Texas Bluebonnet Writing Project Blog

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Free Videos Online

I found a neat collection of free videos that are online for streaming right to your PC/Mac for many purposes. Take a look at the following topics.

  • Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for the Middle Grades- This video workshop introduces middle school teachers to ethnically diverse American writers and offers dynamic instructional strategies and resources to make works meaningful for students.
  • Teaching Reading 3-5 Workshop- This video workshop will show intermediate elementary teachers how to help their students transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Supplemental classroom programs provide further exploration of each topic.
  • Teaching Reading K-2 Workshop- This video workshop addresses critical topics in teaching reading for K-2 teachers.
  • Teaching Reading K-2: A Library of Classroom Practices- This video library shows the teaching practices of K-2 teachers across the country as they introduce their students to reading through a variety of methodologies.
  • Teaching The Children of Willesden Lane- This set of video and Web resources with curriculum guide helps middle and high school teachers teach the Holocaust-survival book The Children of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek.
  • Write in the Middle: A Workshop for Middle School Teachers- This video workshop helps middle school teachers learn effective practices and strategies for writing instruction.

Annenberg Media

These are just a very few of the listed topics. They range from administrators creating great campuses to science(tons) to math (tons) to pedagogy to many literacy-based videos. The registration is free. Don't miss out on this. There is a lot of great information provided here by Annenberg Media whose goal is:

Advancing Excellent Teaching in American Schools Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. This mandate is carried out chiefly by the funding and broad distribution of educational video programs with coordinated Web and print materials for the professional development of K-12 teachers. It is part of The Annenberg Foundation and advances the Foundation's goal of encouraging the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.Annenberg Media's multimedia resources help teachers increase theirexpertise in their fields and assist them in improving their teachingmethods. Many programs are also intended for students in the classroomand viewers at home. All Annenberg Media videos exemplify excellentteaching.

technorati tags:, , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Using Literacy for PD at Your Own Pace

“Sometimes I think my blogging is self-assigned professional development - forcing myself to take the time to think more deeply about certain ideas.”

The Fischbowl: Who's the Audience?


Have you ever thought of blogging in this way? It is what drives me in this area of the new web. As an information junkie, I am always trying to figure out a more efficient way of learning more in less time. Blogs eliminate a lot of the searching I had to do before because there are so many people doing the work for you now. I challenge you to blog for this reason if no other. While the state might say you have to get PD hours, make them useful. Remember, you can count the time you spend blogging and reading for a portion of the time. This is what Texas law reads:


Texas Administrative Code Title 19, Part 7, Chapter 232, Subchapter B
(c) Participation in interactive distance learning, video conferencing, or on-line activities or conferences.
(d)Independent study, not to exceed 20% of the required clock hours, whichmay include self-study of relevant professional materials (books,journals, periodicals, video and audio tapes, computer software, andon-line information) or authoring a published work.

Take advantage of it and gain ownership of your own learning today.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Podcasting in the Metroplex

Review the following sessions:

Concurrent Sessions - 45 minutes
* Podcasting in the ESL Classroom
* Podcasting in the Social Studies Classroom
* iPods for Professional Development
* Shuffles in the Primary Classroom
* Podcasting for the Community
* Podcasting in the Foreign Language Classroom

Hands-on Sessions - 3 hours

* Creating Podcasts on a Mac

* Creating Podcasts with Windows

Conference Registration

Are you interested?  Well, what if I told you the sessions were free and offered in the Metroplex?  Thanks to a post by Wesley Fryer via Maria Henderson, I came across this great one day conference offered by the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD.  Wouldn't it be nice to work in such a forward thinking district?   Take advantage of the opportunity while you can. 

Best of all, it is free.  Register and check out all of the details here.  Wish I could be there.

technorati tags:, , ,

Blogged with Flock

Saturday, September 23, 2006

More on Copyright

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center
Information and study aids concerning copyright law. Searchable by keyword. Provided by Stanford University Libraries.
fairuse.stanford.edu/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

Copyright - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Several exclusive rights typically attach to the holder of a copyright: ... The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright - 135k - Cached - Similar pages

Copyright Made Simple?

