Category Archives: Announcements

Since 2006, the K-12 Online Conference has provided outstanding opportunities for free, collaborative, accessible professional learning for educators around the globe. The 2010 conference promises to again provide more exemplary learning opportunities in the same spirit of collaboration and sharing, as together we “Cultivate the Future!” The learning will begin with a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 11, 2010, and this year feature a closing keynote for the first time. We again invite presenters to submit “teaser trailers” for their presentations in advance of the conference.

This year’s fantastic line up of keynote presenters will create an inviting and welcoming introduction in which the sharing of ideas among diverse learners working in diverse contexts continues. Our distinguished keynote speakers will not only extend the conversations, but also invite each of us to stretch and grow as they share their expertise and wisdom in their respective strands. See our post from August 22nd for more information about keynote speakers in each of our 2010 strands.

The selection process for our 2010 conference was challenging as the quality of proposals was outstanding. We thank everyone who submitted a proposal. We are elated to announce the K12 Online 2010 presenters whose creativity, depth of thought, and innovation promise to make K12 Online 2010 exemplary.

The presenters by strand are:

Pre-Conference Week: October 11-15, 2010

Pre-Conference Keynote: Dean Shareski
ideasandthoughts.org
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada

WEEK 1: October 18-22, 2010

Leading the Change

Keynote: Dolors Reig
www.dreig.eu/caparazon/
Barcelona, España (Spain)

Andy Crozier
www.andycrozier.com
Cedar Rapids, IA USA
Don’t Fear the Cloud, Embrace and Leverage It!

David Wells
principalwells.wordpress.com
Montpelier, VT United States
Less Planning and More Doing

Deyanira Castilleja de León
www.maestrossinfronteras.org
Saltillo, Coahuila, México
Maestros Sin Fronteras: Desarrollo Profesional Docente y Tecnología

Julie Lindsay and Kim Cofino
123elearning.blogspot.com, kimcofino.com
Beijing, China and Yokohama, Japan
Create the Future: Think, Learn, Create!

Lorna Costantini
http://ourschool.ca
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Digital Parent Engagement – Supporting Student Learning

Rodd Lucier
thecleversheep.com
Komoka, Ontario, Canada
Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
21stcenturycollaborative.com
Virginia Beach, VA USA
Connected Learning and Leading in a Digital Age

Sybil Caballero
grou.ps/redtebas/home
La Victoria, Venezuela
Docentes Ingeniosos 2.0

Tim Tyson
drtimtyson.com/blog
Manhattan Beach, CA USA
The Classroom Teacher As a 21st Century Instructional Leader

Student Voices

Keynote: Colby Ratzlaff
Emporia, KS USA

Ben McNaboe & Ben Nickerson
http://tinyurl.com/bennben
Yarmouth, ME USA
The Ben N Ben Show: Promoting Student Voice through a Student Hosted Webcast

Carol Broos
www.carolbroos.com
Northfield, IL USA
Let me tell MY story

Dolores Gende
journeyintech.blogspot.com
Irving, TX USA
C4: leveraging the power of blogs and wikis in student learning

Julie Lindsay and Madeleine Brookes
123elearning.blogspot.com and www.technology4thinking.com
Beijing, China
Inside ITGS: Cyber-Students Share their Connected Learning

Kathy Cassidy
classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Primary Digital Portfolios

Mª Magdalena Galiana
www.radiosolidariamiga.es
Villajoyosa, Alicante, España
Radio Solidaria Amiga la voz de los niños que son solidarios con otros niños

Monika Hardy and Jim Folkestad
redefineschool.wordpress.com and edgility.net
Loveland and Ft Collins, CO USA
Students Redefine School

Nicolas Gutkowski
nicolascres.wikispaces.com
Crozet, VA USA
Learning On My Own

Sarah Beeghley
www.civilwarsallie.com
Mechanicsburg, PA US
Creating an Educational Follow Me Project

WEEK 2: October 25-29, 2010

Week in the Classroom

Keynote: Allanah King
allanahk.edublogs.org
Nelson, New Zealand

Britt Gow
brittgow.globalteacher.org.au
Hawkesdale, Victoria, Australia
Teaching Science in the 21st Century

Kelly Hines
keepingkidsfirst.wordpress.com
Sylva, NC USA
Step by Step: Planning & Implementing a STEM mini-unit

Kim Caise
kcaise.wordpress.com
San Antonio, TX USA
Web Conferencing – Can We Chat?

