K12 Online Conference: Learn, Share, and Remix

The K-12 Online Conferences always have an abundance of information and great presentations.  This year's looks like no exception.  The topic is Learn, Share, and Remix . It runs from October 22 - November 2nd.
Here's the schedule.  View the teasers here.

Enjoy now and the recorded sessions and links later.  See former posts about the K-12 Online Conference and more here.

First Annual Open Education Week March 5-10

The first annual Open Education week will be held March 5-10 online and at various locations around the world.  It “is about sharing, reducing barriers and increasing access in education.  It includes free and open access to platforms, tools and resources in education (such as learning materials, course materials, videos of lectures, assessment tools, research, study groups, textbooks, etc.)” (About Open Education).  There will be more than 40 online webinars related to the topic of open education.  Check out the schedule and links to webinars here.  Follow the hashtag #openeducationwk.  

You can explore the site prior to the conference.  Read the welcome post.  Find out FAQs about Open Education, discover resources, and explore participating organizations.  They represent some amazing possibilities! Check out current projects.  Wikiwjs is an Example of a National Strategy on OER.  It is an example showing how the Dutch have been sharing from primary school to universities.  Here’s an interestng  link to OER K-12 BillPasses in U.S. Washington State.

Check out two of the featured presentations:  David Wiley in his TEDx NYED video and Cathy Casserly CEO of Creative Commons.  It’s interesting stuff!

As a side note, I discovered this through +Jason Neiffer of Montana Digital Academy at a time I was questioning the relevance of Google +, Twitter, etc in education.  I’ll keep at it.  Thanks Jason, and thanks for the follow!  It looks like Jason will be in a panel discussion with OER in K-12 Thurs, March 8 9 am Central.  It’s a bit early morning for me; the good news is that it sounds like the webinars will be made available after the sessions are over.

...Connect... Collect... Create... Share...

Quick Byte: K-12 Online Conference Nov 21-Dec 9

This year, the K-12 Online Conference promises to be good.  I predict this year will be interesting and informative and will strike up some good conversations and maybe even debate. The theme, Purposeful Play, relates to my gaming post series (See part 1 and part 2).   

It will start on Monday, Nov. 21 with a pre-conference keynote by  Angela Maiers.   Angela blogs at www.angelamaiers.com.  All of the presenters that week will be worth checking out:

• Chris Craft, in Sandbox Play. Chris blogs on “Crucial Thought.”
• George Couros, in Team Captains. George blogs on “The Principal of Change.”
• Carol Broos, in Level Up. Carol blogs on “Be a Techie.”
• Jim Groom, in Story Time. Jim blogs on “bavatuesdays.”

The rest of the conference will occur week 1 November 29th - December 2nd,  and week 2 December 5^th-9^th, 2011.  The complete schedule of presenters can be accessed here.  The Twitter hashtag is #k12online.

I have a special place in my heart for the K-12 Online Conference.  It is when I first began to realize all of the free quality professional development opportunities that are out there.  It opened my eyes to the many online choices we have to either quietly observe or actively participate at our own comfort level.  One of my first blog posts was done last year on the K-12 2010 Online Conference and was followed up by some of my favorites.   You can view them by clicking here and scrolling through them. 

No worries; if you miss the conference, it will be accessible on their wiki.  Plus, we will highlight some of our favorites in an upcoming post. 

Quick Byte: The Global Education 2011 Conference Nov. 14-18

I continue to be intrigued by the number and quality of online free virtual conferences.  The Global Education 2011 Conference Nov. 14-18 looks promising!  Watch this trailer video here.  The keynote presenters include Howard Gardner, Ed Gragert (Executive Director of iEarn USA), Alan November of November Learning and others.  Here’s a complete list of keynote speakers and their bios.

The conference mission statement begins as follows: “The Global Education Conference is a collaborative, world-wide community initiative involving students, educators, and organizations at all levels. It is designed to significantly increase opportunities for building education-related connections around the globe while supporting cultural awareness and recognition of diversity. “ Read more of the mission here. It sounds promising for educators K-20 and perfect for those of us involved in my field of ESOL/Bilingual Education.

Here’s the link to the sessions and schedule.  It will be held on Blackboard Collaborate.  The conference hashtag is #GlobalEd11.

This is another conference founded by Steve Hargadon.  Explore the Global Education site to discover more opportunities.

Happy learning!

