December Pro D

I've been a bit quiet this past week.  No posts here.  I've been posting on our brand new NVSD teacher librarian blog.  That's what you do when budget cuts are in the air and libraries are once again under fire.  We wanted to take a pro-active approach that would showcase what it is we do.  In doing so we will also inspire each other by compiling a rich bank of ideas.  Please drop by and have a read or leave a comment.

I'm also in full swing with the rest of the team prepping for LAN parties.  That's Learning At Night, one of the ways we deliver Pro D opportunities to teachers in our district.  (I can't talk about LAN without a nod to Kim Cofino and Jeff Utecht at the Bangkok International School who came up with the idea.)  We submitted our own K12 Online presentation this year and it will be up for viewing on Tuesday Dec. 8 - LAN: Learning is Social.  We've constructed a supporting wiki that outlines how to launch your own K12 Online LAN party.

At our first event we will be viewing 3 presentations:
- Building a Web 2.0 Culture by Paul Curtis
- Probing the Possibilities of Paperless Pedagogy by Jason Neiffer
- Around the World with Skype by Silvia Tolisano

All three presenters have generously agreed to Skype in for some informal conversation after we have viewed their presentations.  As my friend @jansmith says, "The net is generous."

Why not join us?

Paul Curits from the New Tech Network (http://www.newtechnetwork.org/) will be joining us live from Napa, California to discuss his presentation "Building a Web 2.0 Culture."

You can watch the presentation and participate in the conversation via Elluminate, an online learning space. Elluminate is free and easy to use.

Join us at 5pm!

Elluminate link: http://bit.ly/LAN44Dec

For more information contact us on Twitter http://twitter.com/lan44 

Or visit our blog http://literacy44.ca/lan

SpeedGeeking and Mouse Wrangling

A number of IT teacher specialist's blog posts and tweets lately have expressed the frustration that comes from trying to pass on all the wonderful technology ideas we come across on a daily basis. We've all had that 'bursting brain' feeling and the consequent let down that comes when those we share with don't drop everything and immediately take on what ever it is we've been hooting about.

But, I believe in serendipity and on Friday a friend sent me this: Are you going to finish strong? It made me stop feeling sorry for myself and want to dive back in.

Then Kim Cofino blogged about Speed Geeking. This was the second catalyst I needed to get myself going.

Here, in my school district, I have been working with a group of inspired and inspiring educators to host Learning at Night gatherings for a thousand or so teachers. Now before you get too excited, while we invite everyone, our attendance at the 4 sessions we've hosted so far has ranged from 40 to 80 people. We've shown them presentations from the k12 online conference, skyped in the presenters and had great discussions. While this has been fantastic Pro D. for our teachers we have all been wondering if there has been any real effect on their classroom teaching methods.

This is where Kim's post about a great idea comes into play. I won't try to encapsulate it here as her post says it all. It got me thinking. These are a few ideas I'll bring to the team to mull over for future LAN gatherings.

* Try our own version of SpeedGeeking.
* Try out an idea we saw at Northern Voice called Moose Wrangling. We may call ours Mouse Wrangling. We know that some teachers have tried out Animoto, Edmodo, blogging etc. Maybe we can convince them to give a 30 second pitch to the group and then move to a separate corner to have a discussion with those teachers who want to hear more.
* Send all May LAN participants away with an RSS feed and the names of a few good blog/nings/feeds to follow over the summer. I've started a list here. If you can suggest any others please add them as comments.

How do you inspire teachers to try new things? Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.

A New Focus

I have been inspired by Moira Ekdahl's wonderful T/L Weekly Special Report blog for Vancouver TL's and have decided that posting similar information here would be a valuable way to use this space.

This week:
Stacy Reed has collected resources for teachers and students on her wiki Librarian Chick. Well worth a look.

I am seeing more potential with wikis and although I started out using pb wiki for library related information I have recently become a fan of wikispaces. They are offering a free subscription for a year to educators. I'm finding their interface very user-friendly. To view the pages I use to support Web in the Classroom workshops click WIC. There are sections corresponding to each chapter as well as information on useful web2.0 resources.

On Friday, Feb. 15, Seycove is hosting Linda O'Reilly who will speak on reading strategies. Attendees will receive a copy of her resources on CD. This session runs from 9:00-12:00. Please RSVP me if you would like to attend.

Last week, Els Kushner, from NVDPL came in to do a session in the library on Graphic Novels during the lunch hour. I was away that day but one of the English teachers was inspired by her presentation.

Photo Attribution: Ihtatho -http://flickr.com/photos/ihtatho/627226315/sizes/l/
Used under the Creative Commons license.