Announcing 2012 Conference Theme & Strands

The organizer team of the 2012 K-12 Online conference is pleased to announce our conference theme and strands for this year! Our 2012 theme is “Learn, Share, Remix.”

If you’re new to K12Online, please read our About page, Goals and Core Values, and FAQ page for more information. We are a grassroots, volunteer, online conference for educators worldwide and started in 2006. Over 250 video presentations from past years are archived online and shared under a Creative Commons license. We invite you to not only make plans to present and participate in our upcoming 2012 conference, but also continue to learn and share conference presentations from past years. These links are available in the navigational menu at the top of our website.

Our conference this year will again feature forty presentations in the following four strands, as well as a pre-conference keynote.

Getting Started: Everything you wanted to know about getting started with web 2.0 technologies for learning but were afraid to ask. The presentations in this strand will focus on specific, free tools for newcomers. Whether you have one classroom computer or a wireless device for every student, digital technologies can provide new opportunities to connect with other learners, create new and exciting knowledge products, and engage students in an expanded learning process beyond the traditional “boundaries of the bell.” Presentations in this strand will amplify and model what is possible in terms of pedagogy, student creation of content, and collaboration. Practical classroom implementation ideas will be emphasized. Presentations will focus more on the ways new tools can be used to engage students in learning, rather than focusing exclusively on how specific tools are used.

Kicking it up a Notch: This strand amplifies ways new technologies can be used to transform classroom and personal learning. Rather than merely replicating traditional, analog-based learning tasks, how can digital technologies permit teacher-leaders to add greater interactivity, personal differentiation, and multi-modal exploration of curriculum topics? Presentations will explore innovative ways Web 2.0 tools can be blended together to help students create, collaborate, and share the knowledge safely on the global stage of the Internet.

Student Voices: Our student voices strand seeks to amplify the voices of exemplary students who are using digital tools as leaders in their school communities as well as the larger world. As educators and leaders, we need to listen to student voices and perspectives more as we make decisions about our schools and classrooms which affect students. Student presenters in our student voices strand must be sponsored by an educator, and presentation permission forms will need to be signed by a parent for each participating student. Students can focus on specific projects in which they have been involved using technology as a tool, outstanding classroom lessons which have had a particularly positive impact on their learning as well as their classmates, and/or recommendations for educators seeking to use digital tools effectively in the classroom. A focus on project-based learning and service learning is welcome, but not required.

Visioning New Curriculum: As the age of paper-based textbooks adopted on multi-year cycles fades away, a new age beckons with a curriculum filled with multimedia resources and interactive simulations. This strand explores curriculum possibilities for accessing as well as sharing and remixing digital content. This will include OER (open educational resources) as well as commercial curriculum sources. What does the best “digital curriculum” today look like and what should it look like tomorrow? Should curriculum still be folded into “textbooks?” When should and how can teachers “flip” classroom learning? What’s your vision for innovative curriculum?

If you haven’t volunteered yet for a K12Online12 committee, please read our “Call for Volunteers” post and submit your information on the provided Google Form. Refer to our 2012 Conference Schedule for more information about conference dates and deadlines. We will post our 2012 call for proposals on May 15th! We’re looking forward to another great year of FREE professional development and collaborative learning with the K12 Online Conference as together we LEARN, SHARE and REMIX!

image credit: New Mooon [sic]