Friday, September 15, 2006

Update on "Unleashing the Potential" -- First Annual K12 Online Conference

Here'a an update on the Online Conference...

There is now a website (http://k12onlineconference.org/) with conference FAQs, profiles of the conference presenters and a link to submit a proposal to present. Proposals are due 9/30/06!

Some great keynoters are lined up... David Warlick, Bud Hunt, Alan Levine, Ewan McIntosh and Anne Davis!

Some "Fireside Chats" will also be available via Elluminate
* Oct 16th at 6 pm Eastern - David Warlick and 4 Conveners
* Oct 26th at 7 pm Eastern: Bud and Allan, Conveners and any Week 1 Presenters
* Oct 28th For Ewan and Ann, and any Week 2 presenters: 11 am Eastern
* Closing Event: The 24 hour continuous K-12 Online Skypecast! (sign-ups will be on an upcoming wiki)

Thanks to organizers Darren Kuropatwa, Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach, Will Richardson and Wesley Fryer!

If you have any questions about any part of this, please feel free to email one of them:
* Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com
* Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net
* Will Richardson: weblogged {at} gmail {dot} com
* Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

Please duplicate this post and distribute it far and wide across the blogosphere. Feel free to republish it on your own blog.

Conference Tags: ,

Monday, September 04, 2006

"Unleashing the Potential" at the first annual K12 Online convention!

Announcing the first annual "K12 Online 2006" convention for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year's conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3 with the theme "Unleashing the Potential." There will be four "conference strands"-- two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday - Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two-weeks. Each presentation will be given in podcast or screencast format and released via the conference blog (URL: TBA).

THE FOUR STRANDS ARE:

Week 1
Strand A: A Week In The Classroom

These presentations will focus on the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools (Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools in their classes. They will also show how teachers plan for using these tools in the delivery of their curricular objectives.

Strand B: Basic/Advanced Training (one of each per day)
Basic training is "how to" information on tool use in an educational setting, especially for newcomers.
Advanced training is for teachers who have already started using Web 2.0 tools in their classes and are looking for: (a) advanced technology training (eg. how to write your own blog template or hack existing ones), (b) new tools they can make use of in their classes, (c) teaching ideas on how to mash tools together to create "something new," (d) a pedagogical understanding of how technologies such as Weblogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking sites, RSS feeds and others can deepen learning and increase student achievement, or (e) use of assessment tools to measure the effectiveness of Read/Write Web technologies in their personal practice and with their students.

Week 2
Strand A: Personal Professional Development

Tips, ideas and resources on how to orchestrate your own professional development online; the tools that support Professional Learning Environments (PLEs); how to create opportunities to bring these technologies to the larger school community; how to effectively incorporate the tools into your personal or professional practice; or how to create a supportive, reflective virtual professional community around school-based goals.

Strand B: Overcoming Obstacles
Tips, ideas and resources on how to deal with issues like: lack of access to tools/computers, filtering, parental/district concerns for online safety, and other IT concerns while trying to focus on best practice in the use of Web 2.0 tools.

Stay tuned for further details.