Paula Naugle and Jan Wells
pnaugle.blogspot.com and jeffwest4thgrade.blogspot.com
Metairie, LA, USA – Meriden, KS USA
Seeds to Success with Skype

Rebecca Pilver
mrspilver.wikispaces.com, top10.sblc.wikispaces.net, getinthefold.blogspot.com
Willington, CT, USA
The Top Ten Project

Roland Gesthuizen
plakboek.livejournal.com
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Information Technology and Drama

Shelly Terrell
technology4kids.pbworks.com
Stuttgart, Germany
Integrating Online Language Tasks for Young Learners

Tony Vincent
learninginhand.com
Phoenix, AZ, USA
Project Based Learning in Hand

William Vegazo
www.sitehoover.com/aprendamoslasticseneducacion
Lima, Perú
Aplicaciones Di´dacTICas de la web 2.0 Buenas prácTICAs

Kicking it Up A Notch

Keynote: Darren Kuropatwa
adifference.blogspot.com
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Adrianne Stone
web20edu.wordpress.com
Houston, TX, USA
The Classroom Social Network – It’s More than Fun, It’s Fundamental to Modern Learning!

Chris Betcher
www.chrisbetcher.com
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Teaching kids to think using Scratch

Chrissy Hellyer
teachingsagittarian.com
Bangkok, Thailand
Record, Reflect & Share – VoiceThread as a digital Portfolio

Clif Mims
clifmims.com
Memphis, TN USA
Shhh!!! The Students Are Learning: Being an Effective Classroom Facilitator

Jen Deyenberg
trailsoptional.com
East Lothian, Scotland
GPS and Geocaching in the Classroom

Joe Bires
www.edtechleadership.com
Haddonfield, NJ USA
Robo Fusion

Karen Blumberg
karenblumberg.com
Yorkville, NY USA
License to Cull with Creative Commons and yolink

Miguel Mendoza
the-ve-blog.blogspot.com/p/about.html
Caracas, Venezuela
Planning & Designing Online Using Blogs

Richard Beach
digitalwriting.pbworks.com
Minneapolis, MN US
Using Diigo, VoiceThread, and YouTube Annotations to Collaboratively Construct Digital Commonplace Texts

Closing Conference Keynote: David Warlick
davidwarlick.com/2cents
Raleigh, NC USA

The K-12 Online Conference is a free, online, annual professional development conference offering opportunities for educators around the globe to share innovative ways web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. Our conference this year will take place in October, and will include four different strands: Student Voices, Leading the Change, Week in the Classroom, and Kicking It Up a Notch. Our conference is entirely organized and facilitated by volunteers, which include a conference organizer for each strand. Our conveners for 2010 include:

• Amanda Marrinan, an educator in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
• Jose Rodriguez, an educator in Los Angeles, California, USA
• Maria Knee, an educator in Deerfield, New Hampshire, USA
• Wesley Fryer, an educator in Edmond, Oklahoma, USA

Today we are pleased to announce our keynote speakers for the 2010 K-12 Online Conference: Cultivating the Future! As we have the past four years, we will kick off the conference with a pre-conference keynote (the week of October 11, 2010) and follow that up with forty different presentations over the next two weeks. These will include two keynote presentations per week, in each of four different conference strands. “Live events” will also be planned during and following the conference, to provide opportunities for conference attendees to engage in interactive discussions with presenters following the Ustream “Echo webcast” model we utilized in partnership with EdtechTalk in 2009 and early 2010. This year’s conference will also feature an exciting closing keynote!

