Participants at K12 Online span the globe. That’s why we use Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in the publication of all events. Whenever we publish the date and time of any event we consistently link to a time converter that allows you to convert the time to your local time. This can be confusing if you’re not used to doing conversions to GMT; more so in countries that have daylight savings time when the dates of the conference span the change from Daylight (Savings) Time to Standard Time. Matters are further complicated when governments change the dates they observe Daylight Savings Time, as has recently been done in Canada and the USA.
Where this is most likely to be an issue is with our live events and in particular our closing event; When Night Falls. In order to find the difference between your local time and GMT you can visit this site:
Look for the dynamically updating clock that will show you the current time in your time zone and your offset from GMT. The site uses the settings of the internal clock in your computer to generate this data.
If doing the conversion is bothersome or confusing in any way try this site instead:
That last site will allow you to enter a particular date and GMT time and then generate a list showing what time that would be in cities and time zones across the world.
The time converter we have linked to in all our published material is this one:
If you live in a country where they are changing the clocks sometime during K12 Online, check back here anytime, before or after the clocks have been switched, to convert your local time to GMT or vice versa. Our time converters allow you to enter the date you wish to determine the time on and adjust for time changes accordingly.
This GMT Time Converter site uses 12 p.m. GMT as its standard. Ironically, “consider that “a.m” and “p.m.” are abbreviations for “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem.” They mean “before noon” and “after noon,” respectively. Noon is neither before or after noon; it is simply noon. Therefore, neither the “a.m.” nor “p.m.” designation is correct. On the other hand, midnight is both 12 hours before noon and 12 hours after noon. Therefore, either 12 a.m. or 12 p.m. could work as a designation for midnight, but both would be ambiguous as to the date intended.”
National Instistitute of Standards and Technology at http://tf.nist.gov/general/misc.htm
Karen,
You’re quite right, thanks for the references. 😉
In this post we are trying to make sure that everyone can determine the correct time for the various live events at K12 Online so that they don’t miss out on anything.
For the purposes of clarity with respect to how we talk about time more colloquially 12:00pm would be “lunch time” and 12:00am would be “midnight.”
Cheers,
Darren Kuropatwa
Convener K12 Online