K12 Online depends on the collaboration of many people to make this unique conference a success. This year, as we discussed what an online “unconference” might look like, we struck a committee to do some of the heavy lifting and thinking about our online unconference venue, notK12 Online. We asked Bud Hunt to chair the notK12 Online committee and he’s assembled an excellent team of educators to help us figure this out: Jackie Ballarini, Bill Bass, and Marcie T. Hull with substantial technical assistance from Andy Schmitz.
Our thanks to all of them; they’ve done some great work and will be continuing to volunteer their time and energy to help make this extension of K12 Online a blow out success. Here’s what they’ve come up with:
Not K12Online exists as one way to expand, and amplify, the possibilities of the K12Online Conference, to ensure that everyone has a way to add to the conversation(s) started by, inspired by, or missed by, the formal conference. Think of NotK12Online as one aggregator for content related to the possibilities generated by K12Online. To be honest, we hope you don’t need us, and we recognize that you really don’t. But we’re here anyway, a reminder of how you might use the power of digital tools to promote learning wherever, and whenever, you are.
NotK12Online, at this point, consists of two distinct channels of content that we hope you’ll consider submitting to.
Have a presentation you’d like to share relating to one of the four themes of this year’s conference? Check out the details of the “Presentation Channel” below and consider creating a presentation to share. Or not.
The other piece of NotK12Online is the “Critique Channel”. Critically examining our practices is important – as are divergent opinions. We are seeking to foster constructive dialogue about teaching and learning, as well as meta-talk about events like K12Online, in this channel. Submissions to this channel will offer constructive criticism and/or feedback on the K12Online sessions.
In the case of both channels, we’re seeking not to own the conversation, but to provide a venue for folks who would like to connect the work they’re already doing to the conference in an informal way. We’re also interested in your thoughts on what other channels we might’ve missed.
NotK12Online will “run,” meaning we’ll be open for submissions, from October 13th, 2008 until November 16th, 2008. After that, submissions will close, but the links will be around. The idea behind the extended time frame is to provide time for people to reflect upon and continue the conversations that ensue from their K12Online experiences. This also allows people time to create a presentation or critique that may have been inspired by the conference content. Of course, after November 16th, we encourage everyone to continue sharing presentations, discussing and networking, and reflecting on the work of others, but we won’t be the venue for that – we’ll count on you to use the tools of the open Web, as well as the K12Online website, to do so. (We really, really don’t think you need us at all – and yet plenty of good work isn’t ever shared. We hope to be the push that some might need to help them to publish.) We’re still working on our web presence where we’ll be taking submissions and aggregating them, but we wanted you to have a glimpse into what we’re seeking at the moment, both as a chance to get some feedback but also to take the opportuniy to give you a heads up – we hope you’ll consider putting something together. Below are our submission guidelines.
| Presentation Channel: Presentations can be submitted under any of the four themes for K12Online – 2008. The four themes are “Getting Started”, “Kicking It Up a Notch”, “Prove It”, and “Leading the Change” (Read the original strand descriptions here.). Presentations that, in some way, fit the strands of this year’s K12Online conference are welcome.
Guidelines: Critique Channel: Guidelines: |
We welcome your feedback about these guidelines and ideas, as well as NotK12Online itself. Ideally, a conference about self-directed learning should be, in part, about making itself obsolete. We hope NotK12Online will allow for some playing with, and stretching of, the boundaries of an online conference. And we hope you’ll be willing to submit the work that you’re doing to one of our channels. NotK12Online should serve as an amplifier of sorts. That’s all. Perhaps it’ll be the little bit of a push that you need to get moving on sharing some of the work that you’ve been up to. Or, ahem, not.
It’s certainly worth it to try.
As always we’re interested in your thoughts, suggestions and ideas; feel free to comment here and share them.