Our 2010 pre-conference keynote speaker will be Dean Shareski. Dean is a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was recognized with the 2010 Outstanding Leader Award by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) in July, and has been both a past presenter as well as convener for the K-12 Online Conference. Dean blogs at ideasandthoughts.org, and is @shareski on Twitter.
For the first time in 2010, our conference will include a “Student Voices” strand. Colby Ratzlaff will keynote this exciting strand which begins the week of October 18, 2010. Colby is a 9th grader this year attending Emporia High School in USD 253 in Emporia, Kansas, USA. Previously Colby attended Turning Point Learning Center, a public charter school in Emporia. In addition to the support of his parents for this presentation, Colby is sponsored by one of his former teachers, Ginger Lewman. Ginger is @gingertplc on Twitter as well as Plurk. The Student Voices strand is convened by Wesley Fryer.
Our second “week 1″ strand in 2010 will be “Leading the Change.” Dolors Reig will keynote this strand. Dolors is a university professor and social media consultant in Barcelona, España (Spain.) She blogs at www.dreig.eu/caparazon and is @dreig on Twitter. Dolors will present her keynote in Spanish with English subtitles, as Diego Leal did in last year’s conference. The Leading the Change strand is convened by Jose Rodriguez.
For the third year, our conference will include a “Week in the Classroom” focus. In 2010, Kiwi Allanah King will keynote this strand. Allanah is a year 4 primary teacher in Nelson, New Zealand. She is an Adobe Education Leader and was a finalist for the 2008 New Zealand Microsoft Innovative Teacher Awards. Allanah blogs at allanahk.edublogs.org, and her classroom blog is moturoa.blogspot.com. She is @AllanahK on Twitter. The Week in the Classroom strand is convened by Amanda Marrinan.
Our fourth strand for the 2010 conference is “Kicking It Up a Notch” and will be keynoted by Darren Kuropatwa. Darren’s unique skill set “” an in-depth knowledge of pedagogy, leading edge technology skills and boundless creativity “” make him a strong change agent in 21st century education. In 2010 Darren is a “Pedagogical Consultant responsible for Literacy with ICT” with schools for his provincial government. His leadership and vision in the field of educational technology are known world-wide through his work as one of the founding conveners of the “K12 Online Conference” and his professional blog “A Difference“. Darren is @dkuropatwa on Twitter. The Kicking It Up a Notch strand is convened by Maria Knee.
Our 2010 conference will feature a closing keynote for the first time. We are thrilled David Warlick, an internationally recognized 34 year educator, author of four books on instructional technology and 21st century literacy, and learning consultant will present the closing keynote. David’s most recent book, “A Gardener’s Approach to Learning,” focuses specifically on our theme of “Cultivating the Future.” David shared the pre-conference keynote for the K-12 Online Conference in both 2006 and 2007. David blogs at davidwarlick.com/2cents/ and is @dwarlick on Twitter.

Please mark your calendars for the 2010 K-12 Online Conference, and plan to participate starting the week of October 11th! We’ll publish a call for volunteers soon, as well as announce our selected presenters in upcoming weeks. Remember our call for presentations has been extended till August 23rd, so you STILL have a few more days to submit your own proposal! It’s going to be a GREAT conference this year as together we “Cultivate the Future!”

Did you miss the initial deadline to submit a proposal for the 2010 K-12 Online Conference? You’re in luck!

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Our deadline has been extended for another week, until Monday, August 23rd at midnight PST. Please read our full call for proposals from July 31st. The Google Form link to submit your proposal remains the same.

Thanks to everyone who has already submitted proposals. Our target date for announcing presenters is now September 1st. We will be announcing our five 2010 conference keynote speakers later this week!

Technorati Tags:
conference, development, education, k12online, learning, professional, technology, k12online10, proposal, free, PD

Today we are excited to announce the 2010 K-12 Online Conference call for proposals, strands and hashtag. The theme for our fifth annual K12 Online Conference” is “Cultivating the Future.” Our free, online conference is for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year’s conference schedule returns to October, when we held the conference in 2006, 2007, and 2008. K-12 Online 2010 is scheduled for October 18-22 and October 25-29 of 2010, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 11. Our conference is mostly asynchronous, but will again include several live events. Over 140 archived presentations from 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 remain available online.

