November

=Alan November and the November Learning Group= November Learning toc

Introduction
Alan November is interesting. His credentials seem to be experiential rather than educational. And he and his group are nothing if not commercial; many books are advertised on the November Group site as well as seminars and an annual conference, Building Learning Communities Conference. I am somewhat ambivalent about them.There is a lot of useful information, but their web administrator lacks continuity awareness. An example is under Online Courses, there are two courses listed; however, when you go to "Buy Now", there is a statement that "the three courses are packaged together." What is the third course? I become distrustful of sites with such basic mistakes; where else are there mistakes?

The Team
There are four members of the main November Group team: The Consulting Team consists of seven members: While the team members come from a variety of backgrounds, they all share some form of educational experience. However, there were no doctorates in the group. This doesn't bother me because I don't trust their knowledge. It bothers me because the people who are writing this type of book, producing these podcasts, and consulting, should be our academics. Our academics should be creating the new knowledge.
 * Alan November, Senior Partner & Founder
 * Brian Mull, Director of Innovation
 * Jim Wenzloff, Learning Mentor
 * Jennifer Beine, Director of BLC
 * Tom Daccord, Educational Technology Trainer, Speaker and Author
 * Seth Bowers, Director of Information & Instructional Technology
 * Julia Leong, Creative Communications Director
 * Howie DiBlasi, Educational Technology Trainer and Speaker
 * Lainie Rowell, Independent Consultant and Trainer
 * Angela Maiers, Independent Consultant
 * Carolyn Staudt, Curriculum Designer

Services
NLG offers quite a few services for education and industry, such as: > Many say that our number one resource is the Building Learning Communities conference we host each July in Boston, Massachusetts. BLC hosts leading-edge thinkers, international leaders in education and fellow colleagues from around the world. By engaging with insightful conference participants, you will quickly discover new opportunities that lead to immediate and long range impact on improving teaching and learning. (from the November Group web site @http://novemberlearning.com) > A day with Alan or a member of the November Learning team is a springboard to setting the tone for change within your school or district. We strive towards challenging and inspiring faculty to think beyond the classroom and work towards preparing students for today’s global economy. For our team, it’s not the technology itself that’s important; it’s the way we use it. Our ideas about global communication, collaboration, assessment, and critical thinking have inspired schools, governments and corporations around the world to rethink and redefine their approach to education and technology. (from the November Group web site @http://novemberlearning.com) > The IPP process brings global perspective to your school. Through a series of classroom observations and meetings with school leaders, teachers, students and parents, our team will provide you with a comprehensive review and practical set of recommendations. We will provide you with custom-designed best practice strategies for teaching and learning across the curriculum. This process defines clear steps of how to integrate and align technology across the curriculum. (from the November Group web site @http://novemberlearning.com) > Partner with November Learning to create a highly motivating and focused professional development conference. A partnership with the November Learning team is a cost-effective and comprehensive way to provide hands-on workshops that align with specific curricular goals. Focus areas can include leadership, discipline specific content, professional communities and special education. This service can also serve as a wonderful pre-conference addition to your own event. (from the November Group web site @http://novemberlearning.com) > Join your peers in other schools through a combined face-to-face and Web based learning opportunity. The November Learning team will create cohorts and facilitate discussion and activities around global communication, collaboration and critical thinking. Grow and learn with your team and teams from across the country and potentially around the world. (from the November Group web site @http://novemberlearning.com) All of these services sound very good. However, fees are not discussed on the site. I would like some sort of ballpark of cost and if they give education discounts
 * Building Learning Communities Conference
 * Workshops & Keynotes
 * Innovation Planning Partnership
 * NL Mini-Conferences
 * NL ProNet

Podcasts
The NLG has 47 podcasts archived on their site. The podcasts are effective, however the voices are not of well trained public speakers and therefore less then pleasant to listen to. One podcast I particularly enjoyed was with Alan November and Dr. Eric Williams, Superintendent of the Yorktown School Division in Yorktown, VA.. Some of the topics they covered in the podcast:
 * Leadership is essential
 * Investing in infrastructure rather than hardware; Cloud
 * Students creating content
 * Social media as teaching and learning tools
 * Video conferences to save money and time
 * Role modeling technology not merely telling people to use it
 * Participate in student work
 * Shifting control from complete teacher control to student and teacher creation of content
 * Content experts are still needed; someone has to vet what is posted to insure it is correct so a potential Wikipedia isn't created

Articles
These are well written by Alan November and engaging. Most of them are readable online, or you can download and print a .pdf; the .pdf is than also available on your local device. I am going to delve into these more; they make you think.

One of my favorites is [|//Banning Students Containers//]. It discusses how many schools ban what November calls "the five containers": blogs, the iPod, Instant Messenger, YouTube, and video games. There is no other reason for banning these containers than schools don't like the content students create without teacher or adult supervision.

I couldn't find a date on this article, but I get the impression it is from two or three years ago. I think the situation in schools has changed some, but not enough. Schools have to begin to accept tools that engage students. There is a need to have mediation by adults, I suppose, but does it have to stifle the students just to make parents believe the students are still young, innocent children.

Archives
The November Group has a great deal of archived material on their site. The material includes blogs, articles, and podcasts. They are listed by: This is a great resource for students and teachers alike. They cover a wide range of education and technology topics, and help those without the means to contract with the November Group individually.
 * Categories
 * [|Announcements] (21)
 * [|BLC] (43)
 * [|Discussion] (32)
 * [|News] (10)
 * [|Podcasts] (47)
 * [|Student Jobs] (8)
 * [|Tutorials] (5)
 * [|Uncategorized] (14)
 * [|Web Tools] (13)
 * Dates - from August 2006 to October 2011
 * Author

Partial Client List
The list is interesting. I have no way of knowing if it is representative of the complete list, but this selection from it is tipped to industry, such as Cisco, Disney Development, and Time Warner Cable. Is this because only for-profit groups can afford their services or because industry understands the usefulness of learning how to train their employees?

Personal Impressions
I'm not sure why, but I'm much less impressed with this group than I am with Nicholas Carr. I can't even say exactly why. If I had the opportunity to meet with one of these professionals, I would pick Nicholas Carr.

VLChadbourne