Add yourself to the Frappr Map! (Click on Add! in the top right corner of the map.) Please include your name and location (city, country) and blog url. Photos and, well, everything is really optional. The more you include the easier it is for other K12 Online participants to find and connect with you. There are some real networking possiblities in this that may work to the benefit of your students. If you want to think about it you can always come back again later and add to your entry. 😉

Add yourself to the map!

This post is long overdue.

We announced K12 Online on September 1, 2006. It was either the same day or the next day that Lani Ritter-Hall contacted me to offer to help in any way that she could. Over the following weeks we decided that we should have a single person responsible for posting all the presentations to the blog during the conference in order to ensure continuity. We’re doing everything we can to make this job easy but, the fact of the matter is, reviewing and posting at least 4 blog posts every day for too weeks is a big job. When I asked Lani if she’d be willing to take it on she replied, without hesitation, “sure.”

Lani is a National Board Certified teacher from Ohio in the US. She spent many years as a classroom teacher; she is currently an instructional designer for online professional development courses for eTech Ohio.

Lani also submitted a proposal for the the conference (which was part of the reason we delayed this announcement). The blind peer review committee selected hers as one of the presentations to be published for the conference … so, her plate is full … yet we couldn’t be happier to have her as a member of our team. Her poise and charm will resonate in through every post over the two weeks of the conference.

Welcome aboard Lani!

We’re in the midst of planing the final event for K12 Online 2006. It’s called When Night Falls. The idea is to have a 24 hour long worldwide skypecast – vyew desktop sharing – networking – chat experience. As night falls across the planet, educators across the globe will come online to connect and reflect about their experiences at K12 Online 2006.

For this to work we’re going to need some help to keep things going for 24 hours straight. We’re looking for a few good educators to help moderate the event. All the details are on the When Night Falls Planning Wiki. Check it out for more information.

If you’re unfamiliar with any of the tools we’ll be using in this event, not to worry. We’re putting together a series of screencasts that will teach you everything you need to know. As a matter of fact, we’re having an open, event planning skypecast on Wednesday, October 11 at 2:00 am GMT which is 9:00 pm central time in North America … my appologies to everyone in the European time zones. 😉

We’re planning a few things to do and learn over the course of each moderator’s show, but we also want to keep things fairly loose so that folks can have meaningful conversations. I’ve always found the best part of any conference to be the conversations had at the coffee break … this is going to be one helluva coffee break!

David Warlick has been working hard on his preconference Keynote presentation for K12 Online 2006. And the conference kickoff is getting closer by the second … as you can see from the new counter in the sidebar over there –> at the right.David will kick off the conference on October 16. Later that evening, at 6 pm eastern time in North America, 10 pm GMT, we will have our first of three Fireside Chats. David and the four conference organizers (Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Will Richardson, Wesley Fryer and myself) will all be in attendance in an Elluminate room.You’re all invited to join us! There will be a link posted to the K12 Online blog. Watch for it … all you need to do is click it to get in … remember, everything about K12 Online is free. 😉

And one more thing … if you want to join the countdown on your blog here’s the code to copy and paste to your blog sidebar. You can edit the colours of the text and background using colour names or their html equivalents …

<center><br><b>

David Warlick’s

<br>

Keynote Begins in</b>

<br><font size=”-1″>

<script language=”JavaScript”>

TargetDate = “10/16/2006 12:00 AM”;

BackColor = “white”;

ForeColor = “black”;

CountActive = true;

CountStepper = -1;

LeadingZero = false;

DisplayFormat = “%%D%% Days, %%H%% Hrs, %%M%% M, %%S%% S”;

FinishMessage = “It is finally here!”;

</script></font>

</center>

<script language=”JavaScript” xsrc=”http://scripts.hashemian.com/js/countdown.js” mce_src=”http://scripts.hashemian.com/js/countdown.js” ></script>

Tags: k12online, k12online06

Recently both Wes and Darren were interviewed about K12 Online … the preconference is just 8 days away and counting!

Wes was interviewed on October 1, 2006 by the folks over at EdTechTalk. Here is a direct link to the podcast (27 min 4 sec).

Darren was interviewed on  September 25, 2006 by Susan van Gelder who maintains the ICT Leaders and Learners web site in Quebec, Canada. Here is a direct link to the podcast (23 min 40 sec).

If you come across any mention of K12 Online in the press let us know by dropping a link in the comments to let everyone know.