Media Copyright Made Simple
Dawn Vogler dvogler at tsl.state.tx.us
Fri Oct 25 22:28:48 CDT 2002

Barbara Rhodes, the Media Consultant with the Northeast Texas Library System has kindly sent along an article that she wrote on media copyright for their last newsletter. This may clarify some issues for those confused about public performance rights and licensing. Thanks Barbara! Dawn

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbara Rhodes [mailto:brhodes at netls.org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 3:29 PM
To: dvogler at tsl.state.tx.us
Subject:

Dawn-- Here is an article that I wrote for the last NETLS Newsletter. I think it will explain a lot. If you stil have questions, let me know

Barbara Rhodes
Media Consultant
Northeast Texas Library System
972.205.2573
brhodes at netls.org

Media Copyright Made Simple (?)
Copyright issues are complicated and confusing. Copyright law has become a legal specialty and the Internet has only made things more complex. How can a busy, overburdened library staff hope to keep up with all the rules? In the area of using media (i.e. videos and DVDs) for circulation as well as programming, the rules are really fairly simple. There are two types of copyright licenses with visual media that are of concern to public libraries, Public Performance Rights (PPR) and Home Use Only. Videos and DVDs that are purchased with Public Performance Rights may be used within the public library building for programming. The copyright licenses on these programs have been written with libraries and educational institutions in mind. Many of the vendors that sell educational videos/DVDs sell their products with Public Performance Rights included. Bookstores, discount stores, video retailers and book jobbers such as Ingram, Baker & Taylor and Brodart, carry videos and DVDs, but do not sell them with PPR. Several of the larger specialty media vendors such as PBS, Library Video Company, and Instructional Video Company sell both PPR and Home Use titles.
Therefore, library staff members who purchase video/DVD to use for in-house programming need to clarify with vendors that the titles they are purchasing must have PPR. It is always a good idea to ask a media vendor whether or not the material they sell comes with Public Performance Rights. If they don't understand the question, you have your answer. Vendors who sell materials with PPR are usually familiar with the restrictions and will freely give information on them. Vendors who state that their materials may be used in school settings are not necessarily talking about Public Performance Rights. The school market has its own set of copyright restrictions that do not relate to public libraries. If a vendor tells you that the material is fine for school use, be persistent and clarify that a public library is not a schoolroom. Ask to speak to a supervisor or the rights department if necessary.
Theatrically released titles have either been shown in theaters or, in some cases, been released straight to video consumer market. These DVD/videos are sold and/or rented as Home Use Only titles. Any public library that shows one of these programs in the library building, which is a public site, needs a Movie Copyright Compliance Site License (also known as an umbrella license). Showing Home Use Only videos or DVDs in the public library without such a license is a serious copyright violation and leaves the library open to prosecution. As a quick and dirty rule of thumb, if you can buy/rent the title you want at the local video store, you will probably need a special license to show it at the library. Almost all video store titles are Home Use Only. Another good rule to follow is "when in doubt, don't." The "Copyright Police" (yes, they do exist) may or may not be lurking in your neighborhood, but the penalties for copyright violation are both expensive and embarrassing.
For further information on media copyright or sources of Public Performance licensed media, contact NETLS Media Consultant Barbara Rhodes at 972.205.2573, .

NOTE: All videos in the NETLS Media Collection have Public Performance Rights. They may be used for any type of public library programming as long as admission is not charged.

Friday, September 22, 2006

A Day in the Life of the Web

If you have not already heard, today is OneWebDay.  I found it through Doc Searles' blog, here.


