During our amazing week together someone asked me if I knew of less expensive hotels in the City. Of course I can't remember who it was although I swear I wrote it down. So, I'm posting this to the blog so, hopefully, whoever asked, and anyone else who needs this information, will see it.

I haven't stayed at any of these places. They were featured in a Newsday article last November (Nov.26, 2006 in case you can get to it online). Each room was reviewed and basically they are safe, clean, comfortable places to stay in Manhattan for less than $250 a night (at the time the article was written). Some are a distance from the Convention Center and will require a short subway ride, but it may be worth it. I'll start with the one's closest to the headquarter hotels.

Within walking distance:

Hotel 41

206 West 41st Street

212-703-8600

hotel41.com

Hotel Edison

228 W. 47th Street

212-840-5000

edisonhotelnyc.com

Hotel St. James

109 W. 45th Street

212-730-9444

hotelstjames.net

414 Inn

414 W. 46th Street

212-399-0006

414inn.com

The Mayfair New York

242 W. 49th Street

212-586-0300

mayfairnewyork.com

Hotel Bedford

118 E. 40th Street

212-697-4800

bedfordhotel.com

A train or bus ride away:

Chelsea Lodge Suites

318 W. 20th Street

212-243-4499

chelsealodgesuites.com

Milburn

242 W. 76th Street

212-362-1006

milburnhotel.com

Hotel Newton

2528 Broadway (95th Street)

212-678-6500

thehotelnewton.com

There are a few others but I thought these would be a good start. Good luck!!

A few folks asked to learn more about Twitter. Here is a document released this week that offers some insight into the software and its possible uses in education. Funny enough, I learned about it in a Twitter from John Pederson . Interaction and metacognition that forces "users to be brief and to the point" are a few of the ideas. Read it, think about it, and then join the Twitter Nation. Follow me and I will follow you (Twitter Speak). See the IM/Skype wiki and add your information.

There is also a new program out that allows Twitter to be on the desktop like AIM.  It is called Twitterific. That is the link for the Mac version.  I am sure there is a PC version out there somewhere.

Hello fellow TMers!

I apologize for entering into this conversation at the tail end of TM '07. I've been completely immersed this week in our Area 3 WP 2007 Tech Institute, which in many ways was tied to my experiences in TM '04...

I love to walk. My fondest TM '04 memories start with joining Karen McComas, her husband Mike, and Betty Collum for early morning walks through the streets and neighborhoods of Huntington. The friendship, insights, humor shared, plus an ending cup of coffee at a great local place, prepared me in mind and spirit for the jam-packed agenda of the day. To and from the campus, I generally passed on another walking opportunity because I also loved riding with Will Banks, whose talent for putting everything into a southern perspective make me wish the hotel and campus were further apart.

I walked in the evenings too. Great walks with Danilo, Leah, Trisha, Tim, Jeff, and Peter (including a little bit of bar hopping). Not only did I learn about IMing (my favoite TM 04 tool) but also that "piano bars" don't necessarily have pianos.

In celebration of TM '07, I did some pre-insitute walking through the Sierra foothills with my thinking partner Betty Collum. So this year, between conversations with Betty and the TM blog posts and podcasts, I feel connected to the '07 community. I'm going to download the podcasts and then head off for a walk on the Placerville bike path, the next best thing to a walk through Bidwell Park ;-).

Having used wikis with my middle school students, I can say the transition is not a difficult one. They enjoy the opportunity to share use technology, but they appreciate the opportunity to work on a document from anywhere with the help of others regardless of being together or separate.

I remember my last project this year. I specifically told this troublesome bunch of students I had this year that I was subscribed to the wiki via RSS and received all updates and changes. Furthermore, the wiki would tell me who changed what and when and also allow me to revert to previous versions. Anyone caught defacing others pages would be using School 1.0 to get his or her project finished. I had not seen any issues with the wiki through the first week, so I thought I was home free and the world was a happy place (my world anyway).

Then late Saturday night happened. I started getting notifications hand over fist about edits occurring on one certain site. Instead of looking at the changes in the feed window, I quickly navigated over to the wiki to shut down access to whatever terrible thing was taking apart one of my group’s hard work. I knew the offender had logged in with a student ID, and I was sure to confront him about it on Monday. So I get to the wiki and start looking around the pages being reported as edited. Nothing. They looked fine to me. I could not see the difference from what I would have expected at this point.

