K12 Online PD Committee – A note from the Chair
Terry Freedman gives us a glimpse behind the scenes”¦

If you’re reading this, then obviously you have heard of the K12 Online Conference. Perhaps you have even “attended” some or all of the sessions. And maybe, just maybe, you took advantage of the self-reflection rubric. You may even be on your way to gaining some credit, if your school district has “signed up”.

As you can imagine, that “simple” rubric involved a great deal of effort. Bearing in mind that the Professional Development Committee and those willing to help were all over the place, geographically speaking, it’s a minor miracle in itself that we actually managed to meet online on a regular basis.

What is quite tragic, in a humorous sort of way, is that despite the fact that all of us have goodness knows how many degrees between us, working out the time in different time zones was quite a challenge! But we got through, by and large, without a hitch.

What I enjoyed the most about Chairing the committee was being able to be in the presence of, and bounce ideas off, so many great thinkers.

Now, before you mutter to yourself that I must be overstating the case, please bear in mind that I am a Brit, and we Brits don’t like to overstate anything. An excellent example of what has become known as “typical English understatement” was a scene in a film made in the 1950s (I forget the name), in which the Foreign Secretary has just been informed that the Soviets have launched nuclear missiles at Great Britain. Completely unruffled, he picks up the phone and says, “Ah, Prime Minister. There’s something I think you ought to know.”

So, for their insights, commitment, and incredible fund of knowledge and skills, I should like to thank the following members of the PD Committee:

* Jim Lerman – lermanj [at] gmail [dot] com
* Miguel Guhlin – mguhlin [at] gmail [dot] com
* Cindy Lane – lane.cindy [at] gmail [dot] com

Assisting Volunteers:

* Scott Mcleod – mcleod [at] iastate [dot] edu
* Derek Baird – baird [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com
* Brian Grenier – brgrenie [at] episd [dot] org
* Jeff Utech – thinkingstick [at] gmail [dot] com
* And last, but certainly not least, Jamey Osborne, who created the Reflections database.

Also, of course, I should like to thank Wes Fryer for inviting me to chair the committee, Shery Nussbaum-Beach for recommending me.

I hope I shall have the opportunity of working with these fine people again, in the not-too-distant future.

In the meantime, please do make use of the rubric and tweak it to your heart’s content.

We would like to publicly thank the K12Online Public Relations Committee for your dedication to the betterment of education in our increasingly digital world. Through a myriad of networks you were able to promote one of the most successful conferences education has ever seen.  On a GLOBAL scale.  This is no small accomplishment.  Your expertise in a variety of tools and ability to network has benefited far more than we could have realized.  So on behalf of the K12 Online conveners and the tens of thousands of educators and learners we, the PR team co-chairs, would like to thank you. 

Carolyn Foote  & Brian C. Smith
Co-Chairs, K12 Online Public Relations Committee

I would like to give a special thanks to the members who served on the Accessibility committee for the 2007 K12 Online Conference, Kaj Rietberg, Karen Janowski and Dr. James Stanger.

Kaj spent many hours working on translation tools and taking an active role in editing the final wiki. Karen got things rolling with a collaborative Google doc and document layout not to mention the many tools and tips for assistive technology. James Stanger shared his expertise in website development and resources for making educated decisions when developing online content. He also is the major contributor for the podcast series we are starting to discuss major hurdles and how to begin using the tools.

Thanks to all the committee members for their support, useful suggestions and willingness to provide information about overcoming accessibility obstacles in this year’s conference as well as the commitment to continue developing this online resource for next year’s event.

Thank you to Jeff Flynn for reviewing the data and suggesting additional resources. My thanks also go to Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Darren Kuropatwa, Wesley Fryer and Lani Ritter Hall for support and for their warm encouragement. It was without a doubt a team effort.

Lee Baber
Accessibility Committee Chair

The following is also shared on the K-12 Online Ning as a forum post, but I’m republishing it here so it’s archived as part of our conference blog.

The 2007 K-12 Online Conference has officially ended, but the learning continues year-round! What a terrific conference we had this year! The statistics on accesses of the main conference website/blog from around the world (via ClustrMaps) absolutely astound me!

