The K12 Online 2008 conference closed with a 24 hour long conversation that spanned the globe. As night fell across the planet people came together to reminise and share their memories and takeaways from this year’s conference.
Nightfall by flickr user James Jordan
We gathered in Elluminate and the conversation was moderated by volunteers. The full details are on our When Night Falls wiki. A special Thank You goes out to all our volunteer moderators! Officially, there may have been a few “holes” in the schedule but when the time came someone always stepped up to keep things going.
We captured the whiteboards where people were sharing all sorts of things during the 24 hours. They are embeded below. Please add to the comments on each slide over on SlideShare and help those who were or weren’t in your hour of When Night Falls by adding some colour commentary to what is displayed on each whiteboard. (There were a few brilliant uses of Wordle made during When Night Falls!) Some of the feedback we’ve received can be found here, feel free to add to it: Bouquets, Brickbats, and Suggestions for next year.
And one more thing … remember notK12 Online 2008 is still accepting submissions through 16 November 2008.
Bio: Dennis is a former English teacher and administrator in urban and suburban schools for many years. Dennis has always gravitated toward K12 leadership, learning and technology topics. He has graduate degrees from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English and Harvard University’s School of Education. In addition to blogging about K12 learning, leading and web 2.0 tools/pedagogies at innovation3.edublogs.org, he is president of the Massachusetts affiliate of ASCD, a member of the Leadership Council for ASCD; a member of the Massachusetts Working Group for Educator Quality; Co-Facilitator of the Massachusetts High School Redesign Task Force; and a member of Massachusetts STEM Summit V Planning Committee. Bio Page: http://k12online08presenters.wikispaces.com/Dennis+Richards
Bio: Charlene is the Technology Training and Integration Manager at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, in Lincolnshire, IL. She is an Apple Distinguished Educator (class of 2003), an ISTE Outstanding Leader (2007), a STAR Discovery Educator and a Google Certified Teacher. She thinks of herself as a “connector” — always working to connect people with ideas and tools in support of education. Charlene believes in promoting ubiquitous technology in education — “it’s not about the technology,” it’s about finding ways to harness the power of technology to help students learn, and be productive citizens in an ever-changing global society.” Bio Page: http://k12online08presenters.wikispaces.com/Charlene+Chausis
Presentation Title: There’s Something Going on Here You Need to Know About… Description: In July 2007 a superintendent had his first introduction to the Internet world where collaborating, contributing and creating are the norm. Later that year, in SecondLife, the superintendent met the International Society for Technology in Education’s 2007 Technology Leader of the Year, who has mentored him, as the need arose, during a year and a half of his self-directed learning.
The superintendent has learned much about the people, platforms, and the pedagogy of this online world with help from people like the mentor who live all over the world and who accepted his invitation to become part of the online network of educators he has developed and nurtured since 2007. What are Ustream, Twitter, YouTube, Elluminate, Diigo, Mind42, Jing, SecondLife, Google Docs, and TED? What do they have to with learning? Our capacity to learn? to share? to invent? Come join the conversation as the superintendent, Dennis Richards, and the mentor, Charlene Chausis, “tell you three stories on the way to one argument.”
Bio: Bud Hunt is an instructional technologist for the St. Vrain Valley School District in northern Colorado. Formerly, he taught high school language arts and journalism at Olde Columbine High School in Longmont, Colorado. He is a teacher-consultant with the Colorado State University Writing Project, and has written on educational issues for a variety of publications. A consumer of copious amounts of new media, Bud blogs and podcasts at www.budtheteacher.com. Bio Page:http://k12online08presenters.wikispaces.com/Bud+Hunt
Presentation Title: The Lie of Community: The True Nature of the Network Description: The emergence of online, networked communities of practice is valuable and precious – but it is easy to be misled about what these actually are. They are not communities, in the traditional sense. There is no set membership. Norms and values grow and change in response to our changing understandings and participatory acts. We all see different things and exist in different conversations. Texts are repurposed. We choose whom we read and follow and respond to. In this edited collection of multiple conversations about these issues, the presenter and his guests will share some theory, stories, and ideas about what it means to exist, teach, create and learn in a community of communities, a true personal learning network.
Presentation
DotSub video links are not available for audio-only presentations.
Bio: Mathew Needleman, Apple Distinguished Educator, has been integrating video in the classroom for seven years as a teacher of kindergarten, first, and second grade. He has specialized in working with English Language Learners and mainstreamed special education students in low-income schools. Mathew’s classroom movies have won numerous awards and he maintains an independent film career. Mathew has provided professional development for Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Antioch University and at national and local educational conferences.
Presentation Description: Make better classroom movies with simple tips that will help elevate your vodcast to the next level in terms of artistic and technical merit. Learn how to storyboard like a pro, choose shots that support the telling of your story, and capture better lighting and sound. Regain lost opportunities to teach media literacy and higher level thinking via video production by empowering yourself to empower your students. Tap into over one hundred years of movie history with this engaging presentation that instructs as it entertains.
Bio:Matt and Lorna met each other ‘virtually’ through their mutual interests in new ways to consider parental involvement and through their participation in the Webcast Academy’s class of 2.4. Lorna and Matt are members of the Parents as Partners bi-monthly webcast over at Edtechtalk.com.