So I went into the history to see what the kid was up to. And then it hit me. Editing. He was editing. This ESL, only in the country three years, never talks in class, speaks broken English kid was editing the work of his peers (one of which was one of my top students). He cared enough about his group’s work and its appearance to the public that he wanted it right. Were all of his corrections accurate? No. But most were, and he was doing English VOLUNTARILY on a SATURDAY night. That is what wikis and collaborative work is all about. I shut my machine down to go to bed knowing that my work had been a success. Even if he was the only one who chose to go the extra mile, he CHOSE to do it. That made it all worth it.

My students used the wiki to aide each other in weak areas. They found missing parts in their own work and asked others to help them by adding to it. Some took the initiative, others did not. But the all favored the Web 2.0 version over the School 1.0.

Online collaborative word processing sites (wikis, docs, etc) allow people to share and mold and create and recreate information and ideas. It is an awesome opportunity. These people may never meet, but their ideas will. Their intellect will collide and combine in a virtual environment that will change the real world. This is powerful. Our students deserve to at least learn how to harness this power on a local basis, because after high school they will run into it on a global basis.

Yesterday, after a long, first day of learning, Janelle and I joined the Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast with Paul Allison. It was an incredible experience to be a part of this very diverse group of folks. I can't say teachers because we had the benefit and privilege of two students joining us.

Overall, the six of us that joined together here in Chico, CA, were very impressed with the student input. The chat room, as usual, provided some great questions and running commentary about the conversation. It bounces me back to the reflections from Karl Fisch and others about NECC: Where are the students at these events? Bravo to Paul and the TTT folks for including them in the webcast. We should all strive to include these most important voices in our tech planning.

Hey--in case you missed it two of the Tech Matters folks had some fun in the fountain on Wednesday evening.

During our Articulation time, David Warlick's name came up.  I thought I would share a quote out of the 2nd edition (released a few weeks ago) of his book "Classroom Blogging: A Teacher's Guide to Blogging, Wikis, and Other Tools that are Shaping a New Information Landscape."  I can personally recommend this text as a valuable resource for both personal and instructional needs. And David always seems willing to step in to comment on blogs wherever he is mentioned (your students would love that).  

His quote from the book:

"We should no longer assume the authority of information we encounter, but, instead, prove the authority." 

Good stuff!  Pertinent.   

I do not foresee any problems harnessing the information. I see the issues in disseminating the good from the bad, the accurate from the inaccurate, the faux from the fabulous. Critical thinking is a must in the information age.

I use RSS and Bloglines (my account )to manage new content on a daily basis. It allows me to review snippets of larger posts to wade through the applicable items I might need. I also use del.icio.us for social bookmarking to aide me in the organization of my important content.

I model all of these tools for my students. We spend the first few days when we can get access to the lab creating del.icio.us accounts for them to use throughout the year (and hopefully on into other areas and grade levels). Mine is the first to be shared so they can see my organization and patterns. I do not push the Bloglines with my middle school students, but we do discuss the advantages of having a personal learning network (PLN). I show them how many of the lessons and projects they enjoy the most come from my own PLN. I have a few that will take advantage of it because they are self-motivated learners. As they move into high school, the importance of a tool like this only increases, so I am glad to introduce it to them in the middle school. I will be introducing this to my district staff as part of my new position. My curriculum director approached me after a district planning meeting one evening and asked how I knew all of this stuff that was happening in Austin (where our state education office is located) before she did. I shared a few of the posts I read from edubloggers who live in that area and attend every one of the meetings. The detail with which they take notes is amazing. Her first response was, “How soon can you get me one of those things set up?” I expect I will have many more take advantage of this as the year starts up. Where else can you get 24/7 professional development from educational experts from both in and out of the class. For free. When I want it. What I want. Yep.

When I do PD sessions, I share all of the tools I use at some point. The challenge is working with groups that are at both ends of the spectrum in skills. I think this is where break-out sessions within a session pay off. Team teaching these things is almost a must anymore. After being a part of Paul Allison’s Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast last night with Jason Hando from Sydney, Australia, I skipped on over to his blog to see what he was all about. His student that participated made him sound like the cat’s meow, so I wanted to see for myself. He has some great stuff over there. One post that I read deals with this issue of PD for different people at different levels. I love the title of it: “Speed Dating is not for wimpy teachers (or married men)" . He goes on to discuss a speed dating style of PD where teachers move from one station to another where they are dealt with at their level. He used educators from around the world to help him out in this endeavor (try Skype for this type of deal). The feedback he got from it was tremendous because each participant felt like they left with something they could use and had learned. Jason started with each teacher where they were at. What a great idea. PD Speed dating-style. I wonder how my superintendent is going to take that idea? I wonder where I can find volunteers to help be the host at each station. I wonder if I can quit repeating the beginning of each sentence. I wonder when lunch is.