The conference blog ClustrMap for the entire world shows that in the month leading up to and including the two weeks of the actual conference, 83,064 different computer IP addresses accessed the website!

ClustrMaps tracks the location of different IP addresses accessing a site, so each one of these access numbers does not necessarily correspond to a different person. Some of these hits are likely spambots, but most of them are likely people! The ClustrMap after day 1 (October 15, 2007) of the regular conference showed 44,056 site visits since September 16th:

Clearly we had a lot of people visiting the K-12 Online Conference website before the actual presentations got underway, and approximately an equal number of NEW visitors to the site once things got started! Last year for the 2006 conference (our initial year) we estimated that 54,000 people participated. That figure was based on an analysis of file downloads from the hosting webserver at the College of William and Mary. We will conduct a similar analysis this year. Based on these formative ClustrMap results, however, it appears safe to say that conference participation was WAY up in 2007!

Breaking down conference participation by continent, we see that participation was heaviest in North America but also distributed around the world on every continent except Antarctica!

The K-12 Online Conference is the largest and most international education event in which I’ve ever participated! It is exciting to see that more people learned about and were able to find the conference online this year. Hopefully the conversations and sharing that will take place in the K12Online Ning and elsewhere in the blogosphere will continue to benefit learners around the world and tangibly bridge the gaps of time and space with separate us as educators.

The “Fireside Chats” and “When Night Falls“ for K12 Online 2007 bring together so many folks from around the globe. A primary goal of the conference was to provide opportunities to connect and hold meaningful conversations around engaged teaching and learning and these “Live Events” became important vehicles in which to do just that.

They would not have occurred without the diligent, hard and creative work of the Live Events Committee. It is so difficult to express how much we appreciate all the energies and time they have put in to make the “live events” possible. The planning, the behind the scenes emails and the wiki building were indeed a group effort. Thank you! The “When Night Falls Flickr Group”, which was Mark’s inspiration, took When Night Falls to the next level; the community loved it! To Vinnie, for your leadership, it wouldn’t have happened without you.

A huge thank you goes to this committee:

Chair- Vinnie Vrotny (http://vvrotny.edublogs.org/)

Member- Darren Draper (http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/)

Member- Mark Ahlness (http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/mahlness/index.htm)

Member- Rachel Murphy (http://www.ablazeclassrooms.org/blogging.htm)

Willing to help:

Paul Harrington (http://ddraig-goch.blogspot.com/)

Susan Van Gelder (http://susanvg.blogspot.com/)

Joyce Valenza (http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/jvweb.html)

Thank you!!

UPDATE: WE HAVE MET AN UNFORESEEN OBSTACLE WHICH WE ARE CURRENTLY TRYING TO TURN TO AN OPPORTUNITY. The current links are not available. Please use this link .

When Night Falls begins on 12:00 AM Saturday, October 27 GMT. To see what time this begins in your time zone, click here.

As night falls across the planet, educators across the globe are encouraged to participate in the K12 Online culminating event, When Night Falls. This event will be a 24 hour opportunity for participants in the 2007 K12 Online conference to share a virtual coffee break (in an Elluminate room), to reflect and connect with friends, both old and new, about their experiences at K12 Online 2007. It’s also a time to give feedback on this year’s conference as we begin to plan for next year.

Join us for engaging, meaningful conversation and fun in “When Night Falls“!

Before joining the session, please take time to complete the conference evaluation at this link.

To join the conversations and fun in “When Night Falls“ click on this link.

Do you have a photo of your community at twilight, or as the sun is going down?
Please consider joining the When Night Falls Flickr Group and sharing it with the world. Directions for joining the group and adding your photos can be found here. See the current set of When Night Falls photos here or Here. Be sure to add yours!

Image courtesy of James Jordan (http://flickr.com/photos /jamesjordan/115627088/in/set -72157601323284300/)

These presentations have been published today! Direct links to the presentation are provided.

1. Professional Learning Networks: “EdTechTalk: A Network of Homegrown Webcasters”

2. Obstacles to Opportunities: “Starting From Scratch: Framing Change for All Stakeholders”

3. Obstacles to Opportunities: “Creating a Paradigm Shift in Technology”

4. Professional Learning Networks: “Online Professional Development”