Tools for Participants (viewing presentations)

Here is a list of plug-ins you might need to download to listen/watch the presentations:

Tools for Presenters

Free Screen Capture Software

You can use SmartBoard software to create screencasts. (The use license requires that you or your organization own a Smartboard. The software itself does not require that you be plugged into a SmartBoard at the time you install or use it, however.) The software will capture your desktop and audio through your microphone. The software is cross-platform and can be downloaded from the Smart website after entering your name and email address. AVI files created on Windows computers need to be converted to a more compatible WMV file. (Check this page for details and links.) For mac users it’s a little easier, just install and go. Files are saved as QuickTime .mov files which you can import into iMovie and edit if you like. There are a slew of little programs included in the bundle. The one you’re looking for is called “Recorder.”
Click on your operating system. (You may have to “sign up.” Also free.) Then click on the [Install Now] button.

Commercial Screen Capture Software

• Camtasia (Windows-only)
• Articulate Presenter (Windows-only)
• iShowU (Macintosh-only)

VoxMedia has a nice collection on their wiki of screencasting tools. If you know of other screen capture software tools, please add a comment here and include a link.

Video conversion and compression

FFmpegX is a free, open source program for Linux/Unix and Macs that will convert and compress most video formats, including Flash. If you know of a Windows-based program (open source or commercial) that has similar functionality, please let everyone know by commenting here.

Jeff Utecht over at The Thinking Stick posted about K12 Online and had this idea:

My plan is to gather everyone who wants to ‘attend’ this conference, give them all a laptop order a bunch of pizza and beer and listen, watch, and read the conference online. We will then create a podcasts of our discussions as we discuss the various presentations. I will then load the podcast either here or talk to the organizers of the conference and load them directly into the conference as a way to add to the conversation. Just think of the possibilities, the discussions and the learning. My goal is to get at least 10 teachers/administrators to attend the conference. I plan on making it a relaxed affair at someone’s house with drinks and food. Now, who wouldn’t want to come to a conference like that! I’m even working with our PD person to try and get teachers who attend credits through our partner university, University of Plymouth. I see that David Warlick has already set up a hitchhikr page for the conference which adds a whole new level of being able to follow the conference conversations.

He’s in China. Wouldn’t it be cool if others, across the world did the same? Imagine … people from around the world spontaneously create breakout sessions using skype or gizmo (gizmo has the advantage of making recording the call push button easy) … connecting … sharing … learning … does it get any better? 😉

If you’re planning a K12 Online LAN party like Jeff leave details about it here in the comments to this post. Include the date and time you’re planning to have your party. In the event you want to create a breakout session you can use the information here to connect with each other. Who knows, it may end up being a piece in the first ever WWAN (World Wide Area Network). 😉

Proposals for presentations are now being accepted for K12 Online 2006. We’ve automated the process using this web form. Please use the form for all submissions.When you’re ready to submit a proposal for K12 Online some of the things you will be prompted for are:

• An abstract of what you will do. Please keep the abstract to less than 250 words.
• The strand you’re submitting for.
• How do you plan to produce your presentation? (podcast, screencast, video, PPT, blog etc.) Remember, your presentation must be viewable online once it is posted to our servers.
• If you can, please include illustrative or exemplary links for your idea that would be helpful. Also, please include links for any past work you have online as well.

The submission deadline for all abstracts is September 30, 2006. All proposals will be vetted by a blind review committee. You will receive an acceptance notification no later than October 6, 2006.

We look forward to reading your proposal!

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.” A call for proposals is below.

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 (www.k12onlineconference.org — give it a couple of more days, it’ll work 😉 ) and archived for posterity.

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.

CONVENERS & KEYNOTES
For organization purposes, each strand is overseen by a conference convener who will assist and coordinate presenters in their strand. The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote by a well known educator who has distinguished his/herself and is knowledgeable in the context of each topic. This year’s conveners and keynote presenters are:

Preconference
Convener: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Keynote: David Warlick

David Warlick is a 30 year educator, author, blogger, and Web 2.0 programmer. Since 1981, he has been using information and communication technologies to help people learn, young and old. When his school could not afford any software for it’s computers, he taught himself to program and wrote award-winning instructional games, before computers could even display in color. His blog posting are read around the world, and his free online web tools are accessed millions of times a week. At heart, David Warlick is a teacher, with a contagious passion and enthusiasm for helping people discover a brand new world of teaching and learning. David blogs at http://2cents.davidwarlick.com and podcasts at http://connectlearning.davidwarlick.com.

