K-12 Online Conference organizers are pleased to announce the availability of both professional development and graduate credit options for our 2007 conference.

Graduate development is again available (on a paid basis) from Plymouth University.

For the first time (pending recognition of K-12 Online by your local school or district) FREE professional development credit is available for conference participants. This past week, members of the professional development committee updated the recommended rubric (now available in multiple formats) for professional development reflections. To further explain this process, committee members have also created a VoiceThread digital story.

Conference participants will be able to electronically register for professional development and submit individual conference session reflections (as URL links or copied text) to the conference PD reflection archive starting next week, on Saturday, October 20, 2007.

Check out both the VoiceThread explanation as well as the entire K-12 Online Conference Credits wiki for more details. Members of the PD committee hope the provided rubric will assist you in reflecting on and benefiting from the different presentations in this year’s conference, as well as obtaining professional development credit for your participation in the conference.

A “printable” certificate including details of your participation and awarded credit for each session in the K-12 Online Conference will be available from the conference PD reflection archive, starting on October 20th.

As you are listening to and reflecting on David’s wonderful pre-conference keynote as well as the presentations coming up the next two weeks, please take time to “tag the conference.” By adding some short HTML code to the end of blog posts you write, you will be virtually “flagging” your ideas so that others can easily find and link to them. Technorati is one website which aggregates blog posts under these common tags. As an example, this is a link to all the posts currently aggregated by Technorati which have been tagged “k12online07.”

The Hitchhikr website is an aggregator of blog posts about a wide variety of educational conferences taking place around the world. By clicking on the Hitchhikr link in this post or elsewhere on the K-12 Online Conference blog, you can view blog posts of other teachers about the conference and its presentations. Hitchhikr uses Technorati to index photos posted to Flickr as well as blog posts. To tag the K-12 Online Conference, add the following HTML code to the end of your blog posts:

In addition this year, following the lead of the 2007 National Education Computing Conference (NECC), we have created unique session tags for each presentation of the conference. These are visible in the right column of the conference schedule, which is one of our navigational links located at the top of each page of the main conference website. Just substitute the appropriate session tag for the text “k12online07” in the example above. It is a good idea to tag your posts both for the conference and for the session you’re reflecting on. So, the Technorati code to use to tag BOTH the conference overall AND David’s pre-conference keynote specifically would be:

Conversations in the blogosphere can seem messy and disorganized at times compared to a threaded discussion in a learning management system or other online conversation tool, but “tags” help the ideas and information take on an organic organizational structure. For more insight into how this works, check out Dr. Michael Wesch’s excellent video “The Web is Using/Us.”

Let’s tag the conference! 🙂

Technorati Tags:
k12online07, k12online07pc

3 Reasons Meme

Time for a new blog meme to help us spread the word about the upcoming K12Online07 conference. Please share either three (3) reasons to participate based on your experience from last year or (if you didn’t attend last year) three (3) things you hope to gain from the experience this year.

If you are new to memes–when you are tagged– simply create a blog post where you link to this flickr photo. Then write your 3 reasons and then tag several others who will do the same thing. After you tag someone in your post, please email them to let them know so they can help spread the word.

My Three Reasons

1. Wonderful opportunities to meet new educational Yodas.
2. Learn at your own pace, in your own space.
3. Your school district isn’t offering professional development opportunities nearly this good.

Technorati Tags:
k12online07, k12online07tag

This is a FREE conference open to ANYONE organized by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. A goal of the conference (among several) is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape. Please see the “For Participants: Getting Started” page on our conference wiki to get started with the K-12 Online Conference. If you are a vendor or affiliated with a vendor, please see our Goals and Values page for clarification about vendor participation.

In past years we have use three primary websites for our conference. This year (2011) we’ll be using primarily our blog, which is this website.

1. Our conference Ning is our conversation hub.
2. Our conference blog (this site) is used to share announcements and news.
3. Our conference wiki provides information to help participants and presenters get the most out of our conference.

During the conference each year, presentations are cross-posted to both our conference blog and conference Ning. Archived conference presentations and live events are also available. In addition to scheduled live events, asynchronous discussions surrounding conference presentations and activities can be posted on individual conference presentation blog posts and in the Ning discussion forum. In addition, participants are encouraged to post about, cross-link to, and embed conference presentations and content. The official 2010 “tag” for blog posts, Flickr images is k12online10. The official twitter hash tag for this year’s conference is #k12online10.

Our WONDERFUL keynote speakers and strand presenters make our conference an outstanding and ongoing learning experience for educators worldwide. More information is available about our 2010 keynote speakers and 2010 strand presenters.

The K-12 Online Conference is a total volunteer effort and is envisioned, planned and implemented by 4 co-conveners, several volunteers who also serve as organizers, and a small group of subcommittees.

