K12 Online Conference 2010: Spread the Word!

K12 Online Conference 2010

It is great to witness the process of blossoming of online conferences and join the conversation with educators around the world about bringing change to the current ways of teaching and learning.

IT4ALL is just about that too! We will hold a Connecting Online conference in 2011.

The themes for CO11 (February 4-6, 2011) presentations are:

1. Connecting Online to Improve Instruction and Learning: Online Learning and Instructional Experience
2. Experiences with technology in face-to-face and online classes. What worked and what didn’t work for you?
3. How do you use technology to promote and sustain your online workshops, consultation, and communities of practice and learning?
4. Research conducted on e-learning, blended online learning, and blended learning.
5. Reviewing or promoting books on integrating technology into the classroom, e-learning, blended learning, and blended online learning.
6. Challenges administrators, instructors, students, and community members face in connecting online.

The live online presentations include a 40 minute talk and 10 minutes for questions. Each presenter is accompanied by one or two moderators who introduce him or her and provide support.

You are invited to sign up and present.

Visit all the above mentioned sites and join the communities to become empowered with the knowledge of innovative ways of using Web 2.0 technologies in teaching.

The Importance of Personal Learning Networks

View and contribute to this Voicethread on the topic of Personal Learning Networks. I find it inspiring and interactive and also illustrative of how a teacher can use this tool in engaging students in communication and for sharing ideas through writing and voice re-cording.

More Moodle Books to Review

I was asked to write a review for two more Moodle books published by Packt:
Moodle 1.9: Theme Design. Beginner's Guide and Moodle 1.9 Extension Development(Raw). I am curious what these books will add to my knowledge of Moodle and if they have some perspectives on Moodle 2.0 which will be launched in July, 2010.

How Rewarding it is to Share Knowledge with Like-Minded People!

"Innovative Pedagogy and Course Redesign: Crossing the Disciplinary Divide" - this is the theme of this year conference I enjoy going to. It an annual meeting of like-minded people from NY and other states of the USA. There were 27 institutions represented this time from about 10 states and there were a number of foreign scholars -- interestingly enough, they were from Russia, St. Petersbugh, Julia Sharapova, and a young scholar Ajara, from Beshkek, Kirghistan. I enjoyed the guest speaker of this year plenary session, Dr. Therese Huston, a cognitive psychologist from Seattle. She is the author of a just published book "Teaching What you Don't Know." Therese is a very dynamic presenter and very engaging and inspiring. We had a lot of fun at the session - she ran it for about 2 hours. Therese forced us to think out of the box! I was immediately thinking about inviting her to our college for the General Courses' design discussions or for creating a center of Academic Excellence - to encourage people's creative thinking and understand that it is OK to teach out of your comfort zone and there are ways how to be successful in that... I go to this conference to get inspiration and confirm my constructivist ideals and pedagogical initiatives. I am always well received and appreciated. It is here I was giving a Moodle workshop with Mary Anne Campo, when we first introduced Moodle at MSMC. I know for fact that Ramapo College switched Blackboard to Moodle after my workshop in 2008 and their Resource Teaching Center invited me to conduct a Moodle workshop for Ramapo faculty who planned to design their new courses based on Moodle. I also presented a session on Web 2.0 tools and pedagogical recidivism. This year presentation was about Global collaboration at IT4ALL with M4T workshops.

Snowblog CT Netcity International Project 2010

Today was the last session of the International Multicultural virtual project that I agreed to participate in during the Spring semester. I was invited to join the project in December by Gal Springman, the co-founder and coordinator of Snowblog project. I was scheduled to teach two online courses in the spring of 2010: Teaching with Technology and Literacy and Technology. I decided to invite my students to experiment and join the project to learn about integrating technology through using its tools in a context. It was in a way, a risky adventure. I knew nothing about the leader, about the project, and about the content of the project. But what a Russian would I be if I hadn't taken a risk and tried something totally unknown?!!

It turned out to be a powerful experience from the point of view of learning about the virtual projects, twists and turns of the project coordination by the educators from different cultures, time zones, and with different educational platforms, experiences and views.

I will need several blog entries to reflect on the project experience.

Here are the links to the final virtual meeting on WiZiQ and our team's Voicethread creation to greet and say Good Bye to the participants of the Snowblog Project 2010.

Snowblog CT Netcity International Project 2010

Today was the last session of the International Multicultural virtual project that I agreed to participate in. I was invited to join the project in December by Gal Springman, the co-founder and coordinator of Snowblog project. I was teaching two online courses in the spring of 2010: Teaching with Technology and Literacy and Technology. I invited my students to experiment and participate in the project to learn about integrating technology through using its tools in a context. It was in a way, a risky adventure. I knew nothing about the leader, about the project, and about the content of the project. But what a Russian would I be if I hadn't risked and tried something unknown?!!

Web 2.0 Tools for a College Classroom

I am in the process of designing a program for a SIG, I called it WOW (Wonders Of Web), at my college to introduce and experiment with web 2.0 tools. There are so many Web 2.0 tools that you cannot be current with them. I decided to start small. Sharing one at a time.

Mag.ma is an Aggregating tool -- an easy way to compile a selection of videos for a class, group, or a network whether the instructor, facilitator or a leader chooses them or participants contribute them. It has an RSS feed and tag search, so it’s easy to change the way you receive and organize the videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Google video, etc.

in reference to: Magma (view on Google Sidewiki)