it?

THE INVITATION
Here it is! Go to YouTube and upload a response video, or add any links, details, winning lottery ticket numbers to our [|True Stories form].

media type="youtube" key="HmE2EbKxb1A" height="505" width="640"

THE STORIES

Scroll below to see individual stories, or watch the entire show in the CoolIris format at http://cogdogblog.com/stuff/amazing10/

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Matumo Ramafikeng was asked to guest lecture soem classes occupational therapy at the University of Capetown. Recognizing a need form her students for more reinforcement, she created and shared her class materials on the [|UCT OpenContent directory]. The [|Journal of Occupational Therapy of Galicia] contacted Matumo with an interest in publishing it in their journal. The article was translated into Spanish and [|published in the September 2010 edition of the journal].
 * [|Occupation Focused Conceptual Framework] Matumo's materials on the UCT OER directory
 * [|Blog post of this story from the OER@UCT blog]
 * [|"Found in Translation"] University of Cape Town News item

TWO CANADIANS IN BOSTON
media type="youtube" key="CSKQNyW07eo" height="340" width="560" [|Dean Shareski] and [|Darren Kuropatwa] share a pair of stories on the tail end of their trip to the BLC10 Conference, a gathering that is all about making connections. A few years ago at this meeting, Darren led a workshop where part was sharing his approach to having his math students annotate flickr photos with notes about math principles demonstrated in the images. At this year's conference he met someone who was at his workshop, and used the same approach to teach her extended family how to share photos of a newborn family member. Dean talks about how a blog post her wrote about issues of student policy was used by [|Jeff Utecht] to reshape his school's policy-- this school is on the opposite side of the globe.
 * Darren's Blog post on a rubric for grading his student's flickr annotating assignment http://adifference.blogspot.com/2006/12/flickr-assignment-rubric-v10-were-out.html
 * Sample of student annotated flickr images http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pc40sf06/
 * Robbing Students of Recognition blog post by Dean http://ideasandthoughts.org/2009/10/30/robbing-students-of-recognition/

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//Educational Technology and the Adult Learner (ed366)// was a two week course at the [|University of Prince Edward Island] led by [|Dave Cormier] running it in a format he describes as "community as curriculum". In this video, three of the students share their thoughts on being open as educators. They saw how reaching out on the open network brought to them as a guest speaker one of the people behind the [|Old Spice viral marketing campaign], how twitter can be useful, and how openness is a positive virtue. >
 * Amazing Story of Openness – 2010ED366 a story - collaborative document written by students for last day of class http://davecormier.com/edblog/2010/07/23/amazing-story-of-openness-2010ed366-a-story/
 * ED366 posts by Dave Cormier http://davecormier.com/edblog/tag/2010ed366/
 * Sample student reflections blogged http://raellsworth.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/if-felt-like-the-catch-of-the-day/ and http://scmackinnon.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/reflection-day-9/

CREATIVE COMMONS COLLABORATION (SHARING TO SWEDEN AND BACK)
media type="youtube" key="sLdjWegm9js" height="340" width="560" [|Rod Lucier] (aka The Clever Sheep) weaves the tale of how his presentation Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know, shared on Slideshare, is not only very popular; he was contacted by a group in Sweden that used it as part of an educators resource there. With the assistance of a colleague found on twitter, and Rod's own students, this new resource was translated back into English
 * Creative Commons Collaboration (blog post story) http://thecleversheep.blogspot.com/2010/03/creative-commons-collaboration_08.html
 * Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know (Slideshare) http://www.slideshare.net/thecleversheep/creative-commons-what-every-educator-needs-to-know-presentation

WHAT A MATH TEACHER TAUGHT ME ABOUT WIKIS
media type="youtube" key="NejB-_AfO1w" height="445" width="560" Robin Neal (Beaver Country Day School, MA) talks with [|Darren Kuropatwa] about how Darren's model for using wikis (in Math) inspired Robin's efforts in English.
 * Darren's blog post describing the process http://adifference.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-class-blogs-part-5.html
 * The earlier post:http://adifference.blogspot.com/2006/04/wiki-solution-manuals.html
 * Robin's wiki that he built upon my idea: http://nealenglish.wikispaces.com/Keats%27s+Poetry+Project
 * A more modern incarnation of Robin's wiki: http://09bcdseng10.wikispaces.com/Students+Doing+Something+Social+Action+Project+Examples

THE BEE THAT STUNG TED CONNECTS TO EXPERT IN ARIZONA
media type="file" key="amazing-lauer.mp4" width="300" height="300" [|Tim Lauer] (Lewis Elementary School, Portland OR) shares a story of how in the mid 1990s a student got stung by a bee. Other students got curious about bees, they posted to the web their own microscope photo and among many people that contacted them and shared scientific information, was a bee expert from Arizona.
 * Screen Grab of the Bee Sting Page http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlauer/4368058496/
 * Ted's Bee Story (Internet Archive) http://web.archive.org/web/19970619231434/buckman.pps.k12.or.us/room100/bees/bees.html
 * Ted's Story (Internet Archive) http://web.archive.org/web/19970620002157/buckman.pps.k12.or.us/room100/bees/tedbee.html

A PRESENTATION MADE FROM OPENNESS
media type="youtube" key="2gTytLSy7ic" height="445" width="560" Martin Weller Professor of Educational Technology (Open University in the UK) describes as "everyday amazingness" what seems small, but is also more common in his work. He shares of connections and contributions made via social media and blogs to participants in a recent presentation he made.
 * Everyday Amazingness http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2010/07/everyday-amazingness.html
 * Academic Output as Collateral Damage (presentation mentioned) http://www.slideshare.net/mweller/academic-output-as-collateral-damage
 * Post where the collateral damage quote came from http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2010/03/is-public-engagement-an-old-media-concept.html
 * Martin's future of ed slidecast http://www.slideshare.net/mweller/future-of-education-3475415
 * Michelle Hoyle's post http://einiverse.eingang.org/2009/11/18/oer-and-a-pedagogy-of-abundance/

BLOGGING SERENDIPITY
media type="youtube" key="ULzFjWjxQ9o" height="445" width="560" [|Silvia Tolisano] and [|Andrea Hernandez] got to know each other after just happening to sit next to each other at an FETC conference. Andrea had just started blogging, and Silvia invited her to connect by leaving a comment at her Lanwitches blog- and not long after they ended up meeting again in real life as Silvia became a colleague the same school.
 * Amazing Stories of Sharing- Blogging Serendipity http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/07/30/amazing-stories-of-sharing/

Sharing: The Moral Imperative
media type="custom" key="7160079" [|Dean Shareski] created this masterful message as part of [|his keynote for the K-12 Online Conference 2010]. He weaves together a compelling case for sharing as not a "nice thing to do" but essential for a modern teacher, and integrates video interviews with the other teachers who provide their own case stories.

AMAZING WRITTEN STORIES
> http://2010stayingincharacter.ning.com/
 * **100 students, 3 Teachers and One Author** (Cheryl Oaks) For a project that started out as a language arts project, the teachers wanted to add a technology piece to it to keep the students engaged, so we started a ning where the students developed their persona in character for the book, //Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes//, by Chris Crutcher. Well, the two week project was a success. We are into the 3rd year and finished with the author spending the second year with us, chatting with students and discussing his books, his characters and the students many ideas for new stories.