Presentation Description: New ways of looking at relationships with parents will help parents support their children, their child’s teacher and their child’s school. The next generation of parents are and will continue to be computer literate. Electronic communications will be one of the ways that schools and teachers effectively communicate with families in the 21st century. By engaging parents using new mediums, schools can help develop a broad base of parental knowledge regarding social media tools. parents that are more informated and have a better understanding of social media technologoes will be better prepared to help their children successed and excel in the information age.
Bio: Michèle Wong Kung Fong recently graduated with a Master’s in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University. She is now an assistant professor in Communication Design at the University of North Texas. In her research, Michèle investigates the intersection of design, technology and education. Her latest project addressed remote and synchronous peer-to-peer tutoring. She designed conditions for an interactive interface that supports the learning preferences of a middle-school concrete learner being mentored by a college student mentor. Michèle’s interface builds on existing research in learning, cognition, activity theory and social networking as it sets up conditions for more meaningful learning. Michèle intends to pursue her research in distance education and communication and has an interest in not only discourse about but actions towards the future of design education.
Presentation Description:This presentation addresses the intersection of design, education and tecnology. It investigates the design of remote mentoring interfaces. It questions ways in which the design of interactive tools can support the remote and synchronous mentoring of a middle school learner by a college student through concrete representation of abstract concepts. It looks at ways in which the design of interactive educational tools can be informed by learning styles and preferences for more more meaningful learning experiences. While this presentation focuses on specific variables such as concrete middle school learners, peer to peer mentoring and science as the subject being mentored, it shows the potential for strategies to be transferred to other educational contexts. The presentation will include demonstrations of ways in which interactivity can promote meaningful learning at the different stages of the learning process as well as ways in which characteristics of social networking portals can be appropriated for remote mentoring purposes.
Bio: Wendy Drexler is a Florida high school teacher and instructional technologist. She holds an Ed.S in Educational Technology and is working on a Ph.D at the University of Florida. Previous student projects include “Kids Galore Helping Kids in Darfur” and “Many Voices for Darfur”. She is a Florida Master Digital Educator, NAIS Teacher of the Future, and Powerful Learning Practice Fellow.
Presentation Title: Teaching Web 2.0 – Everything you need in one place Description: The Teach Web 2.0 Wiki is a repository of emerging web applications with educational potential. Tools are reviewed for their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential threats. Resources and teacher examples are also posted. The wiki is only as valuable as the content posted by contributors. The more who participate, the more valuable it becomes. Participants will:
Visit the Teach Web 2.0 Wiki and explore web 2.0 applications with educational potential
Learn how to contribute content to the wiki
Consider starting a Teach Web 2.0 Consortium at their school
Bio: Ann Oro has been teaching students in Kindergarten through 8th grade at a private school in New Jersey since 2002. Ann teaches her students to use the computer as a personal, collaborative tool and encourages students to reflect on and analyze their work. In addition to her teaching duties, she presents an Integrating Technology in Education session at the local alternate route training center.
Anna Baralt, a 13 year educator, is an Instructional Technologist at a PK-12 independent school in St. Petersburg, FL and chair of the technology department. Her days are spent working with students in her lab and helping teachers integrate technology in their everyday curriculum. She is a 2008 NAIS Teacher of the Future and member of a PLP learning cohort.
Presentation Description: Learn how our Monster Project encourages creativity and the development of reading and writing skills while integrating technology into the classroom. Using monsters as a vehicle, students across the United States exchange written descriptions and recreate their partner’s monster without ever looking at the real thing. Teachers will discover free tools available online, connect drawing and writing tools, learn how to work with multiple files in a wiki, and equate various goals of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy with an electronic platform. Lesson plans, tips, and resources are shared.
Bio: Formerly a professional musician, Peggy Sheehy received her Master’s Degree in Ed Tech from Stony Brook University, & began her MLIS University of South Carolina at Columbia. She is currently concluding her studies in the MLS program at Southern Connecticut State University. Serving as ITF/ Media Specialist at Suffern Middle School, in 2006 she established the first school in Teen Second Life: Ramapo Islands. Ramapo Islands now hosts over 1400 students and their teachers. Bio Page:http://k12online08presenters.wikispaces.com/Peggy+Sheehy
Presentation Title: Ramapo Islands: A New Dimension in Learning Description: The team process of creating a virtual presence for your school, the development of authentic, experiential, standard-based curriculum & implementing it with students in Teen Second Life addresses the NETS for administrators, teachers & students and is an innovative approach to a collaborative and all-inclusive learning community. Focusing on the process of developing constructivist learning in the virtual world, Sheehy will present the steps her teachers are taking this 3rd year of teaching in Ramapo Islands on Teen Second life to translate their content into the virtual landscape. She will outline best practices that have evolved and the student responses to this 21st century pedagogical shift.
Bio: Scott, a graduate of Bowling Green State University (Ohio) with a B.S.
in Education, has been teaching for 15 years. A member of the English
Department at Cedar Cliff High School, Camp Hill, PA, USA, Scott
teaches Theater, American Literature, and AP Language and Composition.
Presentation Description: Backchanneling, traditionally an online discussion running alongside a
live presentation, is a way to engage all students in classroom
activities, including students who are normally non-participants.
Issues and student needs that lead me to the technique, the educational
relevance of the process, backchanneling services (including
possibilities and limitations of several), and example activities will
all be addressed in this presentation.