Powered by Qumana


Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Blogging Guidelines

Kelly emailed me this link the other day from Microsoft.  It has some common sense guidelines that should be used in blogging with students.  I thinks it is a good starting point to share with administrators and parents and even your students.  Also, consider this blog post by Ed Warkentin on his Teach 'Em How to Fish blog that was discussed within the Class Blogmeister List Serve.  It has the letter he uses with parents to start his blogging with new students.
  • Establish rules for online use with your kids and be diligent.
  • Screen what your kids plan to post before they post it. Seemingly innocuous information, such as a school mascot and town photo, could be put together to reveal where the author goes to school.
  • Ask yourself (and instruct your kids to do the same) if you are comfortable showing any of the content to a stranger. If in doubt, have them take it out.
  • Evaluate the blogging service and find out if it offers private, password-protected blogs.
  • Save the Web address of your child's blog and review it on a regular basis.
  • Check out other blogs to find positive examples for your kids to emulate.

12 safety tips on blogging for parents and kids

technorati tags:, , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

From Snort Tube to YouTube

Okay. My drug street slang isn't all that great. And excuse me if I get a little sarcastic here, but it is well-deserved. From the same "leaders" who are outlawing every bit of educational access to Web2.0 as they possibly can through legislation (A.K.A. DOPA), we now have anti-drug videos for free download... wait for it... on YouTube. Can we see the irony here? The White House says, "If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success." yet these files cannot even be accessed by most schools. If DOPA passes, there will be no free public access to these (libraries, schools, etc). Read for yourself:hey


The decision to distribute public service announcements and other videos over YouTube represents the first concerted effort by the U.S. government to influence customers of the popular service, which shows more than 100 million videos per day.The administration was expected to announce its decision later Tuesday. It said it was not paying any money to load its previously produced videos onto YouTube's service, so the program is effectively free. Already by Tuesday, thousands of YouTube users had watched some of the government's videos."If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success," said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy....President Bush's top drug-policy adviser, John Walters, said the agency was using emerging technologies to try to reach its audience. "Public institutions must adapt to meet the realities of these promising technologies," he said.

CNN.com - White House uploads anti-drug videos to YouTube - Sep 19, 2006

That last line is my favorite of the batch. "Public institutions must adapt to meet the realities of these promising technologies." Just let that sink in for a bit ... then go vote.

technorati tags:, , ,

Blogged with Flock

New BWP Blog Features

Underneath our blogroll on the right-hand side you will find a box that simply says "Enter your Email, Subscribe me!, and Powered by Feedblitz."  It is one way you can simply subscribe to our blog for updates without needing to have anything extra.  It will send you an email once a day giving you the most recent posts to our blog.  It will not show the comments (you'll have to visit the blog for those), but the posts will be there. It will give you a quick link to the post as well as the post itself all in your email box.

If you are interested in seeing where our site is being accessed from, I also placed a button that is orange and blue that says "BR Mapstats."  It should bring up a Google map of all of the hits we are receiving.  It is already working as I can see we have hits from Minnesota and my part of Texas.

Check out these new features and give me your feedback.  I want this site to be as useful and easy as possible.


technorati tags:,

Blogged with Flock

Monday, September 18, 2006

Five minutes of reading... a lifetime of action.

I wanted to reply to Dr. Hirtle's comment in another post, and the comment section will not let me use all of my embedded links. So I am going to just reply here because the links just might be of interest to you.

"Five minutes of reading might just translate into a life time of action on this topic!"

That is exactly how it started for me. I had been reading edtech magazines off and on for years. Then I went to the TCEA convention in Austin, and I was hooked. At the convention I was upset because I could not make every session that interested me. Then someone told me that there were folks blogging the event and even posting some podcasts of sessions. I happened upon Wesley Fryer's blog and the rest is history. He linked up to everyone else for me.
Dr. Bernie Dodge, Gary Stager, Miguel Guhlin, David Warlick, and on and on. These folks got me hooked after just a short time.

It started as me just trying to read about what I missed in a few sessions, and it ended up with me reading about what I had missed in years of education (thank goodness the Hyatt had high speed Internet). I am not going to cheat my students and let any opportunity to learn more slip by.

