Category: Future

This Afternoon at EBC

Diving Deep into Google Earth and Google Maps

Web 2.0 in Teacher Education (Program Info)

  1. My presenter notes
  2. Alternative to the term Web 2.0 is the Read, Write Web
  3. Teacher education and professional development that effectively helps teachers better integrate technology with teaching and learning
    • Allow the teachers to select their own goals and help them reach them
    • Online social networks can more easily provide the in-time assistance, coaching, mentoring, etc. that individuals during development/learning, but teachers often don’t think about using the networks
  4. How do we prepare teachers to teach in the 1-to-1 environment?
    • The emphasis should change from "teaching" to designing learning that engages the students.
  5. Resources for future teachers

Designing the 21st Century Global Learning Environments (Program Info)

  1. Building on some online discussion that has been ocurring for the past year here and here.
  2. If there were no barriers what would education look like? Brainstorming notes

This Morning at EBC

I’ll be updating this post throughout the day to alert you of things happening here at EBC San Antonio. The full list of sessions is here. I’ll be sharing information form the sessions that I’m attending. The session titles are in bold.

Social Networking for Professional Development

Scott Merrick is sitting next to me and streaming this discussion live.

  1. Should it be organized or self-forming?
    • Should the tool(s) be dictated?
  2. An atmosphere promoting risk-taking is imperative.
  3. Teachers know what they want to learn. Professional development should be tailored around them rather requiring them to attend PD in which they had no say.

Social Networking in the Classroom

Vicki Davis is sitting by me and is streaming this seession here.

  1. Teachers in the room are using Ning, Elgg, and several private online communities.
  2. Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis updated us about the Flat Classroom and the Horizon Project.
  3. How important are digital citizenship and pedagogy in these decisions?
  4. If someone says a curse word in the classroom do we close the school? If there’s a fight at recess do we quit having recess? Why do we over react to these problems in online spaces?

Let’s Help a Student

The following request is from a college student and came to me through a couple of friends. She is seeking assistance with her research paper. I’d like to include your input along with my response.

My paper is focused on the Internet being incorporated into the classroom as a resource and the need for high school teachers to be trained on how to use the Internet in their classrooms and how that will benefit students. If you have any information in this area or know anyone else who I could contact that might have information that would be great.

Rethinking Education

Lloyd Rieber‘s presentation, What’s in a Name?, during the PIDT Conference has caused me to carefully reconsider the terms that we use to describe teaching, learning, and what it is that educators do. I’ll say no more at this time to avoid influencing the data.

This poll is a means of gaging the collective thinking of educators everywhere. Please disseminate this broadly to get as representative a sample as possible.

This poll will close at 11:59 PM CST on June 6, 2008.

P.S.: I’ve decided to try out Zoho Polls with this activity. They do everything else so well I’m betting that this goes well, too.

Newsletter on Educational Technology

Throughout the years many of the preservice and in-service teachers in my classes, workshops, and presentations have requested that I start an email newsletter. They indicate that in addition to this blog they would like to receive occasional emails sharing rich resources related to technology integration. I’m excited to announce that I have answered these requests.

Clif’s Newsletter on Educational Technology focuses on the effective integration of technology with teaching and learning. Subscribers of this free service will receive occasional emails providing valuable resources and information about lesson plans, activities, technologies, research, etc., related to educational technology.

OPEN TO PUBLIC
Subscription to this newsletter is open to everyone. You are encouraged to share this with everyone with an interest in education (teachers, administrators, homeschooling families, friends, classmates, co-workers, etc.). Everyone is invited to receive this free newsletter.

PRIVACY POLICY
Your email address will never be shared with others. You may unsubscribe at anytime.

MANAGING SUBSCRIPTIONS
You may subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter as you wish.

If You Give a Teacher a Mouse

This is a clever idea and highlights many of the current key points and issues related to technology integration. Kudos to Amy and the others hat worked on this project.

[flashvideo width=”425″ height=”350″ filename=”http://www.teachertube.com/flvideo/32454.flv” /]

I think this could be developed into a piece that would be widely viewed and discussed in education circles. It’s quite good as is, but I believe it could become even better. In true Web 2.0 collaborative form, let’s consider ideas for building on the existing video. So, here’s the question…

What suggestions would you make for improving this?

Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0

Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0I’m teaching a special topics seminar this summer for graduate students. The topic will be Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 Technologies. I began preparing for this course in June 2007 and I’m very excited about it. While we’ll consider common trends and issues and survey many of the popular tools and services related to Web 2.0, the heart of the course will be learning to effectively integrate Web 2.0 technologies and principles with teaching and learning. The focus will be on K-12 education but accommodations can be made for individuals from other fields (health, corporate, military, higher education, etc.). This draft version of the Course Topics provides an overview of the likely curriculum.

While the dominate driving force in the development of the curriculum and resources has been the upcoming class, I always planned for this to be a relatively open learning community. In keeping with the principles of Web 2.0 I encourage the participation of everyone with an interest or expertise in this topic. You may contribute to the discussion and fun by using the following tag/keyword: idt7078

Related Resources

Bill Nye at MSU

B&W HeadshotTrevor’s Theory

GUEST BLOGGER
Trevor Acy

As a long time Bill Nye the Science Guy fan, you can not begin to comprehend my excitement when I saw that the man himself was giving an environmental lecture on campus. In 2006, our then President Charles Lee, started the Global Lecture Series here at Mississippi State which aims at bringing in speakers on all sorts of different topics. This semester we had the honor of having Bill Nye come and give a lecture (more of a performance) on environmental changes.

If you ever get the chance to go hear Bill Nye speak, take it. Not only are you surely going to learn something, but you will genuinely have fun. His antics from television are only enhanced in person. His presentation was not scripted, he didn’t read from his slides (the biggest bore to an audience, so I beg you educators out there; don’t do it), kept the technical jargon down, and put a very informal spin on the whole presentaBill Nyetion.

While his lecture was on environmental issues, it never felt like we were being preached to, like I said he kept it very informal. Unlike many people on the subject who concentrate only on what problems the current situation is inflicting upon the Earth, Bill mainly just detailed simple ways to help correct the issues. For one, and though he didn’t say it quite as directly as this, NASCAR should either be completely overhauled or put to a stop. Those cars, whose only job is to race around a track for HUNDREDS of miles get 5 miles to the gallon. That’s less than a Chevy Suburban! Bill Nye has a very “green” house, with solar heating and natural lighting for the common areas of his home. He generates more electricity than he uses (he showed us a video of his meter actually running backwards). If your first thought upon reading about his house was, “but how much did it cost?” He claims that it costs less than the average swimming pool and can easily be added on to your mortgage for as little as $20-$30 bucks a month.

I’m a relatively conscientious consumer, but so far have only invested in the little things like washing my clothes with cold water detergent and buying the environmentally friendly, longer lasting, light bulbs. Listening to Bill Nye tonight though, I think has turned me into a eco-nut. I am definitely going to buy a eco-friendly car and will not settle for anything less than 30 miles to the gallon. As soon as I own my own place, which granted will be a couple of years, I’m going to make considerable strives to do more with less.

To finish up, I strongly suggest you educate yourself on ways to ease the burden of this fantastic planet (and save yourself some money). Even if you don’t believe in all the global warming hype, what harm is there in saving everyone, including yourself, from the negative externalities of the items we use and abuse today.