A Week In The Classroom
Convener: Darren Kuropatwa
Keynote: Bud Hunt

Bud Hunt teaches high school language arts and journalism at Olde Columbine High School in Longmont, Colorado. He is a teacher-consultant with and the Tech Liaison for the Colorado State University Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project, a group working to improve the teaching of writing in schools via regular and meaningful professional development. Bud is also the co-editor of the New Voices column of English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. A consumer of copious amounts of New Media, Bud blogs and podcasts about his practice and larger educational issues at http://www.budtheteacher.com.

Basic/Advanced Training
Convener: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Keynote: Alan Levine

Alan Levine is the Director of Member & Technology Resources for the New Media Consortium (NMC, http://www.nmc.org/ ). Before this, he spent 14 years evangelizing technology for the Maricopa Community Colleges, where he first hoisted a web server back in 1993 on a Mac SE/30. While at Maricopa, Alan was a key contributor to significant efforts such as Ocotillo, a faculty-led initiative that promotes innovation and drives change, created the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX), a virtual warehouse of innovation that pioneered the use of RSS in syndicating learning object content, and developed Feed2JS, an open source software shared for allowing people to easily incorportate RSS content into web pages. Alan works from home in Phoenix, Arizona and publishes his work on CogDogBlog (http://cogdogblog.com/).

Personal Professional Development
Convener: Will Richardson
Keynote: Ewan McIntosh

Ewan McIntosh is an educational technologist and teacher of French and German. Based in the Edinburgh area of Scotland he frequently works around the UK and Europe, leading student and teacher workshops and conferences. He is an experienced workshop facilitator in the area of Web 2.0 technologies in education across stages and curricular areas. Ewan blogs at http://edu.blogs.com

Overcoming Obstacles
Convener: Wesley Fryer
Keynote: Anne Davis

Anne is known for seeing the educational possibilities in the use of
weblogs with students in classrooms, having implemented wonderful ideas and weblog projects with students and teachers in K-12 classrooms and at the university level. She currently works at Georgia State University in the Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education as an Information Systems Training Specialist. Her weblog, EduBlog Insights is a co-winner of the Best Teacher Blog in the second international Edublog Awards, a web based event that
recognizes the many diverse and imaginative ways in which weblogs are being used within education.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
We’d like to invite you to submit a proposal to present at the conference. If you have something you’d like to share with the community, both people who are new to blogs and/or experienced bloggers please email the appropriate conference convener above with your ideas. The deadline to submit a proposal (just the proposal, not the finished product) is September 30, 2006. One of us will contact you to finalize the date of your presentation. Your presentation may be delivered in any web-based medium (including but not limited to…podcasts, PowerPoint files, blogs, websites, wikis, screencasts, etc.) and must be emailed to your assigned conference convener one week before it goes live, (see above strands) so that it can be uploaded to the server.

The conference organizers are:
Darren Kuropatwa

Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice and for “child safe” blogging practices. He has more than 20 years experience in both formal and informal education and 13 years experience in team building and leadership training. Darren has been facilitating workshops for educators in groups of 4 to 300 for the last 10 years. Darren’s professional blog is called A Difference (http://adifference.blogspot.com).

Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach

Sheryl is a technology/education consultant for the National Education Association (NEA), the Center for Teaching Quality, SRI International, the Virginia Community College System, the Virginia Department of Education, the Miami-Dade Public Schools, the Alabama Best Practices Center and adjunct instructor in the School of Education at The College of William and Mary. She has had several journal articles and book chapters published, been featured on public broadcasting television and radio shows, and is a regular presenter at local, state, and national conferences speaking on topics of homelessness, teacher leadership, virtual community building, and 21st Century learning initiatives. Sheryl blogs at 21st Century Collaborative (http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/).

Will Richardson

Will Richardson is known internationally for his work with educators and students to understand and implement instructional technologies and, more specifically, the tools of the Read/Write Web into their schools, classrooms and communities. A public school educator for 22 years, Will’s own Weblog (Weblogg-ed.com) is a primary resource for the creation and implementation of Weblog technologies on the K-12 level and is a leading voice for school reform in the context of the fundamental changes these new technologies are bringing to all aspects of life. Will is the critically acclaimed authour of the best-selling book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms (March 2006, Corwin Press).

Wesley Fryer

Wesley Fryer is an educator, author, digital storyteller and change agent. With respect to school change, he describes himself as a “catalyst for creative educational engagement.” His blog, “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” was selected as the 2006 “Best Learning Theory Blog” by eSchoolnews and Discovery Education. He is the Director of Education Advocacy (PK-20) for AT&T in the state of Oklahoma.

Conference Tags: k12online, K12online06

If you have any questions about any part of this, email one of us:

• 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 (actually, we’d really like people to do that 😉 ) or link back to this post (published simultaneously on all our blogs).

Tags: k12online, k12online06