Administrators and Technology

Again, I'm pretty inpressed with Scott McLeod's words for administrator's on his Dangerlously Irrelevant blog:

Digital Kids

There are two articles for administrators! Kelly maybe you could share those in conversations with administrators in your district!

Digital Kids: Analog World

I was reading through Scott McLeod's new blog about schools
"Dangerously Irrelevant." It definitely says what I've been thinking and not saying to a broad enough national audience! We need to unite and get our voice out there in the conversation.

Our Scott Floyd is challenging us to participate in the K-12 conversation! Terrific! I'd like you to take a look at some points to ponder from McLeod's web site! I tried to copy them in but they don't seem to be copyable--it's a pdf file. Please take the time to read these: Digital Kids.

Five minutes of reading might just translate into a life time of action on this topic!

Grant for Reading Teachers

integrating technology... I know you're out there doing some fantastic things!! Apply!!!! - http://www.reading.org/association/awards/teachers_presidential.html

Grant for Reading Teachers

integrating technology... I know you're out there doing some fantastic things!! Apply!!!! - http://www.reading.org/association/awards/teachers_presidential.html

Bluebonnet 2.0

Here is the website and release for the FREE K12online conference I blogged about earlier.  Please seriously consider participating.  It would be awesome if each of us that participates would blog daily about our own experiences with the process throughout the event.   It might also encourage others to join in.  Even if we miss a day and make it up another day due to scheduling or life in general, I truly believe it would prove beneficial to the leaders of the event  (and others) to read about our thoughts and experiences. I have Bible study on two of the nights each week, so I will be blogging about trying to play catch up with the archives  the day after each missed event.  Should prove to be a good reflective piece for all of us that are a part of professional development and teacher preparation.

K-12 Online Conference 2006K-12 Online Conference 2006You can use the following as an announcement!www.k12onlineconference.orgAnnouncing the first annual “K12 Online 2006″ convention for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year’s conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3 with the theme “Unleashing the Potential.” The K12 Online 2006 blog has just gone live.On the conference blog you will also find the web form we will be using for the submission of proposals. Everyone is encouraged to submit a proposal. More details are on the conference blog: www.k12onlineconference.org. The blog will be updated regularly with everything you need to know about the conference.Tags: k12online, k12online06

k12 Online Conference » Share

technorati tags:, , , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Friday, September 15, 2006

Best Field for Classrooms

I have been building on a list for years called the Utopian School. It derived from several frustrations along the lines where the obvious, best choice was completely overlooked by those in charge. (I know you have never witnessed that in your own educational careers.)

Then along comes this post from David Warlick on his 2 Cents Worth blog. Ahhh, a new challenge and chance for inspiration from others. Why, you ask? Remember one thing. You are in control of what happens in your classroom (largely). And when the Texas legislature meets in January, it will be another chance for us to step up and have our voices heard in a profound way.

So ponder the challenge placed before you by Dave and add your own 2 cents worth to the conversation. I will let you folks get started and then chime in a few of my own as we go. Feel free to throw in some policy as well as curriculum ideas.

I guess that my concern is with a belief that teaching and learning happens in a laboratory, where factors can be controlled. Learning is messy, and the belief that it can be accomplished exclusively by scientifically tested and institutionally approved techniques is naive at best, and at worst, it is arrogant. Certainly there is an important place for research. However, as I said earlier, I believe that teaching is a calling, not a practice.



2 Cents Worth » Best Practice and Best Field (again)

New Blog for Ed Tech Administrators

Dangerously Irrelevant is a new blog from Dr. Scott McLeod, a professor from the University of Minnesota.  This is a little taste from his bio:

I believe in the transformative power of technology and its ability to empower individuals in ways that were unimaginable a mere decade ago. I believe that schools are approaching the point of dangerous irrelevance when it comes to preparing students adequately for their digital futures. The pace of change in schools is too slow and the pace of change in technology is too quick. I am a strong believer in public schools, but we need a new paradigm. My work focuses on the leadership necessary to effectuate this new, transformative paradigm.

