(Almost) all our content from 2006 to 2017 is archived and available online under a Creative Commons license. Please read this post from June 2018 for more background and updates about our conference and current status.

K12 Online Conference » October 31, 2006

Daily Archives: October 31, 2006

2006- Pers Prof Development

Personal Professional Development”Not Just for Kids: Using Social Software to Create Community among Teachers and Provide Sustained Professional Development”

Published by:

Jeff Moore
Englishtown, New Jersey, USA

Presentation Title
“Not Just for Kids: Using Social Software to Create Community among Teachers and Provide Sustained Professional Development”

Bio
Jeff Moore is the Manager for Technology for the Freehold Regional High School District, a district of six high schools serving nearly twelve thousand students in Monmouth County, New Jersey, USA. He has facilitated professional development in his district and at regional conferences on social software and the integration of technology into lesson planning. Jeff also hosted ‘One Big Head’, one of the earliest educational technology podcasts, from the driver’s seat of his Toyota Matrix as he commuted on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Description
We assume that social software will be important to students as they wade into their post-secondary careers and education. In our discussions on how best to train students on the ethics and responsibilities of using social software, we sometimes forget that object lessons are often the best lessons. Schools can get a lot of mileage toward achieving organizational goals from social software tools, as well as provide an object lesson for students on the ethical and repsonsible use of such software.

In this presentation, Jeff Moore discusses his district’s efforts to offer sustained and individualized professional development to its staff. Speaking from the driver’s seat of his car, he describes:

  1. the use of local experts–innovative teachers who became a corps of Technology Facilitators
  2. the use of open source, social software tools in the Drupal (http://www.drupal.org/) content management system to create community among these experts and provide a resource for staff
  3. a new role for the educational technologist, that of software developer, arising from the development of a homegrown application to provide interactive professional development calendar, enrollment and tracking tools

Presentation
Http://k12online.wm.edu/Not_Just_for_Kids.mp3

Supporting Links
Drupal CMS
http://www.drupal.org/

Drupal’s Vote Up/Down Package
http://drupal.org/project/vote_up_down

Digg
http://www.digg.com/

the Freehold Regional High School District
http://www.frhsd.com/

the FRHSD Technology Integration Clearinghouse
http://www.frhsd.com/tic/

a Video Demonstration of the PD Tracker
http://intranet.frhsd.com/videos/PDTracker%20-%20Using.swf

Feel free to contact Jeff Moore at jmoore@frhsd.com.

2006- Pers Prof Development

Personal Professional Development”It’s a Small World After All!”

Published by:

Judy O’Connell
Sydney, Australia
Blog: http://heyjude.wordpress.com/

Presentation Title
“It’s a Small World After All!”

Bio
As an educator and information professional Judy is fascinated by emerging technologies, the development of Web 2.0, and what this all means for schools and school libraries. Currently, Judy serves as an Education Officer with Catholic Education working with 55 primary and 22 secondary schools in the Western region of Sydney.She is also Vice-President (Association Relations) of IASL, the International Association of School Librarianship.

Description
Judy shares her story and the story of her schools who are embarking on a new way of working with Web 2.0, to create a community of learners. It all began with blogging! She knew that blogs could have many uses in education as a way of sharing or managing information and promoting literacy and learning. She tells the story of how on one single “˜professional’ day her world turned right around. She knew she had to start blogging, and when Judy did it was the beginning of personal journey of innovation and leadership…and fun! Come discover how blogs really can be a highly effective medium for fostering a professional learning community and a personal learning environment. You too can go from no blog and no ideas, to working with a whole school system strategy for integration of Web 2.0 and blogging as an official tool for dialogue and communication.

Presentation
http://k12online.wm.edu/K12OnlineConferenceJudyOConnell.m4a
http://k12online.wm.edu/K12OnlineConferenceJudyOConnell.mov

2006- Overcoming Obstacles

Overcoming Obstacles”No Teacher Left Behind – The Urgency Of Web 2.0″

Published by:

Graham Wegner
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Blog: http://gwegner.edublogs.org/

Presentation Title
“No Teacher Left Behind – The Urgency Of Web 2.0”

Bio
Graham is an ICT Coordinator in a primary school in suburban Adelaide with a focus on inquiry based learning and interactive whiteboards. He sees that information literacy and Web 2.0 technologies go hand in hand and will have a significant impact on his role. As well as working with students who are comfortable in the digital world, his role also involves helping his colleagues come on board with the effective use of technology for learning in the classroom.

Description
The changing information landscape of the 21st Century demands that our students develop new skills of information literacy and become knowledge producers as an integral component of their learning. But what of the professionals charged with these students’ education? Can they be convinced of the need for personal change to keep pace with their students’ world? Are they even aware of the exponential changes taking place? How would they get started in their classrooms? This online presentation will explore some of the barriers faced by educators seeking to improve and influence their colleagues’ perceptions of the internet, and Web 2.0 in particular, as a vehicle for learning. It will pull together various resources that could be useful as starting points for discussion and explore some of the concerns and trepidations of average teachers struggling already with a heavy workload. This presentation will use a wiki as its base and seek to leverage the online Conference participants to help create some possible answers and resources for those of us who recognize the need for our colleagues to be at our sides, providing best practice for our digital age students.

Presentation
http://k12online.wm.edu/k12wegner.WMV
http://k12online.wm.edu/wegnerk12.mp4

Supporting Links
http://k12ntlb.wikispaces.com/

2006- Overcoming Obstacles

Overcoming Obstacles”Glow: Lighting Up Learning in Scotland”

Published by:

John Connell
Scotland, United Kingdom
Blog: http://www.johnconnell.co.uk/blog/

Presentation Title
“Glow: Lighting Up Learning in Scotland”

Bio
John was until recently Director of the Scottish Schools Digital Network, an ambitious programme of ICT and telecommunications developments for education in Scotland. The national schools’ intranet, known as Glow, will go live for every teacher and student in Scotland by Summer 07. He has now taken on the role of Learning Futures Strategist with the national education agency in this country, Learning and Teaching Scotland, to shape policy and strategy nationally on the use of ICT in education over the next few years.

Description
Some key interests in Scottish education recognized in 2002 that the Web would eventually become the primary platform for learning. The resulting Scottish Schools Digital Network is a national programme combining broadband infrastructure, content delivery network and a web-based learning platform, the aim of which is to integrate a comprehensive package of learning and collaborative tools for delivery through the browser.

Renamed Glow in anticipation of its imminent arrival in every school in the country, the programme will offer a virtual teaching and learning environment and a range of collaborative applications (video and audio conferencing, email, chat rooms, sms, virtual whiteboards, application sharing, threaded discussions, online interest groups) across the Web. This enables the service to be offered to every student and every teacher in the country no matter whether they use a PC, a Mac or a Linux computer, and no matter the particular network topology their school or local authority deploys.

With a national authentication system and national user directory at the core of the system, users will be able to build and manage their own interest groups, from a bunch of kids in a class to any sub-group across the country. It is a large nationally-driven programme, but one that devolves the power of the Web to the individual. The management of learning and collaboration will most definitely happen at the level of the individual teacher and learner. Glow is “˜the web as learning platform’ in action!

The presentation will be delivered by means of a podcast with slides.

Presentation
http://k12online.wm.edu/JConnell_Glow.mov