December 7-11:

• Leading the Change.  Presentations in this strand will showcase successful strategies as well as amplify critical issues which must be addressed for innovative learning methods to be adopted by teachers, librarians, and administrators on a more widespread basis.
• Getting Started.  The presentations in this strand will focus on specific, free tools for newcomers.

December 14-18:

• Kicking it Up a Notch.  This strand amplifies ways new technologies can be used to transform classroom and personal learning.  Fresh new approaches to using Web 2.0 tools for learning and authentic assessment will be highlighted.
• A Week in the Classroom.  This strand will explore how teachers and students are tangibly bridging divides between instructors, learners, classrooms, content, and experts outside the traditional classroom. Presentations will also explore the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools (Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using these tools.

All sessions are recorded and archived, so if you cannot attend at the scheduled time, you can still participate.  You can access the archived presentations from the conference web page at http://k12onlineconference.org or from iTunes.  Additionally, follow-up conversations will begin twice monthly in January 2010 on the EdTechTalk channel at http://www.edtechtalk.com.

I have “attended” this conference over the last few years.  The opportunity to learn and network with others is something I look forward to every year.  Enjoy!

Wouldn’t it be great to invite authors into your classroom or library to video chat with students before, during, and/or after reading their books?  Author Mona Kirby and School Media Specialist Sarah Chauncey developed a website to help schools and authors connect, the Skype and Author Network.  See list of authors here.  

Arrangements for Skype visits are made via email and/or phone between the author and the teacher or media specialists.  Authors offer two types of visits:  free “meet the author” visits lasting 10-15 minutes, or longer in-depth visits with the time and fee determined by each author.   Enjoy!

Image from Superkimbo in BKK, Flickr Creative Commons license

Here is a printable flyer.  Note that times are for the Eastern Standard Time Zone.  Other flyers are available here.

Teachers:  Are you on the hunt for YouTube-like videos that you can use for instructional purposes in your classroom?  Do you want to have your students create projects and view videos that will help them learn academic content?   As you know, there are many educational videos on YouTube (and other sites), but these sites also have inappropriate videos… those you do NOT want your students to access.  WatchKnow may be the answer for you.  It is a new wiki portal that categorizes short videos by topic.  There is also an age filter; search for only those that are appropriate for the age in years of your students!

This is a community where users make it better by contributing, so be sure to register for an account and add videos as you find those that are useful for your classroom.  Sources could be YouTube, TeacherTube, GoogleVideo, National Geographic, HowCast, SlideBoom, SchoolTube, Graspr, 5 Minute LifeVideopedia, InternetArchive, and eHow.  

The advisory panel includes experienced teachers and experts in educational media and library science.   This group reviews media and moderates the online community. 

Enjoy!

• Students as collaborators, creators, and directors
• Podcasting
• Making your PowerPoint presentations more interesting
• Using Discovery Education’s teacher tools (assignment builder, quiz builder, etc)
• Gloggle
• Sharing your multimedia projects with the world

Access all of these presentations on the DEN Blog Virtual Conference  page.  Enjoy!

He recommends that students should have a solid Internet presence before leaving high school:

• Upload at least one youtube video of themselves dressed nicely while communicating career goals.
• Blog.  Recommended platform is Wordpress.
• Use  linkedin. Ask teachers for recommendations.
• Post articles and best papers on Ezinearticles.
• Build a website.  Joomla is a platform that could be used.

I’ve always recommended that teachers not “friend” students.  Mr. Perlmam gave me a few ideas and I may change my mind.  There is a way to keep your main Facebook page private from students and still connect with them on Facebook.  You can create a Facebook group.  This will allow conversations, announcements, and collaboration to occur right in Facebook, where students already are.

Mr. Perlman’s keynote gave the teachers who attended a brief overview of the power of social networking and a taste from many different tools.  My online course, 21st Century Learning, will help guide teachers as they venture on their journey.

The setting: a beautiful auditorium at the Business School.  I arrived a few minutes late, just as the keynote was starting.  I ended up in the back row of the balcony.  I noticed that there were many college students in attendance and there were several hands on laptop keyboards all around the auditorium; I felt right at home.  As Ms boyd was speaking about her research about social networking, the two young adults sitting in front of me were checking email, and posting to Twitter and a Skype chat.  They were back-channeling; deeply engaged in sideline conversations that the presenter made them think about.  Others might have thought they were off-task, but I don’t believe so, because I often do the same thing.

Ms boyd found that kids prefer to spend time with their friends face-to-face, but that the high amount of structured activities (clubs, sports teams, etc), and parental rules often keep them home.  So they tend to hang out on MySpace and Facebook out of convenience.   They don’t  use social networking sites because of the technology; they use it because all their friends are there. 

Teens participation in online social networking sites is viewed upon by most adults as frivolous, unsafe, and a waste of time.  However, teens are learning how to live and interact in ways that are very important in today’s world.  Just like most other human behaviors, there are ”good” and “bad” examples of how social media is used.  I’ve seen awesome teen-generated digital media, created with a purpose and communicated with originality.  Some examples that come to mind for me include the teens who made the YouTube video of the water slide they constructed from the second story window (requiring advanced physics knowledge, the reaction of the 3rd grader to President Obama’s speech, and the blog of a high school student trying to make positive changes in his school.

However, what is in the news more often is the negative; fear is used to spin a story… Teens sending pornography via their cell phones, writing inappropriate comments on Facebook, or meeting a stranger who turns out to be a predator.  Ms. Boyd is very concerned that the culture of fear of the “bad” is causing a lot of damage.  She believes that adults need to help guide teens into making good choices while using social networking tools, a significant part of their lives.  I agree with her. 

Read danah boy’d reserch here.  Warning: over 400 pages