I am sure you are wondering why I would post that here since many of us are not administrators.  Well, I have always gone about things wanting to know what my co-workers (and bosses) felt about an issue before I even broached them with a new proposal.  This is a great way to do that and have some input at the same time. And if I decide to continue on toward my doctorate, it would be in educational technology since that is where we are headed like it or not.

Dr. McLeod brings up some great points such as:

Digital kids. Analog schools.

Technology tools for data-driven teachers

Why blog as an administrator? - Part 1(5 part series)

Preparation Programs (higher ed for educational administration programs)

and more.  Join the conversation while it is new.  I have enjoyed it so far.

technorati tags:, , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

It Worked!

Now we can upload podcasts with presentations, such as a powerpoint slideshow with vocals.
Have fun.
Since it opens in another page, I don't think the actual pixel size is going to be an issue, put file size should try to stay small for those with dial-up.
Later
Cobe

This is just a Test. You've seen it before

I heard back from StartLogic, the guys who host our site and they have added the MIME type .m4v to our Hosting so that we should be able to straight upload Vodcasts without having to host them on another site, then embed them. This is me testing an upload to see if it works.
Thanks
Cobe

village_podcast_video1.m4v

Monday, September 11, 2006

Writely for Collaborative Writing

I found Writely not long ago while I was looking for a way for my students to collaborate on resolutions for Model United Nations.  This allows them to invite students from other schools to be a part of their work.  It looks like something we can use both in our classrooms as well as in our professional writing.  Create, edit, and store your document online.  Invite editors in to give advice.  This is what the Writely website has to say:

The Web Word Processor·

  • Share documents instantly & collaborate real-time.
  • Pick exactly who can access your documents.
  • Edit your documents from anywhere.
  • Nothing to download -- your browser is all you need.
  • Store your documents securely online.
  • Offsite storage plus data backup every 10 seconds.
  • Easy to use. Clean, uncluttered screens with a familiar, desktop feel.

Welcome to Writely

I hope you find this a useful tool for your students.  It is a great part of the Read/Write Web.


technorati tags:, , , , ,

Blogged with Flock

Sunday, September 10, 2006

"Why are Conversation and Collaboration Tools so Underused?"

This post on Dave Pollard's blog challenges us all to think about collaboration and communications software in the service of education.


Powered by Qumana


Janelle's Pod Cast from 9/10

Please return to this site!

Repost of Podcast

The previously posted one mysteriously disappeared. Here it is again.

Since I couldn't attend the meeting, I created a podcast as an update. Please podcast in response.

Sept_9_update.mp3

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Next BWP meeting

Our next scheduled BWP meeting is October 14, 2006, 10:00 to 12:00. Plan to pick up your copy of the BWP 2006 S.I. Anthology at that time! We have the 2nd Saturday of each month scheduled for meetings. Every other month the meetings will include continuity support for the summer institute, a requirement of the grant that covered our tuition this past summer. Please plan to attend. The winter conference will be held in February, watch for details. Our meeting on September 9th was productive and supportive. Some of the ideas for future meetings include collaborating on writing lessons and on writing samples of current students. We were able to talk with Scott via phone conference and listen to podcasts from Janelle and Cobe, our website developer. Please take the time to find and listen to their podcasts. I am heading up the grant search and application process, so if you have suggestions or recommendations please share. Thanks to Barbara for posting the resource on proposal development. We are in need of as much support with our continuity meetings as possible. If you have a few hours each month to spare please let me or Jeaninne know. Let's keep connected and support each other in our personal and professional writing growth. Be sure to check out the technology class offered that is an online , self paced format. There is no fee! The information is availble earlier on our blog in a post from Scott. Katherine

Bluebonnet Village Vodcast

Let’s see if this allows us to put Cobe's vodcasts into our blog.



Click the play button above to watch Bluebonnet Village Vodcast.
It is a large file (takes a little while to load with dial-up) and requires Quicktime (if you get an error or red X instead of the video window).

Pedagogy of Podcasting

http://jeanninetravel.blogspot.com

Pleae read about our paper and this conference on my blog.

