For the first time, the K-12 Online Conference is pleased to offer free professional development credit for participants. In many cases, the professional learning which takes place online during this conference and at other times as educators share ideas via blog posts can be more helpful and practical than many “formal” professional development sessions offered at school.

This weekend, conference organizers are pleased to announce availability of the K12Online Professional Development Tracker database, which permits anyone to submit a reflection on any presentation of the 2007 conference for credit. Before creating an account on the Professional Development tracker and submitting reflections (either as copied text paragraphs or as a HYPERLINK to a blog post or other webpage on a different site) please review the K12Online07 “Expectations for Professional Development and Graduate Credit” wikipage, the Professional Development wikipage, and the PD Rubrics wikipage. Several school leaders have already added their school information to the “Schools Granting Credit for K-12 Online Conference Participation” wikipage, and we expect many more in the weeks to come.

A variety of different examples of professional development examples following the rubric created by the K12Online07 PD committee have already been entered into the Professional Development Tracker database. Feel free to browse those submissions and get ideas for your own reflections. Participants are encouraged to use a variety of digital tools and media communication modalities to post and share reflections. The key is using this online learning opportunity (the K-12 Online Conference) as a catalyst for your own continuing improvement as a professional educator.

Many thanks to Texas educator Jamey Osborne, who has developed (and is continuing to improve) this robust online database portal, as well as San Antonio ISD for providing free hosting for the Professional Development Tracker database. Many thanks also go out to the K12Online07 Professional Development Committee, including:

Chair- Terry Freedman (http://www.ictineducation.org/)
Member- Jim Lerman (http://tinyurl.com/l5xst and http://tinyurl.com/zp4ee)
Member- Miguel Guhlin (http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/)
Member- Cindy Lane (http://www.login2lane.blogspot.com/)
Willing to Help: Scott Mcleod (http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/), Derek Baird (http://www.debaird.net/), Brian Grenier (http://bumpontheblog.etowns.net/)

These volunteers are listed along with other 2007 committee members on the “about page” of the 2007 K-12 Online Conference website.

After reviewing the conference credit wiki, please create a new account for yourself on the K12Online Professional Development Tracker database and start submitting reflections.

It is important to realize all submissions to the database are publicly viewable. Some features of the database are still under development, including the ability to print a participation certificate for each session for which a participant submits a reflection. These revisions to the database will continue during upcoming weeks. If you have feedback or comments on the K12Online Professional Development Tracker database, please leave them here as comments.

Conference organizers and PD committee members are enthused to offer this new framework for professional development credit recognizing the work and learning which results from K12Online participation. We hope to model “best practices” for professional development, and value both your participation and input in this process.

Please note that as in 2006, graduate credit for participation in the K-12 Online Conference is again available via Plymouth State University. Check out the grad credit page on our credit wiki for more details!

There are many ways to measure the “success” of an educational conference. Personally, I usually measure success by the quantity and quality of learning points I take away from a conference, as well as the personal connections I make with others. In the case of the K-12 Online Conference, organizers hope each participant as well as presenter experiences a variety of “success measures” both during and following the two weeks of the main conference.

Although not completely descriptive of “success” as measured in personal ways, the number of people participating in the conference is important and reflects a growing awareness about K12Online07 in a variety of educational circles. The following screenshots were captured at the end of the day on Friday, October 19th, and reflect participation after the first week of the conference.

The K-12 Online Conference’s ClustrMap was given a free upgrade by ClustrMaps, and as a result now reflects participation levels by continent. The following shows hits to the main conference website by IP address and global location, indicating 63,281 visits since mid-September 2007:

To put this into perspective, based on server statistical analysis for the 2006 K-12 Online Conference, organizers estimate over 54,000 people participated in all. The conference website ClustrMap on Day 1 of the 2007 Conference (October 15, 2007) showed 44,056 prior visitors:

Based strictly on user IP addresses accessing the conference website, therefore, it appears 19,225 NEW site hits to the conference website took place in week1. It is important to remember these VISITS do not represent “hits,” but rather visits based on unique IP addresses to the conference website. There are large numbers of blog spambots as well as webcrawlers which are likely included in the total visits statistic (66,281) for the conference website. It seems unlikely, however, that almost 20,000 new spambots visited the site during week 1 of the 2007 conference, however.

A reasonable conclusion? Lots of educators around the world are participating in K12Online 2007!

The upgraded ClustrMap for the conference now permits visitors to click on individual continents or regions to see how many visitors from that area were recorded in the current measured time period. Between September 16, 2007 and October 19, 2007, these maps show:

2,185 visits from computers in Europe:

709 visits from South America:

2,894 visits from Asia:

898 visits from Africa:

5,464 visits from Oceania:

52,609 visits from North America:

Technorati charts of blog posts with the tag “k12online07” (the official “anchor tag” of the 2007 K-12 Online Conference) also show increasing numbers of posts during October:

These statistics indicate high levels of participation in the 2007 K-12 Online Conference, but it’s not necessary to view maps and charts to know participation in the conference is very active this year! The web feed for conference blog comments reflects LOTS of conversations around the week 1 presentations!

K12Online07 continues tomorrow on October 22, 2007, with week 2 of conference presentations. Join the continuing conversations on the conference blog, and share K12Online with other educators with whom you work and socially network!

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

1. New Tools: “Learn to Blog : Blog to Learn”

2. New Tools: “Collaborative Concept Mapping – Breaking the Bounds of Location and Time… for $0.00 per Seat”

3. Classroom 2.0: “Design Matters”

4. Classroom 2.0: “If All My Classes Did This”