Quick Byte: Library 2.011 World-Wide Conference Nov. 2-4

Professional development conferences play a large role in my life.  What’s not to love about intellectual sharing, healthy questioning of norms and looking into the future of one’s field?  It’s hard if not impossible to walk away without a mind whirling full of ideas and possibilities.

Due to costs and logistics, it’s not always possible to attend conferences.  Fortunately, there are increasingly more quality, free online opportunities to stay current.  The Library 2.011 World-wide Virtual Conference seems to be one of these!  It was held Nov 2-4.  You can find out more info here at Library 2.0 the future of libraries in the digital age. Watch recordings of the sessions here.  The conference Twitter hashtag is #lib2011.

As a side note, with these free online conference possibilities, I find myself stepping a bit beyond my profession and gaining a broader view of education and our future by attending.  Although I am not a librarian, the topics of this conference seem applicable to all of education.  We have addressed some of these ideas within this blog such as in the post, What’s a Book?  Is This a Book?  I also learn a lot from following and interacting with librarians in twitter and on Google+.  What a better way to learn and support this amazing group of people than by attending?

Stay tuned for an upcoming post highlighting The Future of Education, Classroom 2.0 and Steve Hargadon, the creator of Library 2.0 Ning Network.

Happy attending!
*This post was updated after the conference concluded.

2010 K-12 Online Conference Links

The 2010 K-12 Online Conference ended with the closing keynote by David Warlick. The webinars are accessible and can be viewed at anytime here.

Since I have used VoiceThread multiple times in my classes, I was drawn to Chrissy Hellyer's below presentation Record, Reflect, and Share: Using VoiceThread as a Digital Portfolio. She gives some practical tips, discusses how it can be used for student led conferences, and provides student examples.

Additional resources related to Chrissy Hellyer's presentation are located on this link.

I also enjoyed watching middle school student Nicolas Gutkowski's presentation about his 5th grade wiki called Learning On My Own.

These webinars and many others are accessible on the 2010 k-12 Online Conference schedule page.

Happy viewing!

Related posts:
Two Ongoing Online Conferences
Classroom 2.0 Professional Development Site
Ted Talks Worth the Time

Understanding Creative Commons

Copyright. Does the word conjure feelings of warmth and happiness? Here's an informative presentation from the K-12 Online Conference by Rod Lucier entitled Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know. Perhaps watching it won't leave you with the warm fuzzies, but hopefully you will walk away with an overview of Creative Commons and copyright.



This video inspired us to create a creative commons license for When Tech Met Ed.

There are more informative and applicable videos like this in the K-12 online conference that is currently underway. Here is the schedule. Links to presentations from week one are already accessible.


Happy viewing!

Two Ongoing Online Conferences

Although I highly recommend joining professional organizations, such as TESOL, there are many free online conferences and webinars available.  Here are two suggestions to get you started.

Join the K12 Online Conference site, the free "conference that never ends."  It has a similar appearance to classroom 2.0, highlighted in a previous post.  The K-12 Online 2010 conference will begin Monday, Oct 11 and continue for two weeks.  There will be a wide variety of presentations from around the world.  The conference can be accessed on the conference blog and the conference ning.  Watch video teasers!

Keep your eyes open for free webinars from Pearson Longman if you are interested in topics that are specific to ESOL.  Here are some of their upcoming webinars with open registration.  Topics include vocabulary acquisition and authentic reading experiences.

Feel free to share if you have any favorite sites that offer free webinars or online conferences.

Happy learning!

Classroom 2.0 Professional Development Site

Classroom 2.0 is a must explore site!  I recommend signing up for it.  If you don't wish to, at least browse this ning site created by Steve Hargadon.  I recently joined it and am still exploring everything it has to offer.  Here's an overview of some of the aspects I like.

Webinars:  This is my favorite aspect.  The site offers free live webinars delivered via Elluminate.  (If you register for the site, the weekly schedule gets delivered to your email.)  If you can't participate in a live webinar, you can watch a recorded version at your leisure in Archives and Resources.  I particularly like this section because it contains a list of links mentioned during the presentation.  The webinars I have listened to so far have all been top-notch.

They currently have a Featured Teachers series that I have been enjoying.  I recently listened to featured teacher, Zoe Branigan, and particularly enjoyed her discussion of the need to make technology available to ELLs in relationship to social justice.  She looks at both sides of the coin of tech use in the classroom and demonstrates many coooperative applications of it. (These recorded webinars are available for free on itunes as well.)

Groups:  You can join a special interest group, post questions and participate, or browse discussions.  There are many topics available. You could even create your own group.  ESL and Technology is a group that I recently joined.