Welcome!
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We are so fortunate to live in a time when opportunities to communicate, collaborate and act upon our vision for how the world can be are supported by the means to share with anyone, anywhere, at any time. The changes that I've already seen in my lifetime, and what you who read this will see in yours are beyond our imaginings. These changes are happening in both "real life" and "digital life" and in the best case, learning in each reinforces growth in both.
It has been said that people now can expect to have five careers in their lifetime. I've been called the poster-child for that idea and am now in my ninth career. In order, these have been: music teacher, jazz artist in residence, state performing arts administrator, data systems administrator, educational technologist, author, magazine editor, state ed tech director and now education grants manager...for the details, here's a link to my resumé (too busy to read the story? Here's the short bio)
Right now? You mean right now Right Now? I work as Grants Manager for Excelsior Software. In the digital age, learning is seamless, yet in schools we compartmentalize experience to an excessive degree, and wonder where the relevance went. Just as in real life there are no "45 minute math or english or social studies times", the boundaries between "online" and "classroom" learning are dissolving, and so our ability to provide feedback for growth in any aspects of learning should be seamless as well. In researching best practices for digital age learning, I learned of the work of Robert Marzano, who's both defined what the most effective instructional practices are, and designed pathways for getting there. I was delighted to learn that Excelsior has designed their excellent products around Marzano's research, and look forward to promoting best practices in schools by connecting them with the financial resources they need. I left my job with the New Mexico Public Education Department (directing K12 Educational Technology for the state) in order to devote full time efforts to doing the work of advancing digital age learning and am glad to have found such a good home.
I'm serving on the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Board of Directors, and look forward to the next two years of working with this incredible group of people. Currently Kathy Schrock and I co-chair ISTE's Emerging Technologies Task Force, which is active both in RL (real life) and SL (Second Life, where I am Hodjazz Edman). I'm also launching The A-Train website, to help people develop and apply 21st Century Skills (which I've called Contemporary Literacy since the end of the 20th century ;->)
My next book is Visible Thinking: Strengthening and Assessing Digital Age Learning and will be published by ISTE this fall. The Visible Thinking Process uses Inspiration to create concept maps that provide evidence of student mastery of the newly refreshed ISTE NETS for students, using curriculum units designed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The first volume (Middle School) contains 82 activities in English, Math, Science and Geography (the ICT-Maps). Stay tuned!
From the early days, when the Internet left the research/defense labs and began to reach our classrooms, I realized that the true power of the Internet was not the technology involved, but the potential it had for enhancing the relationships that are the foundation for human networking, extending the options available for everyone who learns to communicate and collaborate in this new medium. A decade and a half or more later, this truth still holds, and I'm grateful for the collaborations made possible through my work with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the ICT Literacy Community. Please check out the archives of our a series of webcasts ICT Literacy for All, that involved David Thornburg, John Cradler and Kathy McClaskey.
In 1996, I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting David Thornburg, who interviewed me for his Perspectives on Education Program. Click here to hear...Must have gone OK, because soon after, I became an Associate of the Thornburg Center for Professional Development...what an extraordinary group of people he's gathered! Please take a look at the presentations and workshops I've prepared.
But it is jazz, rather than
computers, which fires my creativity...
Why Jazz? Why Music?
In jazz, we deal with personal truth, as experienced in the moment, forged in the crucible of a context in which others are simultaneously striving to prove their truth. This means that simply restating "what is known" is inadequate; it can take many tries, reformulating in a theme and variation manner, to get the point across. When the point is made, the light of discovery goes on for me and the learner. It could be that the reason that I'm a jazz musician is because the art form reflects this need in my own particular spirit, more so than that my approach to teaching comes out of being a jazz musician.
Hear the music Here: http://72.236.163.62:11300
Pinacle moments and views
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| Dizzy taught me that anything is possible, and not to be slowed down by what others can't yet hear...Read about Dizzy | Frank shows us that lifelong learning is the best way to live, continutally reaching where inspiration leads... |
Hope you've enjoyed your visit! |
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| Here's a parting
thought..."The present is, in every age, merely the shifting
point at which past and future meet. There can be no world without
traditions; neither can there be any life without movement. There
is never a moment when the new dawn is not breaking over the earth,
and never a moment when the sunset ceases to die. It is well to greet
serenely even the first glimmer of the dawn when we see it - not hastening
toward it with undue speed, nor leaving the sunset without gratitude
for the dying light that was once dawn.
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