The deadline for proposal submission is August 23, 2010. (Note this has been extended from Aug 13th!) Selected presentations will be announced on Sept 1st. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL via Google Forms.

OVERVIEW: K12 Online 2010 will feature four “conference strands,” two each week, and include “LAN Party” live events on the Saturday following each week of the regular conference in partnership with EdTechTalk. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday through Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two weeks. Including the pre-conference keynote, a total of 41 presentations will be published. Each twenty minute (or less) presentation will be shared online in a downloadable and embeddable formats, and released simultaneously via the conference blog (www.k12onlineconference.org,) the conference Twitter account, and the conference audio and video podcast channels. All presentations will be archived online for posterity. If you are planning to submit a proposal, please review archived presentations from past years to determine what you might offer that is new and builds on previous work.

Our 2010 conference theme “Cultivating the Future,” is based on two ideas: A quotation from William Gibson and the metaphor of gardening and cultivation to grow relationships, networks, ways of learning, and develop ideas. William Gibson is credited with the quotation, “The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.”* As William observed, signs of the future are visible in many places today. It is our desire, as organizers of the K-12 Online Conference, to showcase and amplify these examples of forward-thinking pedagogy and digitally-powered learning. In Josh Little’s article, “5 Tips for Knowledge Gardeners: How to Grow a Collaborative Learning Community,” he articulates many parallels between the work of gardeners and those seeking to cultivate vibrant learning communities. In both cases, leaders need to cultivate fertile soil. Josh notes, “Expert gardeners know that a garden is only as good as the soil in which it is planted. Throwing high quality seeds on a rocky seedbed won’t yield the results they want. The same is true for creating the right collaborative learning environment for your organization. So before you start, ask yourself what would get in the way of open sharing within your organization.” He identifies three potential obstacles for sharing and growth:

1. Culture “” will people feel comfortable sharing?
2. Tools “” do people have access to computers and the internet and know how to use them?
3. Time “” is it acceptable that people take the time necessary to develop themselves?

As you develop a proposal for the 2010 K-12 Online Conference, please keep these ideas in mind and weave these themes into your proposal. Also, please utilize the hashtag “#k12online10” as you tweet, blog, and share links about the conference this year!

FOUR STRANDS:

Week 1

Strand A: Student Voices
As educators we should NOT perceive ourselves as teachers of content, but rather teachers of kids.** Students should be both the focus and the purpose for which we teach in the classroom. Our student voices strand seeks to amplify the voices of exemplary students who are using digital tools as leaders in their school communities as well as the larger world. As educators and leaders, we need to listen to student voices and perspectives more as we make decisions about our schools and classrooms which affect students. Student presenters in our student voices strand must be sponsored by an educator, and presentation permission forms will need to be signed by a parent for each participating student. Individual as well as teams of student participants are welcome. Students can focus on specific projects in which they have been involved using technology as a tool, outstanding classroom lessons which have had a particularly positive impact on their learning as well as their classmates, and/or recommendations for educators seeking to use digital tools effectively in the classroom. A focus on project-based learning and service learning is welcome, but not required. Wesley Fryer is the strand convener.

Strand B: Leading the Change
Innovative approaches to teaching and learning using web 2.0 tools are often utilized by a limited number of “early adopter” teachers in our schools. This strand seeks to amplify ways educators in a variety of contexts are serving as constructive catalysts for broad-based pedagogic change using Web 2.0 technologies as well as student-centered, project-based approaches to learning. Presentations in this strand will both showcase successful strategies as well as amplify critical issues which must be addressed for innovative learning methods to be adopted by teachers, librarians, and administrators on a more widespread basis. These issues may include (but are not limited to) issues of copyright, fair use and intellectual property, Internet content filtering, student privacy and safety issues, administrator expectations for teacher utilization of Web 2.0 tools, pilot initiatives utilizing key Web 2.0 technologies in different content areas, and innovative ways students and teachers are providing just-in-time support as well as formal learning opportunities for each other focusing on Web 2.0 tools. Successful approaches for both large and small schools, in rural as well as urban settings, will be included. This strand will explore and amplify a menu of practical ideas for educators in diverse contexts who want to continue amplifying possibilities in our schools. Jose Rodriguez is the strand convener.

