BLC11 is over.  It was a great experience to hear such exciting keynotes and reflection on good teaching with outstanding teachers from all over the world.  Mike and I truly enjoyed our time in Boston and hope you get to attend BLC12 next year in Boston. 

One of my best experiences was meeting Amy Burvall.  She came to our presentation about the online book.  After our presentation, I got a twitter message from Amy Burvall...She is the lyricist, singer and dancer of the HistoryTeachers Channel on Youtube.  Below is my favorite music video she has done.  It was played over and over again during class...in fact, a few teachers would come in and dance.  Her songs will get you and your class dancing.

Mike and I spoke a great deal with her about how her work has inspired our students to create their own music history videos.  I plan to send her a few examples later.  It was a great pleasure to meet this special teacher who is influencing millions of students around the world.  She should get an award.

Check out her work at the links below--Also check out her TED Talk later in the fall.  She is airing a new music video live on TED.

Here are her links:
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/historyteachers
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/historyteacherz
Tweet @historyteacherz
email historyteachersbh@gmail.com

My first blog on her work was April 6, 2011: History class with rhythm.
Below Amy's Video are a few pictures from Boston and BLC11

Let TFT and HistoryTeacherz know your thoughts on this outstanding work.

Below you will find some useful links and the presentation slides for this mornings Live presentation.



Back Channel: http://todaysmeet.com/BLC11Studentlegacy

Twitter: #blc11

It's Thursday night and Garth and I had a pretty good presentation this morning.  Right now we are listening to Dr. Wolfram talk about the work of his company, Wolfram.  Dr. Wolfram has been showing the audience one of three projects he and his team completed, Mathmatica.  What an amazing program.  The flexibility and range of applications of this program is staggering.  So what is Mathmatica?  Well, here is my simplified answer...It solves and shows you math problems.  That being said, using the software people can design moving shapes, test how shapes and computer code will act, create very complex movements (possibly of machines), etc. 

Dr. Wolfram was quick to point out that he is not a teacher and did not design any of his software for educational use.  BUT he does support using his programs to teach kids math and science.  It is very refreshing to hear a keynote speaker at an educational conference own the fact he does not teach/work in a school.  It becomes very frustrating when people spend an hour talking about the change that needs to happen in education and they do not even work directly with kids.  Dr. Wolfram recognizes and addressed the fact that he builds software and supports the people that have ideas about how to use it in the classroom.  Mathmatica and Wolframalpha.com will inevitably change how math is taught in schools.  The hope is that teachers began to use a more creative, problem-based approach to teaching math.  Otherwise students will solve all of their homework questions via sites like Wolframalpha, but they will not have any idea how to use these problems based in reality.

New Applications for wolframalpha: http://products.wolframalpha.com/iphone/
Other Applications: http://products.wolframalpha.com/mobile/
Genealogy and History: http://products.wolframalpha.com/personalapps/genealogyhistory.html
E-books: http://www.touchpress.com/

Here is the presentation and back channel link for today's session hosted by Garth and I at BLC11 (10am)

Back Channel: http://todaysmeet.com/BLC11Studentlegacy   

BLC11 Collaborative GoogleDoc

BLC (Building Learning Communities) '11 started with Dr. Eric Mazur's talk: "The Tyranny of The Lecture".   You can see his talk now live at: http://is.gd/mjObSb  Several sessions will be streamed live each day.  Join if you can.  Mike and I will have both our live sessions streamed.  We hope you can join and join the back channel from anywhere in the world  http://todaysmeet.com/BLC11StudentLegacy

Dr. Mazur spoke about getting away from what he calls "the tyranny of the lecture".  Very interesting discussion from a college professor who has revolutionized the way in which he approaches teaching at the university level.  "Go from being the sage on stage to the guy on the side".

Dr. Mazur: "We all want our students to stand on our shoulders [and] solve the problems that have not been solved before".  This keynote really addresses what Garth and I have talked about in the past; connecting learning with the "real-world".  Dr. Mazur wants students' lives to reflect the learning process and take the experiences of life with them everywhere to become successful people.  Dr. Mazur also spoke about notes and reading happening outside of the classroom...basically flip-teaching started 20 years ago.  Check out our blog posts about using Computer-Side chats with students.