As we enter the last couple of weeks of the first annual Connected Educator Month connectededucators.org, on this episode of TTT teachersteachingteachers.org/feed/podcast we celebrate another connected educator, Kevin Hodgson dogtrax.edublogs.org and his work with 6th graders epencil.edublogs.org at the William E. Norris Elementary School wmnorris.com in Southampton, MA.

Kevin is also the technology liaison with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project umass.edu/wmwp and a co-editor of the book collection Teaching the New Writing: Technology, Change and Assessment in the 21st Century Classroom store.tcpress.com/ 0807749648.shtml that examines the role of technology in the writing classroom in the age of standardized testing and assessment. Kevin says that he "also dabbles in the world of classroom-based humor" through his Boolean Squared webcomic www.booleansquared.com. In addition to all of these links, go to Digital Is digitalis.nwp.org/users/dogtrax to find a lot examples of his students' work and to see how and why Kevin does what he does in his classroom.

If, like Kevin you're interested to explore visually as well as in text, click away on Kevin's "Clickable Connected Me."

Learn more about Kevin in this webcast, recorded on June 27, 2012.

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, +Fred Mindlin/@fmindlin starts with string art, and pulls us into his world of anthropology, story-telling, collaborative learning, and more!

Fred inspires and entertains all of us in this episode of TTT: +Lacy Manship/@now_awake, +Gail Desler/@GailDesler, +Kelsey Shelhart, +Denise Colby/@Niecsa, +Paul Allison/@paulallison, +Chad Sansing/@chadsansing, and +Diana Maliszewski/@mzmollytl.

To get the full effect, take a moment to find some string before you listen to this episode of TTT. How much? Fred says, "About two meters or a little over 6 feet is usually a good length. Hold the string between your two hands stretched out as wide as they go, then add about 6 inches."

Fred explains that he was "inspired by the session we had with teachers using Minecraft, where we explored an online game world via another virtual world, http://edtechtalk.com/node/5102 and I was intrigued by whether it would be feasible to explore a meatspace game in our virtual Teachers Teaching Teachers forum." He sees "string games as a gateway to keyboarding and creativity or finger calisthenics, and computer keyboarding: media magic for tradigital storytelling."

Playing games with string is a human cultural universal. This ancient art form is surprisingly helpful in developing both the manual dexterity and strength needed for computer keyboarding. The approach I use for teaching string games to groups also provides a helpful practice ground for some of life's essential skills: creativity, resilience, cooperation, and storytelling.

And that's not all. Here's an excerpt and a couple of photos from a post that Diana wrote shortly after this episode of TTT:

There were some great quotes that Chad, a fellow participant, shared via Twitter. (I can't recall them all - they were things like "it's important to model failure" and "string games are 'digital' fun".) What I realized was how potent teaching string games would be to analyze your own teaching practice. Listening to Fred teach the group how to make a 3-pronged spear made me hyper-aware of how important detailed, clear instructions are, and the different learning styles at play. The first time I tried it, I failed. The second time, when Fred re-explained and added a few "notice this part here" tips, I did it! I cheered pretty loudly when I succeeded. My webcam wasn't working on Google +, so I convinced my daughter to take a photo of my accomplishment.
 

I made a 3-pronged spear! Here's proof!

A less complimentary shot of me, with my string jedi master Fred on-screen

Fred mentioned that there are several books and YouTube videos that explain, step by step, how to make different shapes. I think I need a person near me to give feedback (though the string collapsing in unrecognizable shapes is pretty immediate feedback too). I gave myself a goal - to teach the kids in my SK and Grade 7 classes how to make the 3-pronged spear and do it to music at a June assembly. I'm repeating it here so it'll be my contract to myself to try it out and report what results.

Enjoy!

Our second of three episodes of Teachers Teaching Teachers in which we discuss Howard Rheingold's New Smart: How to Thrive Online . Howard is joining us on May 2. For this conversation Paul Allison and Monika Hardy are joined by Fred Mindlin, Sarah Rolle, Mura Nava, Valerie Burton, Vinnie Vrotny, Tinashe Blanchet, and Christian.