We are pleased to announce that Google has selected Aaron Slutsky as an attendee at the next Google Teacher Academy, to be held in Seattle, Washington on July 28, 2011.  Aaron is currently the Director of Technology for McDowell County Schools and serves on the NCTIES board of directors.

Aaron was also invited to be part of the inaugural class at the first YouTube Teacher's Studio.  Applications for the YouTube Teacher's Studio were only open to the 50 attending Google Teacher Academy and just 15 were invited to attend.  This workshop will occur the day before the Google Teacher.  Google believes that this program has the potential to spark a transformation in the way teachers connect with students, both in the classroom and outside.

I am very excited to attend both the Google Teacher Academy and the YouTube Teacher's Studio.  I hope to share what I learn at the 2012 NCTIES Conference. ~Aaron Slutsky

The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development experience designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative technologies. Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's products and technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, and receive resources to share with colleagues. Upon completion, Academy participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local regions and beyond.

Google Certified Teachers are exceptional K-12 educators with a passion for using innovative tools to improve teaching and learning, as well as creative leaders and ambassadors for change. They are recognized experts and widely admired for their commitment to high expectations for students, life-long learning and collaboration.

The Google Certified Teacher program was launched in 2006 with the first Academy held at Google headquarters in Mountain View. The program has since held several academies around the globe, expanding the ranks of Google Certified Teachers. The Google Teacher Academy is produced by Google, in collaboration with CUE and WestEd, both educational non-profit organizations.

You can follow Aaron on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/aslutsky or circle him on Google + http://gplus.to/aslutsky

You can follow NCTIES on twitter at http://twitter.com/ncties

On behalf of our NCTIES board members, we have been working to review and make changes to our current bylaws. At our summer retreat, we passed a motion to send our proposed amended bylaws and constitution to our membership for a vote.

Current bylaws are in black
Deletions are represented with a strike through
Proposed changes are in red
(Click here to see our proposed amended bylaws and constitution)

Reason for amending the NCTIES Constitution and By-laws is...
to ensure representation for all areas of our state.

The NCTIES board currently has one regional director from each of the NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) Instructional Technology regions defined in 2006 plus two at-large directors. In 2011, the NCDPI Instructional Technology division redefined state regions. Over the years, NCTIES has aligned our regions to match changes made by NCDPI in the instructional regions. The proposed change to our by-laws will more closely align the NCTIES board to the NC State Board of Education (NCSBE) education districts. Future changes to the NCTIES board will be made as there are changes made to the NCSBE education districts.

Reason for amending the "Standing and Other Committees" in the NCTIES By-Laws is...
to the align NCTIES awards with ISTE awards listed below:
SIGMS - Media Specialist Technology Innovation Award
ISTE Outstanding Teacher
ISTE Outstanding Leader
Making IT Happen


As required by our bylaws, all proposed bylaws and constitution amendments are scheduled for a 30 day posting period (July 16 - August 16) , after which they will be put to a vote (August 16 - 19) by our membership via a separate e-mail that will be sent August 16.

Sincerely,

2011-12
NCTIES Board Members

If your like me, NCTIES is one of the highlights of my year. Seeing old friends, learning new tools and sharing ideas is so much fun, but it goes by so quickly and I always feel that I missed out on some great sessions!

This year we wanted to continue our NCTIES conference experience with a sharing session webinar. The webinar will take place on Wednesday, March 16 @ 7:30pm. During this webinar we invite you to share the favorite things that YOU learned at the 2011 NCTIES Conference.

If you missed the conference we would love to have you join us to learn from other teachers who attended!

To access the Elluminate session, simply GO directly to this url:
http://bit.ly/fJHCxQ

First time Elluminate user? Follow these friendly directions to set up:
http://www.elluminate.com/Support/?id=62/

We look forward to seeing you Wednesday night!

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know I have recently and frequently quoted social science author Steven Johnson. It’s no secret I’ve been reading his latest book, Where Good Ideas Come From; The Natural History of Innovation. As I read through Johnson’s book I’ve been intrigued in his attempt to identify the circumstances and physical environments that foster great ideas. After all, I am in education where we ALWAYS look for better ideas, better methods, better ways to engage – good ideas.
As I read and found a phrase or section that particularly struck me, I “tweeted” it out of force of habit because I found value in the anecdotes and research. I thought others would too.
We work in cultures of PLCs (professional learning communities) and attend LTMs (learning team meetings), often by district and administrative requirement, and get evaluated by a walk through the classroom. The question then becomes what we do with that kind of professional culture. How do we mold it? What do we contribute?
Do we dread the scheduled merger; simply go out of requirement, or do we do create something constructive that helps us achieve better ideas to teach students not just to prepare for a test, but for life.
As somebody who attends six or more LTMs a week I read Johnson’s book wanting to learn how to foster an environment that truly leads to innovation and celebrates and values the vast talents of my colleagues.
I looked back over my archived tweets inspired by Johnson’s book, and it became crystal clear why I am excited about the NCTIES 2011 conference, and why you should be too. Here are a few of the most profound things I found in Johnson’s book and how they explain my excitement, which I hope becomes contagious.
Johnson explores seven patterns to innovations and I won’t go into them, but the first he entitled “The Adjacent Possible.” When dedicated professionals come together and share it creates the adjacent possible because we all come with different perspectives, different strengths, and being willing to share that opens doors to new ideas. I tweeted:

"It’s not so much a question of thinking outside the box as it is thinking through multiple boxes."

NCTIES offers those who choose to take a hard look at what others are doing and have genuine discussions to get the most out of the experience the conference offers. This also struck me while thinking about environments that encourage innovation and good ideas. While they become commingled (which is a good according to the book) as we go from session to session they do provide opportunity to connect to new ideas later (something Johnson calls the “slow hunch”).