2011 Conference Organizers

• Peggy George
• Susan van Gelder
• Kim Caise
• Jose Rodriguez (convening “Sandbox Play”)
• Ginger Lumen (convening “Level Up”)
• Darren Kuropatwa (convening “Story Time”)
• Wesley Fryer (convening “Team Captains”)

2010 Co-Conveners

• Amanda Marrinan is a primary years teacher in Brisbane, Australia. She tweets as @marragem and blogs with her students at 2mgems.blogspot.com. Amanda convenes our 2010 “Week in the Classroom” strand.
• Jose Rodriguez: is a third grade teacher in Los Angeles, California, actively promoting tech use in the elementary classroom, webcasting on the worldbridges network, exploring language learning on the web, and reaching out to educators in the Spanish speaking community. He tweets as @coordinatortwo. Jose convenes the 2010 “Leading the Change” strand.
• Maria Knee is an experienced educator and sees herself as both a teacher and a learner. She teaches kindergarten in Deerfield, New Hampshire. She connects her students to the world through a classroom blog and skype chats, and she webcasts on the worldbridges network. Maria is @mariak on Twitter. She is the recipient of the 2008 Kay L. Bitter Vision Award for Excellence in Technology-based PK-2 Education sponsored by ISTE. Maria convenes the 2010 “Kicking It Up a Notch” strand.
• Wesley Fryer is an educator, author, digital storyteller and educational change agent. He is a university instructor and the director of the non-profit “Story Chasers Inc.” Wes blogs at www.speedofcreativity.org and tweets as @wfryer. Wesley convenes the 2010 “Student Voices” strand.

In addition to our co-conveners, our 2010 conference is led by three organizers who also put MANY hours into the planning and coordination of our conference. Our 2010 organizer team includes our four conference conveners and:

• Kim Caise has been in education for over twenty years as a teacher and technology specialist. She is a national board certified teacher in the area of technology education and recently received a Master of Education in Technology and Learning. She is a co-host for the weekly Classroom 2.0 LIVE webinars, and a co-editor for the EdTechTalk newsletters. Kim blogs at http://kcaise.wordpress.com and serves as a Fable Vision Ambassador, on the Texas DEN Leadership Council and Community Facilitator for LearnCentral. Kim is currently the Flat Classroom™ Project Administrator, tweets (and Plurks) as @kcaise and is co-chairing the 2010 Conference Live Events Committee.
• Peggy George is a retired elementary school principal and university pre-service instructor in Phoenix, AZ. Her passion is to explore technology innovations and social networking opportunities for engaging students/teachers in powerful interactive learning experiences, and to share these resources with other educators. She is a co-host for the weekly Classroom 2.0 LIVE webinars, the monthly AzTEA Mini-Geekfests, and a co-editor for the EdTechTalk newsletters. She tweets as @pgeorge and is co-chairing the 2010 Conference Archivist Committee.
• Susan van Gelder worked for many years as a technology teacher in an elementary school. Now she gives workshops for teachers and supports educational projects across Quebec through face to face and online mentoring. She has been interested in online collaboration and has involved students in projects starting in the late 1980s. She has a photo blog and tweets as @susanvg. Susan is the host of the K12 Online Echo at EdTechTalk.

The live events for the 2010 Conference have been organized by the following Live Events Committee members:

• Kim Caise
• Susan van Gelder
• Peggy George
• Connie Swiderski
• Andrew Ziobro
• Drew Buddie
• Nan Williams

Archived versions of our conference “about” page from 2009 and 2008 are available. All our conference organizers, past and present, wish to express appreciation and thanks to the MANY people who have  contributed and continue to contribute to make our conference a successful learning experience for everyone!

Please share the K12 Online Conference with others by adding the following HTML code to your blog, wiki, or other webpage:

This code should display the following badge with a link to our main conference blog:

Your Turn at Adding to the Conversation

We have created a 2007 conference wiki! The intent is to make this collaborative space the place where we all enter the conversation.

This is YOUR wiki.

Please feel free to add pages and resources that relate to the four strands of the conference. If you have a presentation or resource that would be of interest around these topics then …PLEASE share. If you wanted to submit an abstract or if you submitted one that wasn’t chosen by our blind review committees- then share it here! Let’s all build together and see what an incredible time we can have.

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 are included on the main presenter’s page.

Please sign our guestbook by adding a comment and include:

• Your name
• Your location
• Your educational role
• Any comments you have about the conference!

Also remember to add your name and location to our 2008 Google Map.

Thanks!

One primary goal of the K12 Online Conference is to foster professional connections among educators around the globe. Toward that end, the following tools and resources are provided for use by 2007 conference participants:

1. A conference guestbook
2. A conference Geo map
3. A conference wiki