We were so excited by the enthusiasm expressed for helping make K12 Online even better this year. If you have other ideas, feel free to post them here or on Twitter.
For those who have expressed an interest, we will be contacting you in the upcoming weeks with more details.
The K12 Online Conference is an all-volunteer, noncommercial effort, which means we rely completely on the contributions of generous volunteers.
If you’ve ever thought about getting more involved with K12 Online, now is the time!
On Mon., Jan. 12 at 8:00pm ET, we will be livestreaming a video hangout here to talk about volunteer opportunities for the 2015 K12 Online Conference. There are a wide variety of ways to contribute, from marketing to presenting to working on live events. Some of these things only take a few minutes, while others are more involved. However you might like to be involved, there is an opportunity for you! Please RSVP on the Google Hangout if you can attend!
If you can’t join us for this hangout but are interested, please fill out this short form and we will also post an archive of the session here.
We greatly appreciate our community’s support and help, and look forward to a great 2015!
Thanks to everyone for making the K12 Online Conference in 2014 so special!
This year we had a total of 38 presentations and almost 12 hours of professional learning presentations. We greatly appreciate all of our presenters, our committee members, our viewers/attendees, and everyone who helped spread the word.
Presenter: Courtney Kofeldt Location: West Chester @Ms_Kof
Presentation Title: Web 2.0 Tools That Will Increase Creativity and Passion in Your Online Courses
Presentation Description: Introduction to several Web 2.0 tools that will spark creativity and ignite a passion in your students, and a review of ideas for implementation.
Presenter: Brendan Murphy Location: Lindenhurst, IL, USA @dendari
Presentation Title: An Introduction to Webmaker for Educators
Presentation Description: An introduction to the Mozilla webmaker tools.
Exploring webdesign with XrayGoggles. Creating webpages with Thimble. Remixing video with popcorn. Making web apps with appmaker.
Using webmaker tools in the classroom, teaching digital citizenship, and becoming digitally literate.
Presenter: Mallory McNeal and Anna Smith Location: Denver, CO and Urbana, Illinois @m_mcneal and @anna_phd
Presentation Title: Passion-Driven Learning in #clmooc- Supporting Teacher Agency in Making and Learning
Presentation Description: Making Learning Connected 2014 (#clmooc) was truly a hub for igniting innovation and inspiring passion in Connected Learning. Each week, our “Make Cycle” initiated a new strand of thinking that was taken up, modified, and remixed in a variety of ways. In our video presentation, we will briefly share the background of #clmooc, the theory of action behind establishing iterative “Make Cycles” as well as highlight example “Makes” that were created and shared. We will also share some of the resources that were developed during Making Learning Connected 2014 that might be useful for others thinking about this work in their own contexts, such as collected archives of weekly newsletters, webinars and Twitter chats.
Presenter: Michele Haiken Location: Stamford, Connecticut, United States @TeachingFactor
Presentation Title: Moving From “Some Study I Used to Know” to Inquisitive Learning with Genius Hour & Passion Projects
Presentation Description: How can teachers inspire and ignite learning in their content area among the demands of the Common Core and 21st Century Literacy? This video presentation addresses how one middle school teacher made the commitment to Genius Hour with her students over the course of the school year, set up weekly Genius Hour class periods, and cultivated student ideas and interests. In the process, Genius Hour projects promoted students’ ownership of their own learning and allowed students to explore and create inquiries that were meaningful, insightful, and creative. Students were engaged and excited to discuss their passion projects at any moment and used class time with gusto to research and create. The ideas students explored allowed for their teacher to reflect on her own best practices to inspire the same inquiry and interest into her English Language Arts classroom. This presentation includes student voices and shares projects created by students this past school year. Find out how Genius Hour was introduced to the students and how the teacher facilitated weekly Genius Hour periods to support and push students thinking and ideas. Resources included for teachers looking to start Genius Hour in their classroom and veteran teachers to get answers to sticky questions like moving beyond making cupcakes, to classroom behavior and technology challenges.
Presenter: Bart Miller Location: Tokyo, Japan @barmill
Presentation Title: Trust and Transparency
Presentation Description: Support self directed, interest and passion driven learning in your classroom by building trust. Using simple tools and strategies to maximize transparency, we can empower students to explore their passions to engage in deeper learning and authentic inquiry.
Presenter: Cheryl Steighner Location: Tacoma, WA, USA @cherylsteighner
Presentation Title: Finding Your People
Presentation Description: This session will focus on the positive changes that can occur in our schools when one “finds their people,” or a group of other like-minded educators. I will discuss a variety of ways teachers can connect with one another on- and off-line to spark their individual passions, as well as provide tips for collaboration and passing on the spark. Examples include: EdCamps, Twitter (citing specific hashtags or chats), Google+ communities, Pinterest, worldwide educational events (Dot Day, Global Read Aloud, Hour of Code), and local and national conferences.
Presenter: Mark W. Carbone & Donna Miller Fry Location: Cambridge ON and Thunderbay ON (respectively) @markwcarbone and @fryed
Presentation Title: Connected Learners Need Connect Leaders
Presentation Description:
This video presentation captures the importance of ‘getting connected,’ the journey and the impact of being connected through a series of interviews with several Ontario based education leaders. The context of this presentation relates to the TEDx talk by Donna Miller Fry and Mark W. Carbone as part of the TEDxKitchenerED event theme of Fostering Connectivity which is published at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEc666kN_i0