Got 20 Minutes?

If you've read much of this blog you'll know that I'm a big fan of the K12 Online conference and have been involved with bringing these presentations to teachers in my own district via LAN parties.  It made me smile to hear one seasoned colleague say that these sessions were the best professional development he had experienced in his career.  Wow!

I've been viewing as many of this year's offerings as I can and they're as inspiring as ever.  The one that stands out for me so far in terms of the way we work with students is Paul Curtis' Building a Web 2.0 Culture.  We chose it to show at our first LAN party of the year and Paul generously offered his time to join us in an Elluminate session for some discussion after we viewed his presentation.  The chat is archived here.  He's part of the New Technology Network whose philosophy is to inspire and engage students to become collaborators, thinkers, innovators and leaders.  Whether you're transforming a school or just wanting to improve your practice on Monday morning this presentation will get you thinking.

In order to keep the presentations straight in my head I started a Google Doc to briefly list the focus of each presentation.  Here are a few I will definitely be bringing to the attention of others:

• Sylvia Tolisano's Around the World With Skype
• Jason Neiffer's Probing the Possibilities of Paperless Pedagogy in which he gives a tour of his own paperless classroom, comments on using Google docs, Wordpress and Moodle.
• Julie Lindsay's Learning Confluence: where philosophy meets practice in the 21c addresses why education needs to be globally focussed.
• Kelly Hines' Little Kids, Big Possibilities gives a how-to for several tools she uses with her class She has set up some trial accounts for session viewers to play in the sandbox.  A great way to dip your toes in.
• Andy Crozier and Mike Amante talk about Just a 'touch' of leadership: Using the iPod Touch/iPhone in Administration giving lots of hands-on ideas.
• Sarah Sutter's Show and Tell: Exhibit, Reflect, Critique with Blogs is excellent for art teachers but the her ideas transfer to other subject areas as well.

Grab some refreshments or even a colleague or two and pull up a chair for some engaging viewing!  Most will take less than 20 minutes of your time to view.

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