Sharon Peters
Montreal, QC, Canada
Blog: http://www.mtl-peters.net/blog
Presentation Title
“Listening to the voices: student empowerment through collaborative learning projects beyond the school walls”
Bio
Sharon Peters is a secondary English teacher and an educational technology consultant. She recently completed an M.A. in educational technology while working full-time at Lower Canada College in Montreal. Her thesis work was an action research study about online collaborative learning in a blended environment for high school students. Sharon has been an active user of moodle and blogs in the classroom. She also blogs regularly about social computing and educational technology: http://www.mtl-peters.net/blog/ Her three digital native teenagers keep her motivated to explore the use of web 2.0 tools in education and to provide a vision to others about their effectiveness.
Description
Online collaborative learning projects provide students with an authentic audience and a sense of student empowerment by giving them a voice and an opportunity to engage in dialogue and feedback. The Internet has become the read/write/speak/listen web which has the power to connect students in safe, dynamic environments. This presentation will offer a rationale for collaborative online learning projects, the tools available to support the projects, ideas for types of projects, project management and real-life examples of collaborative exchanges. The presenter, from Montreal, Canada, has been participating in online projects for several years with such countries as Israel, New Zealand, Russia, the U.S. and Kuwait. Ideas on how to integrate projects into the curriculum in order to meet standards and guidelines will be offered. Exemplars of evaluation criteria will be presented. The presenter has experience with such online learning environments as Nicenet, moodle and elgg which will also be featured and explained. As much as possible, dynamic content such as screencasts, podcasts and videos will be used and organized on a wiki to make the presentation a richer multimedia experience and to permit comment feedback.
Presentation
https://k12onlinespeters.wikispaces.com/
http://k12online.wm.edu/voicesk12.wmv
http://k12online.wm.edu/excerptfriedmanint.mp3
I enjoyed the discussion you had with your students. When he talked about Web 1.0 compared to Web 2.0 it made me realize I’m a Paper (Web 0.) person comfortable teaching in a Web 1.0, but looking for the “how to” guide for Web 2.0 just like your student. This conference is giving me the definitions and tools I think I will need and be able to use to move into the Web 2.0 world. Most of this gelled as I listened to his conversation. Thanks.
I love this presentation. It is truly inspirational. I am going to show it to my administration as we consider going to a laptop campus. It is great to see the environment in your classroom!
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Sharon,
I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and appreciated the inclusion of student voice in this conference. Kudos to Sonny for his insight and participation. He is the first “digital native” that I’ve heard discuss Friedman’s book and his take on it, and searching for the “next step” was refreshing.
Bob Sprankle
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I listened to Sonny first and was really impressed with his discussion about The World is Flat. Sonny says, the Internet just goes on and never ends. I like his statement that the Internet Takes interconnectedness and connects all his classes, then makes the application to the real world.
I like how he uses terms like YouTube, CNN, and wikipedia like they are terms everyone will know, similar to the NY Times. If you are not familiar with those terms you must google them and become familiar with them. Being part of a flat world doesn’t mean it is smooth transition, but rather the road is bumpy with many opportunities for new learning.
Cheryl Oakes
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Thank you for meeting the varied needs of learners. Your presentations shared an innovative ways for students to share their experiences in using technology for learning and understanding a concept.