Using Digital Technologies and PLNs to Enhance Learning

These are the slides for my Podstock 2009 keynote. Unfortunately the animations and effects were lost when uploaded to SlideBoom. I’ve shared my notes, resources and video of this presentation over on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively. I hope to create a Vidcast or SlideCast of this presentation once I return home and things settle down.

Resources from Podstock, Day 1

MORE COMING THROUGHOUT THE DAY…

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Getting a Global Perspective: The Power of Collaborative Projects
– Dyane Smokorowski’s presentation resources

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Math Snacks: A Nibble of Conceptual Math – Michelle Flaming and Renee Smith’s podcast and resources

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Publish Audio at Will and Geo-Story Chasing – Wesley Fryer

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Curricularizing to the Podcast World – Diana Wieland

  • Sound-seeing tours
  • Broadcast student audio plays
  • Interviews with content experts
  • Student produced “radio” talk shows about content
  • Also see these podcasts: KidCast, Coulee Kids, and Our City

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The Cosmosphere in the Palm of Your Hand- How we fumbled our way to fame(?) – Howie G (a.k.a. Harold George and Joel Walker)

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Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!! – Kim Herron, Tamara Padfield, Linley Voboril

Dean Mantz’s is hosting live blogging throughout the day. Please join the live discussion or visit the archive afterwards.

Students and PLNs (Feedback Requested)

We’ve been discussing educators’ use of personal learning networks (see here and here). While the responses have been quite favorable (Certainly skewed by the fact that most that saw the request are likely plugged-in to social technologies) several have raised important issues, shared frustrations, and expressed reluctance related to the use of online PLNs. I do not wish to impede that ongoing conversation, but I would like for us to extend the conversation a bit more. So…

Do you think participation in personal learning networks (PLN) can enhance student learning?

NOTE: I’d like to include responses in my Podstock keynote and blog post. You can share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond to the corresponding Plurk and Twitter discussions.

Why You Participate in PLNs

Thanks for the responses to yesterday’s request for feedback. Here’s is a compilation of the responses to this point. I’ll be sharing more about this during my keynote address at Podstock on Saturday.

Why do educators participate in PLNs?

Here are the replies from my Plurk buddies.

Why do educators participate in PLNs?

These are the responses from my Twitter friends.

Why do educators participate in PLNs?

Why do educators participate in PLNs?

Why do educators particpate in PLNs?

Why do educators participate in PLNs?

Podstock Starts Today

“Podstock is a brand new conference designed to bring podcast creators and those who see the real value of podcasting as creators and consumers together. We’ll have breakout sessions on podcasting for beginners, as well as sessions for and by seasoned pros. We’ll explore podcasting as well as many other web 2.0 tools that can exhance learning and communication in your world. We invite you to join this site and add your thinking to the initial planning for this event” (Source).

Visit the Podsctock site to learn more about this excellent opportunity.

Join Us
It’s possible for you to join the learning and fun even without physically attending the conference.

  • Watch for links to video streams and live chats of Podstock presentations in Plurk and Twitter.
  • Podstock Ning – An online community of educators with an interest in educational podcasting.
  • Participate in synchronous and asynchronous online conversations with others attending Podstock physically and virtually on this blog today and tomorrow.
  • Search for the Podstock tag (#podstock09) on Twitter, Plurk and Google blog search and dive into the conversations.

An Ongoing Discussion: Your Input Needed

@Tykerman1 shared this interesting discussion starter and I thought we’d give it a try here.

Guidelines
Below is a question. The first person who is brave enough will read the question, answer it in the comments and pose a new question for the next person to answer. You can participate more than once.

Question #1
What are you most hopeful about with regards to education and the future?