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Tom March offers In-Person Support

Tom's main contribution is taking a strong theoretical understanding and applying it cleanly to the practical needs of educators. This Theory / Practice combination is evident in his earliest writings, classroom activities and interactive software designs.

Overview of In-Person Presentations

* Parents, Community Stakeholders, Students & Educators

The Brave New WWW - "Whatever, Whenever and Wherever": As we all start to adjust to the role of the World Wide Web in our daily lives, a culture of personalized, WiFi-delivered, digital content hovers just over the broadband horizon. Games, music, movies, all streamed full-speed, entreat a new generation to tune in, turn on, and drop out. Like kids in a candy shop, our children are surrounded by whatever they want, whenever, wherever. Learn how we can help children navigate between the real & the virtual, the authentic & the amusing, and real life amidst a media dream.

What to Make of Web 2.0?: Blogs, wikis, podcasts and RSS? Whateverever happened to just "the Internet" and when did "Web 1" pass its use-by date? This session is designed as an engaging and friendly exploration of Web 2.0 technologies . Learn from one who began "working the Web for education" almost 15 years ago and can connect the dots.com in a way that highlights key concepts along with how they just might transfdorm your life.

WebQuests 2.0: How a Richer Web Improves a Good Idea: The WebQuest was launched in 1995 to scaffold advanced cognition by integrating the "ill-structured" nature of the World Wide Web with a process that guides novices through decisions and experiences that characterize experts' behaviors. Recently, the Web has morphed into Web 2.0 with its social networking sites, blogs, wikis and podcasts. Given this richness, revisiting WebQuests is in order. This paper reviews the critical attributes of true WebQuests and reviews recent research in thinking routines and intrinsic motivation to recommend new paths for WebQuests that could scaffold student use of Web 2.0 environments, enabling a shift toward authentic personal learning.

CEQ-ALL ("seek-all")- Taxonomy for the 21st Century: Society says it needs knowledge workers who can achieve, compete and innovate on a global playing field, but sparking and sustaining change in schools sometimes seems as likely as manufacturing a microchip in a blast furnace. We envision a bright high tech future, but can't see beyond the obscuring lens of our Industrial Age model.; Enter CEQ-ALL: Choice · Effort · Quality → Attitude = Lifelong Learner and is a framework to support students as they take responsibility for directing their own learning. Our experimental study measures the effect of CEQ-ALL against intrinsic motivation, achievement and advanced critical thinking. The CEQ-ALL approach directly challenges the assembly line status quo and does so with evidence-based pedagogy and common sense.

The following two workshops can be offered as single one-day sessions or combined into an effective two-day experience.

Learning to Look: What we do each day - or at least a few times a week - has the best chance to become a positive habit. Two habits worth developing for students of every age are the sensitivity and inclination to engage in critical and creative thinking. In addition, by supporting learner autonomy and competence within a caring and engaging culture, we set a foundation for intrinsic motivation. These two goals of Thinking and Motivation are supported through Learning 2 Look activities. In brief, Learning 2 Look activities project rich Web resources so that the entire class can explore them together. This allows for prompting critical thinking and modeling the subtle traits of sensitivity and inclination.

ClassPortals: Leveraging one computer classrooms & Web 2.0 to promote motivation and critical thinking.
Students yearn for learning that is Real, Rich and Relevant. The artificial kinds of classroom activities that only ever happen in schools undermine a joy for learning which is always connected to the Real world of consequence. The limitation of time, space and consciousness create a pre-digested, segmented experience where "richness" serves as a distraction or nuisance. Finally, in a culture focused on demographically pegging each individual's whims, a passive mass production approach guarantees irrelevance. A ClassPortal creates a purpose and shared mission that puts students and teachers together in a group endeavor that inherently promotes Real, Rich and Relevant learning.

2-3 Day Workshop: Upgrading to WebQuests 2.0: Those used to developing WebQuests will be excited to see how powerful Web 2 tools are in "unfolding" the WebQuest from a teacher-prepared activity to a learner-driven inquiry. See how blogs, social networks, podcasts and other interactive applications can further your goals to help students "transform information into understanding."

Third National Leading a Digital School Conference
Gold Coast International Hotel
Thursday 3, Friday 4 and Saturday 5 September 2009

NECC 09

NECC: Spotlight Session

WebQuests 2.0: A Richer Web Improves a Good Idea: WebQuests were pretty cool a decade ago, but see what happens when
you unfold today's WebQuest with video podcasts, social information
networking, and collaboration tools.; - Day: Tuesday, 6/30/2009; - Time: 3:30pm - 4:30pm