Thursday, September 17, 2009

Online Communities

Today I spent some time with authors Leland Anderson, Visiting Research Fellow; and Michael B. Horn, Executive Director, Education; of Innosight Institute. They have authored Alpine Online School - A Utah School District’s Move into K–8 Online Education - An Education Case Study. Some well know names were in the room, Bernie Dodge and Steve Hargadon to name a few, asking questions right along side of me; a classroom teacher in Colorado. How did I get so lucky?

Online learning communities such as Classroom 2.0 are social networks for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education. I happen to be a member and that's how I was able to spend an hour with the authors of the above mentioned case study as well as many more fascinating people over the past two years.

Membership is Classroom 2.0 is free. Live events like the examples listed above occur on a weekly if not daily basis. Each week I get an email of those events. Here is a sampling of this week's events. I think you'll see there is something for every teacher.

  • Tues, Sept 15th, 11am Pacific Daylight Time (US): I interview Anne Gilleran, the coordinator of the European School Leadership Network, who will give us a tour of their 60,000-school eTwinning program. http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/anne-gilleran-on-the-etwinning
  • Wed, Sept 16th, 1pm Pacific Daylight Time (US): The weekly MSP2 Tech Talk with Todd Williamson on "Interactive Whiteboards." At LearnCentral.org: http://www.learncentral.org/event/19505
  • Wed, Sept 16th, 5pm Pacific Daylight Time (US): The Classroom 2.0 LIVE Beginner Series with Sue Waters on "RSS Widgets and Personalized Home Pages." http://live.classroom20.com/classroom-20-beginner-series.html
  • Wed, Sept 16th, 6pm Pacific Daylight Time (US): Maria Droujkova convenes the Math 2.0 weekly meeting, this week's guest is Troy Peterson, the creator of Nibipedia. At LearnCentral: http://www.learncentral.org/event/21595
  • Thurs, Sept 17th, 3pm Pacific Daylight Time (US): I interview Michael Horn (Disrupting Class) and Leland Anderson about the new Innosight report on a small district's use of online learning to reach underserved students. http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/michael-hornan-innosight
  • Sat, Sept 19th, 9am Pacific Daylight Time (US): The weekly Classroom 2.0 LIVE show. This week: Dr. Helen Barrett the creator of ElectronicPortfolios.org, shares the electronic portfolio tools that can be used in the classroom. http://live.classroom20.com/index.html
  • Sun, Sept 20th, 8am Pacific Daylight Time (US): The world-wide meetup for those with Vitiligo and their frends and families, special guest this week: Emmy-award winning journalist Lee Thomas, author of the book Turning White. LearnCentral Link: http://www.vitiligofriends.org/forum/topics/our-fifth-worldwide-vitiligo

2 comments:

  1. Just wanted to say hello. I found your blog just a little while ago and enjoyed the first few posts. I've added you to my google reader and am also following you on twitter. Looking forward to catching up and reading more of your blog. Good stuff here!! Nice to meet you!

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  2. Hmmm for some reason my signature link didn't show up. Trying again :-)

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