Paul Allison

Teachers Teaching Teachers #255 Exploring Minecraft w/ Jo Kay, Dean Groom, Bronwyn Stuckey, Joel Levin, and Chad Sansing 7.13.11

minecraft

If you dig Minecraft (or wonder why other teachers--and their students--do) you'll enjoy this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, recorded earlier this summer. We were joined by a few teachers who have recently launched Massively Minecraft:

The purpose of this community project is to trial the use of the game Minecraft (http://www.minecraft.net) in schools as part of voluntary student activity. The community will engage in exploration and research, not to decide or direct any particular application of the game but, to understand where students might take it and how they and their teachers visualise possibilities for it use within the curriculum. This ethnographic approach relies on you, as the professional in the school, to observe and reflect on student imagination, initiative, interaction, engagement and learning.

The facilitators of this site, Jo Kay, Dean Groom, and Dr Bronwyn Stuckey share their thoughts, questions, and stories about Minecraft on this podcast.

The Minecraft Teacher, Joel Levin and Chad Sansing (who had been with us for an earlier show about Minecraft) joined the conversation as well.

Check out Joel’s videos on YouTube. Also, Ed Tech Crew did a great interview with Joel and Dean as well.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #260 - Connecting the Creative Cracks Created by the NWP Makes Project - 8.17.11

NWP Makes!

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we are joined by teachers involved with the NWP Makes Project:

  • Christina Cantrill who works at the National Writing Project as a Senior Program Associate for the NWP Technology Initiative and Digital Is project.
  • Judy Jester, Co-Director of the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project at West Chester University and an English teacher in the Kennett Consolidated School District
  • Fred Mindlin, a member of UCSC's Central California Writing Project and a teacher in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.
  • Sam Reed, a teacher representative and city representative for Teachers’ Institute of Philadelphia (TIP), and Yale National Initiative (YNIT), respectively. He also serves on the advisory council for the Philadelphia Arts and Education Partnership; the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Literary Committee and I has served on the steering committee of the Philadelphia Writing Project

NWP Makes emerges from a partnership between the National Writing Project and Make Magazine and is part of the NWP's Digital Is program.

Many of us could probably find our approaches to learning in this definition from one of the more famous DIY projects, :

The DIY ethic (do it yourself ethic) refers to the ethic of being self-reliant by completing tasks oneself as opposed to having others who are more experienced or able complete them for you. It promotes the idea that an ordinary person can learn to do more than he or she thought was possible. Naturally, a DIY attitude requires that the adherent attain the knowledge required to complete a given task. Without this, DIY is not an effective dogma. The term can refer to "doing" anything at all, including home improvements and repairs, first aid, and creative endeavors. Central to the ethic is the empowerment of individuals and communities, encouraging the employment of alternative approaches when faced with bureaucratic or societal obstacles to achieving their objectives. Rather than belittling or showing disdain for knowledge or expertise, DIY champions the average individual seeking knowledge and expertise for him/herself. Instead of using the services of others who have expertise, a DIY oriented person would seek out the knowledge for him/herself.

Sounds like Teachers Teaching Teachers to us! Enjoy this podcast, and if you find yourself wanting to join these teachers on Youth Voices, please let us know. We would welcome you and your students.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #259 Getting Ready with Youth Voices 8.10.11

Youth Voices Hangout

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we are joined by Kevin Hodgson, Charles Freij, Margaret Simon, Judy Jester, Ronnie Burt, Gail Desler, Chris Sloan, Adam Cohen, Dan Polleys. We talk about our plans for the fall and how using Youth Voices might fit with our work with our students.

(Sorry about the over-modulation on some of these voices. We'll improve sound quality in the future.)
Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #257 Youth Voices with Alice Barr, Matt Montagne, Sandy Scragg, Sheri Edwards, Valerie Burton 7.27.11

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we get together and talk about Youth Voices with Alice Barr, Matt Montagne, Sandy Scragg, Sheri Edwards, Shantanu Saha, Valerie Burton, Chris Sloan, and Paul Allison. 

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #254 - What happens when a brewer becomes a teacher? Meet Tommy Buteau (plus Chad Sansing) 07.06.11

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, meet Tommy Buteau and learn more about Chad Sansing and the Cooperative Catalyst. Tommy recently wrote Paul Allison.
Paul,

I read about the Youth Voices project at the Digital Is site, and I think it sounds very interesting, like something I would use with my 9th and 11th grade English classes here in Windsor, CO. So, I visited the site and signed up, but it seems like I do not have access to everything. I can only see three of the guides that you use, and the directions for most of the activities seem limited. I enjoyed the free-writing article by Peter Elbow, and I also like the 10 questions activity. I am wondering if there is a description of how teachers use this site somewhere. 
Thanks, 
Tommy Buteau 
That’s not all, a couple of days later Tommy wrote:
Have you ever used your site for cross-campus peer reviews before? I found that when students from another school did a peer review, the results were great. We used google docs for it. You can see what I did with a creative writing class at https://sites.google.com/site/101wright1/creative-writing-2010-2. Then, we did a similar process with speech podcasts athttp://schoolweb.psdschools.org/frhs/LangArts/SP/Buteau/index.html. I think the key is that it was completely anonymous.
Thanks, 

We couldn't wait to welcome Tommy into our community and to learn more about his work. We were also delighted to welcome Chad Sansing back to TTT. You can see the results of the challenge we threw to him on TTT #256 - Cooperative Catalyst.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

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