Tips from your TIS

Starting next week I will be offering a salary credit class (1 full credit will be earned through this class) based on the K12 Online Conference, a virtual conference with presenters from across the world.  The class will meet 3 times from 4-6.  The other sessions will be on your own with participation in a Moodle discussion forum.  Finally, participants will create their own virtual “presentation” in response to or inspired by one of the sessions that they watched.  These presentations will then be posted to NotK12OnlineConference.org to be viewed by others.  I will be available to help with the technical side of the presentations as well as working on generating ideas for them.  The idea behind the class is to engage in the greater conversation about education and look outside Parkway for teaching strategies and instructional practices.  Many of the sessions will focus on using technology in the classroom but they are not limited to that.

This class is not in PEERS yet but will be soon. If you or someone you know is interested in participating, please send me an email and I will let you know as soon as it is posted.

Session Dates:
Session 1 – Oct. 29th, 4-6 at River Bend
Session 2 – Nov. 4th, 4-6 at River Bend
Session 3 – Nov. 11th, 4-6 at River Bend

Here is the class description from PEERS.

This class will be based around the K12 Online Conference that has been held during the month of October of 2006 and 2007 and now again in 2008. We will be using the website http://k12onlineconference.org/ as a basis for the content of the class. The K12 Online Conference is an online offering of presentations created by educators and centered around new applications and new technologies. It’s a way to address both teachers’ needs as well as the opportunity to connect to an online network of professionals that can be drawn upon for future professional development activities.

There will be three face-to-face sessions of this class. In between each of these sessions, participants will be expected to engage two sessions from the conference, for a minimum of 6 face-to-face hours and six online conference hours.

Each participant will write reflection and keep a log of the sessions attended. The final face-to-face session will be a facilitated discussion about what was learned, the benefits of the conference, and the next steps for those involved in terms of taking their learning back into their classrooms. Additionally, participants will create their own digital presentation in response to or sparked from one they saw on the K12 Online Conference. These presentations will be submitted to the NotK12OnlineConference (http://notk12onlineconference.org) for use by others.

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2008 conference theme is “Amplifying Possibilities”. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 13, 2008. The following two weeks, October 20-24 and October 27-31, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations. More information about podcast channels and conference web feeds is available!

In July of 2007, Jane Hart, head of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technology, asked experts about their top 10 productivity and teaching tools. You can look at the 2007 list as well as contribute to the 2008 Tool List at the following web site.

http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/top100.html

The e-Learning for Educators: Missouri Project is part of an eight-state
online professional development project scheduled as a five-year effort.
The program is funded by a U.S. Department of Education Ready to Teach
grant. e-Learning for Educators is a program for developing and
delivering high quality online professional development designed to
increase teacher knowledge and skills to improve student performance.
Experienced Missouri educators facilitate online professional
development courses for teachers. Future plans include creating
additional online courses geared specifically to the needs of Missouri
teachers. Collaborators leading the effort include the Missouri
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), KETC/Channel 9
(PBS in St. Louis), Missouri State University and the University of
Missouri (eMINTS National Center).

Registration for Fall courses is now open. Discounts are available for
groups of 3 or more teachers taking the same course. Fifty partial
scholarships (paying one-half of the $125 registration fee) are now
available on a first-come, first-served basis. Graduate credit is
available at the low cost of $100 per credit. See
http://www.elearningmo.org/ for details.

Make sure that teachers you are in contact with are aware of this super
opportunity.