Week 2

Strand A: Week in the Classroom
Leveraging the power of free online tools in an open, collaborative and transparent atmosphere characterizes teaching and learning in the 21st century. Teachers and students are contributing to the growing global knowledge commons by publishing their work online. By sharing all stages of their learning students are beginning to appreciate the value of life long learning that inheres in work that is in “perpetual beta.” This strand will explore how teachers and students are tangibly bridging divides between instructors, learners, classrooms, content, and experts outside the traditional classroom. Presentations will also explore the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools (Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools in their classes. Amanda Marrinan is the strand convener.

Strand B: Kicking It Up a Notch
You’ve been using blogs, wikis and other technologies for awhile but perhaps haven’t seen them transform your classroom and the learning environment for your students in the ways you think they can. This strand amplifies ways new technologies can be used to transform classroom and personal learning. Rather than merely replicating traditional, analog-based learning tasks, how can digital technologies permit teacher-leaders to “infomate” learning to add greater interactivity, personal differentiation, and multi-modal exploration of curriculum topics? Fresh new approaches to using Web 2.0 tools for learning and authentic assessment will be highlighted. Presentations will explore innovative ways Web 2.0 tools can be blended together to help students create, collaborate, and share the knowledge safely on the global stage of the Internet. Maybe it’s time to share your insights and experiences with your teaching community. Join these sessions to gain insights on “bridging the divide” for learners in your classroom and/or your professional practice. Maria Knee is the strand convener.

REQUIREMENTS

1. Presentations must be a single media file of twenty minutes or less in length. (Only keynote sessions can exceed 20 minutes.)
2. Presentations must be submitted in a downloadable and convertible file format (mp3, mov, WMV, FLV, m4a, or m4v.) Presenters wanting to use an alternative format should contact their respective strand convener in advance.
3. Presentations are due no later than (NLT) two weeks prior to the week the relevant strand begins.
4. Presentations must be submitted only one time and on time. Early submissions are welcomed! Repeat submissions (with changes and additional edits) will not be accepted. Presenters should proof carefully before submitting!
5. All presentations will be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Optional presentation elements:

1. Prior to September 30th, presenters are invited to submit a “teaser” (maximum video or audio file length: 3 minutes) about their presentation. This can be any type of online artifact and does not have to be downloadable. Examples may include videos, animations, posters, audio interviews, etc.
2. In addition to marketing the presentation, teasers can be designed to encourage and solicit community input related to the presentation topic in advance of the presentation submission deadline.
3. View teaser examples from 2007 at http://k12online07.wikispaces.com/Teasers
4. Supplementary materials supporting presentations are welcomed. These can be wikis with supporting material links, linked examples of student projects, school district exemplary initiatives, social bookmarking collections, and/or other related content.
5. Follow-up projects and/or live interaction opportunities for conference presentations which further amplify the possibilities of the presentation topic may be included. (This can include sharing and building of content prior to, during and after the conference.)

EVALUATION AND SELECTION

As you draft your proposal, you may wish to consider the presentation topics listed below which were suggested in the comments on the K-12 Online Conference Blog:
– Special needs education
– Creative Commons, Intellectual Property, Copyright and Fair Use
– Student voices
– Community involvement
– Games in education
– Specific ideas, tips, mini lessons centered on pedagogical use of web 2.0 tools
– Overcoming institutional inertia and resistance
– Aligning Web 2.0 and other projects to national standards
– Getting your message across
– How web 2.0 can assist those with disabilities
– ePortfolios
– Classroom 2.0 activities at the elementary level
– Teacher/peer collaboration
– Authentic assessment
– Overcoming content filtering issues
– Navigating “open web” versus “closed web” publishing of student work

Prospective presenters are reminded that the audience of the K12 Online Conference is global in nature and diverse in their educational context. For this reason presentations and presentation materials which address issues from a variety of perspectives are welcomed.