A little Video Podcast Fun

Thought you might enjoy this.
it will take you to my website because this one doesn't support video podcast format…yet. I'm working on it.
Later
Cobe
Building the Village

Q & A

Hi Everyone!
this is pretty long.
and kinda large.
Cobe

If you have iTunes try this file first
village_podcast.m4a

if not, try this one
village_podcast.mp3

Friday, September 08, 2006

Grant Writing resources

Hi everyone,

When I was on vacation in College Station I asked my friend, Lucy Deckard, who works in Texas A&M's Office of Proposal Development to walk me through their website and some of their open-to-the-public resources on grantwriting. Their site can be reached from the TAMU.edu homepage under "research". Also see http://opd.tamu.edu/proposal-resources. (Actually, this is the address of a page on "proposal resources" from which you can access quite a lot of information on responding to proposals from National Science Foundation (NSF)). Forgive me for not making this a hot link. I'm not seeing how to do that from this browser.

Also of great help are the archived seminar powerpoints, which give a lot of info, both general and specific to certain funding sources.

These resources are kept public because of TAMU OPD's philosophy that the more people out their viewing the info they have, and writing good grant responses, the bigger the funding pie can grow.

UTA also has some similar resources available in their "Grant and Contract Services" office, which you can find from the uta.edu home page.

See you tomorrow!

Barbara Fleischman

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Reminder Meeting

I'm just reminding everyone of the BWP meeting on the 5th floor of library on Saturday the 9th at 10:00am. Kat

K12 Online Conference

There is a new conference coming up for teachers interested in Web2.0 called K12 Online 2006. This year’s theme is: “Unleashing the Potential.” It will be held virtually over a two week period - Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3. So that means you can “attend” and never leave your house, not to mention you can attend when you have time. I would highly recommend you participate. The amount of technology/literacy integration knowledge you will get from this will be astounding. Here are the links to find out more:

A Difference blog – has the strands and schedule so far.
HitchHikr by David Warlick – the command post for the event once all the details get set. Refer back to this link regularly for updates.

This is what they have so far:
K12 Online 2006
Announcing the first annual "K12 Online 2006" convention for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year's conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3 with the theme "Unleashing the Potential." A call for proposals is below.
There will be four "conference strands"-- two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday - Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two-weeks. Each presentation will be given in podcast or screencast format and released via the conference blog (URL: TBA) and archived for posterity.

THE FOUR STRANDS ARE:

Week 1
Strand A: A Week In The Classroom
These presentations will focus on the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools (Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools in their classes. They will also show how teachers plan for using these tools in the delivery of their curricular objectives.

Strand B: Basic/Advanced Training (one of each per day)
Basic training is "how to" information on tool use in an educational setting, especially for newcomers.
Advanced training is for teachers who have already started using Web 2.0 tools in their classes and are looking for: (a) advanced technology training (eg. how to write your own blog template or hack existing ones), (b) new tools they can make use of in their classes, (c) teaching ideas on how to mash tools together to create "something new," (d) a pedagogical understanding of how technologies such as Weblogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking sites, RSS feeds and others can deepen learning and increase student achievement, or (e) use of assessment tools to measure the effectiveness of Read/Write Web technologies in their personal practice and with their students.

Week 2
Strand A: Personal Professional Development
Tips, ideas and resources on how to orchestrate your own professional development online; the tools that support Professional Learning Environments (PLEs); how to create opportunities to bring these technologies to the larger school community; how to effectively incorporate the tools into your personal or professional practice; or how to create a supportive, reflective virtual professional community around school-based goals.

Strand B: Overcoming Obstacles
Tips, ideas and resources on how to deal with issues like: lack of access to tools/computers, filtering, parental/district concerns for online safety, and other IT concerns while trying to focus on best practice in the use of Web 2.0 tools.