"It's not that the network itself is smart; it's that the individuals get smarter because they are connected to the network"

These are words by which I live. If I really think anything I’ve been able to accomplish has been because of the people with whom I have chosen to share, network, and collaborate. Without my network of friends and colleagues I dare say I would have accomplished close to nothing. I owe many thanks to many people, some I have met personally, and others only through my personal learning network.

“The most creative individuals had broad social networks that extended outside their organization and included people from diverse fields of expertise.” And
"Encouragement does not necessarily lead to creativity. Collisions do - collisions that happen when different fields of expertise converge in shared intellectual space."

I encourage NCTIES to continue to strive not only to bring in technology educators and keynote speakers from our own profession, but also from other vocations so we get a clear view of what we need to do, where we need to go, and what we need to do to be innovative educators. Without those opportunities we cannot create the collisions in that shared intellectual space.
The final tidbit that Johnson left me was:

"Being right keeps you in place. Being wrong forces you to explore."

We talk a lot about giving students opportunities to fail, learn from failure, and that school should be the “safe” place for them to experience failure. We must offer ourselves those same opportunities. If being right keeps us in place and being wrong forces us to explore, then we should continue to explore. What better place to explore than at the NCTIES annual conference?
All of what the NCTIES conference offers gives every open mind a chance to think through multiple boxes, connect to a broad and diverse network of individuals and have those productive “collisions” in an intellectual space. Johnson says are all components of an environment that fosters innovation and “good” ideas.
The litmus test will be whether we leave the NCTIES conference energized (as I always do) and take that back to our schools, our LTMs (required or not) a genuine encouragement to our colleagues to share ideas, play to their strengths, and attempt to create an environment of innovation. I strive for that daily. See you in Raleigh!

As part of our on-going effort to provide more professional development opportunities for our members we would like to invite you to our first, hour-long, live, professional development seminar on Wednesday, December 1 at 7pm EST in Elluminate. Our guest will be educator and blogger, Shelly Terrell. Shelly is a widely known expert in teaching English  as a first and second language but she is also an expert in teaching teachers how they can use technology to reach out beyond the walls of their classroom. In her session entitled Creating Global Collaborative Partnerships, Shelly will talk to us about the many projects she has brought to her students in Germany and around the world and give us ideas on how we can do the same in our classrooms. We will also have time for you to ask questions.

Joining Elluminate is easy. 15-20 minutes before just click this link and you will be joined. NCTIES would like to thank Edublogs for allowing us to use this room.

We hope to do more of these types of sessions in the future. Visit the NCTIES Sigs and suggest what you would like to see next!

See you on Wednesday!

All Aboard NCTIES Members,

We are so happy and pleased to announce the NCTIES Conference, Charting Our Future; Honoring Our Past, March 2-4, 2011 in the Raleigh Convention Center. We will be celebrating our 40th Anniversary!



Our keynote speaker this year is Rushton Hurley. He has been a Japanese language teacher, principal of an online high school, a teacher trainer, an educational technology researcher, and a school reform consultant who has worked and studied on three continents. He was one of the inaugural cohort of Google Certified Teachers and is now director of an educational nonprofit called Next Vista for Learning, which he hopes may someday save the world from ignorance.

Graduating from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, Rushton majored in history with a minor in religion. His two master's degrees are in Education and East Asian Studies from Stanford University, where his research included using speech recognition technology with beginning students of Japanese in computer-based role-playing scenarios for developing language skills. In the late 1990's his work with teenagers at a high school in San José led him to begin using internet and video technologies to make learning more active, helping him reach students who had struggled under more traditional approaches.

Rushton trains teachers at schools, workshops, and conferences around the United States, including in 2010-2011 keynote spots at Fall CUE in California, TETN in Tennessee, METC in Missouri, ICE in Illinois, and MACUL in Michigan. He was also a featured speaker at ISTE in Denver in June, 2010. His fun and thoughtful talks center on the connection between engaging learning and useful, affordable technology, as well as professional perspectives of teachers. In addition to his regular work, he devotes time to the community as a Rotarian and in international exchange efforts. In early 2005, he was awarded the Baha'i Unity of Humanity Award in San Antonio, Texas, for his work developing online and international programs for at-risk students. He also juggles, though he has never received an award for it.

Rushton is joined this year by a distinguished group of presenters: Leslie Fisher, Kathy Schrock, Kevin Honeycutt, Tammy Worcester, David Warlick, Patrick Crispen, Lucas Gillespie, Steven Anderson, Aaron Slutsky, Bobby Hobgood and Melissa Thibault

For information about call to present, visit our website at http://center.uoregon.edu/conferences/NCTIES/2011/call_to_present.php

Our registration and pre-conference information will be posted shortly and we will send you an e-mail as soon as we have it ready


Registration Costs
Super Early $100 (Oct. 1 - Nov. 19)
Early $120 (Nov. 20 - Jan. 7)
Regular $140 ( Jan. 8 - Feb. 14)
Onsite: $160 (after Feb 14th)

Feel free to contact us with any questions regarding our upcoming conference! All aboard! We’re expecting you!

Sonya Terry
2011 Conference Chair and Vice President, NCTIES
Sonya.terry@ncties.org

Barbara Moose
President, NCTIES
Barbara.moose@ncties.org
ncties@gmail.com

Each year NCTIES recognizes outstanding individuals who have shown outstanding achievement and leadership in implementing technology to improve education. This year we have revamped our awards to align with ISTE awards. Winners of each award would be eligible, per NCTIES Board approval, to submit applications for the ISTE awards.

2011 Media Specialist Technology Innovation Award
2011 Outstanding Teacher Award
2011 Outstanding Leader Award