EVALUATION

As in the past, co-conveners will lead a blind review committee to select presentations. Acceptance decisions will be made based on RELEVANCE, SIGNIFICANCE, ORIGINALITY, QUALITY, and CLARITY. Borrowing from the COSL 2008 call for proposals:

A submission is RELEVANT when
it directly addresses the conference and strand themes

A submission is SIGNIFICANT when
it raises and discusses issues important to improving the effectiveness and/or sustainability of 21st Century teaching and learning efforts, and
its contents can be broadly (globally) disseminated and understood

A submission is ORIGINAL when
it addresses a new problem or one that hasn’t been studied in depth,
it has a novel combination of existing research results which promise new insights, and / or
it provides a perspective on problems different from those explored before

A submission is of HIGH QUALITY when
existing literature is drawn upon, and / or
claims are supported by sufficient data, and / or
an appropriate methodology is selected and properly implemented, and / or
limitations are described honestly

A submission is CLEARLY WRITTEN when
it is organized effectively, and / or
the English is clear and unambiguous, and / or
it follows standard conventions of punctuation, mechanics, and citation, and / or
the readability is good

Please follow K12Online on Twitter and feel free to submit questions about this call for proposal via Twitter or here as comments on the conference blog.

Please share this call for proposals far and wide! 🙂

The archive of Saturday’s K12Online09 week 2 fireside chat is available!

K12Online Echo Webcasts continue, and will be posted on our K12Online Ning Events page. Archived programs are and will be available via the K12OnlineEcho EdTechTalk channel. Our first official “echo webcast” will be Tuesday, January 26th. More details will be forthcoming!

Technorati Tags:
edtechtalk, education, k12online, k12online09, technology, webcast, fireside, chat

K12Online Community:

We hope this message finds you well and looking forward to a great year of learning in 2010!

We will host our “week 2 fireside chat” for the 2009 K-12 Online Conference this coming Saturday, January 9th! The week 2 keynote speakers, Rachel Boyd and Diego Leal, will present and engage in Q&A with participants via EdTechTalk’s Ustream channel and backchannel chat. Time: January 9, 2010 from 6:30 – 8:00 pm GMT. NOTE: This is 1:30pm EST on Saturday, January 9. Please click the following link to see your local time:
http://timeanddate.com/s/1g87

Please RSVP your attendance on our Ning:
http://k12online.ning.com/events/k12online09-week-2-fireside

If you have not already, please view Rachel and Diego’s presentations in advance online:

WEEK IN THE CLASSROOM KEYNOTE
A Peek for a Week – Inside a Kiwi Junior Classroom
by Rachel Boyd
https://k12onlineconference.org/?p=553

KICKING IT UP A NOTCH KEYNOTE
BRINGing it OUT a notch
by Diego Leal
https://k12onlineconference.org/?p=488

Remember Diego’s presentation is available with full subtitles in both English and Spanish on DotSub:
http://dotsub.com/view/cea41eed-25e8-4a55-813a-766828bd736d

Also, remember to use our printable flyer to share the 2009 K-12 Online Conference presentations with your colleagues at school! All conference content from our 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 conferences remains archived online and available!
https://k12onlineconference.org/?p=461

We look forward to your continued participation in the K-12 Online Conference on our blog, ning, and our twice-monthly “K-12 Online Echo” webcasts! Upcoming K12online webcasts will be listed on our conference Ning upcoming events page:
http://k12online.ning.com/events

This will also be added as a regular show on EdTechTalk:
http://edtechtalk.com

Happy New Year!

Your K-12 Online Conference Organizers