CONVENERS & KEYNOTES
For organization purposes, each strand is overseen by a conference convener who will assist and coordinate presenters in their strand. The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote by a well known educator who has distinguished his/herself and is knowledgeable in the context of each topic. This year's conveners and keynote presenters are:

A Week In The Classroom
Convener: Darren Kuropatwa
Keynote: Bud Hunt


Bud Hunt teaches high school language arts and journalism at Olde Columbine High School in Longmont, Colorado. He is a teacher-consultant with and the Tech Liaison for the Colorado State University Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project, a group working to improve the teaching of writing in schools via regular and meaningful professional development. Bud is also the co-editor of the New Voices column of English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. A consumer of copious amounts of New Media, Bud blogs and podcasts about his practice and larger educational issues at http://www.budtheteacher.com. Basic/Advanced Training
Convener: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Keynote: TBA


Personal Professional Development
Convener: Will Richardson
Keynote: Ewan McIntosh


Ewan McIntosh is an educational technologist and teacher of French and German. Based in the Edinburgh area of Scotland he frequently works around the UK and Europe, leading student and teacher workshops and conferences. He is an experienced workshop facilitator in the area of Web 2.0 technologies in education across stages and curricular areas. Ewan blogs at http://edu.blogs.com Overcoming Obstacles
Convener: TBA
Keynote: Anne Davis


Anne is known for seeing the educational possibilities in the use of weblogs with students in classrooms, having implemented wonderful ideas and weblog projects with students and teachers in K-12 classrooms and at the university level. She currently works at Georgia State University in the Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education as an Information Systems Training Specialist. Her weblog, EduBlog Insights is a co-winner of the Best Teacher Blog in the second international Edublog Awards, a web based event that recognizes the many diverse and imaginative ways in which weblogs are being used within education. CALL FOR PROPOSALS
We'd like to invite you to submit a proposal to present at the conference. If you have something you'd like to share with the community, both people who are new to blogs and/or experienced bloggers please email the appropriate conference convener above with your ideas. The deadline to submit a proposal (just the proposal, not the finished product) is September 30, 2006. One of us will contact you to finalize the date of your presentation. Your presentation may be delivered in any web-based medium (including but not limited to...podcasts, PowerPoint files, blogs, websites, wikis, screencasts, etc.) and must be emailed to your assigned conference convener one week before it goes live, (see above strands) so that it can be uploaded to the server.

The conference organizers are:
Darren Kuropatwa


Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice and for "child safe" blogging practices. He has more than 20 years experience in both formal and informal education and 13 years experience in team building and leadership training. Darren has been facilitating workshops for educators in groups of 4 to 300 for the last 10 years. Darren's professional blog is called A Difference (http://adifference.blogspot.com). Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach


Sheryl is a technology/education consultant for the National Education Association (NEA), the Center for Teaching Quality, SRI International, the Virginia Community College System, the Virginia Department of Education, the Miami-Dade Public Schools, the Alabama Best Practices Center and adjunct instructor in the School of Education at The College of William and Mary. She has had several journal articles and book chapters published, been featured on public broadcasting television and radio shows, and is a regular presenter at local, state, and national conferences speaking on topics of homelessness, teacher leadership, virtual community building, and 21st Century learning initiatives. Sheryl blogs at 21st Century Collaborative (http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/). Will Richardson


Will Richardson is known internationally for his work with educators and students to understand and implement instructional technologies and, more specifically, the tools of the Read/Write Web into their schools, classrooms and communities. A public school educator for 22 years, WillÂ’s own Weblog (Weblogg-ed.com) is a primary resource for the creation and implementation of Weblog technologies on the K-12 level and is a leading voice for school reform in the context of the fundamental changes these new technologies are bringing to all aspects of life. Will is the critically acclaimed authour of the best-selling book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms (March 2006, Corwin Press). Conference Tags: k12online, K12online06

Please duplicate this post and distribute it far and wide across the blogosphere. Feel free to republish it on your own blog (actually, we'd really like people to do that ;-) ) or link back to this post (published simultaneously on all our blogs).



You can read other blogs about the topic by going to Technorati and searching for:
Technorati Tags: