Online professional development that meets your needs!

Secretary of Education Duncan Declares August “Connected Educator” Month

In a video address at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that August will be “Connected Educator Month,” and called upon teachers and other educational leaders to innovate through online collaboration and learning environments.

“Now more than ever we need strong leaders…to guide the country in transforming education and vastly improving the opportunity to learn for every American,” Duncan said. “Every educator needs to be connected with the best digital content, tools, and resources in order to enliven the learning environment for students, and to fully connect with peers and experts.”

The Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology (OET) will convene Connected Educator Month in conjunction with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that conducts research in behavioral and social science and delivers technical assistance in the areas of health, education, and workforce productivity. The event is part of OET’s Connected Educators initiative, which is supporting informal, online, social and professional learning for educators by conducting research, hosting communities, and working with the education sector.

More than 50 organizations–from the American School Counselor Association and Cisco to the National Association of Elementary School Principals–will participate in the online event. Throughout August, educators will have opportunities to participate in dozens of online activities, including forums, webinars and contests, intended to develop skills and enhance learning. The Connected Educators website also will offer tools and resources to help educators become more connected.

By Andrew Barbour for THE Journal
http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/06/26/education-secretary-announces-connected-educator-month.aspx

Connected Educator Month on Connected Educators
http://connectededucators.org/cem/

48 Ultra-Cool Summer Sites for Kids and Teachers on Edutopia
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/48-summer-websites-kids-teachers-keith-ferrell

New Report: The New 3 Es of Education: Enabled, Engaged, and Empowered released from Project Tomorrow

The New 3E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged, Empowered – How Today’s Students are Leveraging Emerging Technologies for Learning a new report from Project Tomorrow, has just been released. You can access it, as well as the podcast and website at http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_congress.html.

For additional information about Speak Up, or the release of our national findings please visit the Congressional Briefing webpage at http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_congress.html.

About Project Tomorrow & Speak Up
Speak Up is a national initiative of Project Tomorrow, the nation’s leading education nonprofit organization dedicated to the empowerment of student voices in education. The Speak Up National Research Project annually polls K-12 students, parents and educators about the role of technology for learning in and out of school and represents the largest collection of authentic, unfiltered stakeholder voice on digital learning. Since 2003, over 2.2 million K-12 students, parents, teachers, librarians, principals, technology leaders and district administrators have shared their views and ideas through Speak Up.

Project Tomorrow at www.tomorrow.org
Speak Up at www.tomorrow.org/speakup

Next Generation Learning Challenges Webinar Series

iNACOL announces a new webinar series in September-October for the Next Generation Learning Challenges initiative this fall.

Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) is a new effort to identify and scale technology-enabled approaches that dramatically improve college readiness and completion. With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the initiative will be led by EDUCAUSE, in partnership with the League for Innovation in the Community Colleges, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), and the Council of Chief State School Officers. NGLC will provide grant funding, build evidence, and develop an active community committed to addressing how learning technologies can scale to overcome these persistent educational challenges.

To prepare for the launch of the grant program this fall, iNACOL invites you to participate in a “Back to Campus” series of webinars focusing on the underlying challenges in college readiness and completion and the role of technology as an enabler of change.

The Webinar Series will provide background discussions on topics relevant to the upcoming Next Generation Learning Challenges grant program, so interested parties may get different perspectives framing these important issues in learning technologies that span across K-20.

Topic: Benefitting From Scale in Education Innovation
Speaker: Bror Saxberg, Chief Learning Officer, Kaplan
Date: September 10, 2010
Time: 12:00 noon ET

Topic: Scaling Blended Learning
Speakers: Joel Hartman, Vice Provost and CIO, and Charles Dzuiban, Director, Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness, University of Central Florida
Date: September 14, 2010
Time: 4:00 p.m. ET

Topic: Deeper Learning and Engagement
Speakers: Bryan Alexander, Director of Research, National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE)
Date: September 21, 2010
Time: 2:00 p.m. ET

Topic: Open Educational Resources
Speakers: David Wiley, Associate Professor, Instructional Psychology and Technology, Brigham Young University
Date: October 6, 2010
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET

Topic: The Future of Assessment and Learning

Speaker: Valerie Shute, Associate Professor, Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Florida State University

Date: October 1, 2010

Time: 3:00 p.m. ET (2:00 p.m. CT, 1:00 p.m. MT, 12:00 noon PT)

How to Join the Webinars

Each webcast will be hosted by Educause inside an Adobe Connect webconferencing room at http://educause.acrobat.com/nglc. To join, simply enter the URL and select “Enter as a Guest,” type in your name and affiliation (e.g., John Doe, University of Idaho), and click “Enter Room.”

Once inside the room, audio will be provided through your computer speakers and presentation slides will advance on your screen. You can interact with fellow attendees and presenters using the chat feature inside the room.

Each web seminar is free and open to all, but virtual seats are limited. Attendance is first come, first served. Each session will be recorded and archived for later viewing.

Technical Requirements

Whether you’ve participated in an NGLC online event before or you’re joining us for the first time, please run the Adobe Acrobat Connect Connection Test before the event. View the Adobe Connect technical requirements.

Note: If you experience difficulties during the web seminar, you can listen to the audio via a toll-free conference call line at 877-944-2300, access code 99269#.

For more information, please visit: http://nextgenlearning.com/news/upcoming-events/articles/upcoming-events.

Participate in the Webinar Series on New Media Literacies

You are cordially invited to participate in an 8-part webinar series!

WHO
A team of New Hampshire educators, supported by grants from the NH Department of Education, have begun working with staff at the New Media Literacies (NML) Project to facilitate a year-long professional development initiative using new media literacies as a springboard for developing innovative curriculum.

WHY
In a white paper titled Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Jenkins et al (2006) outline the social skills and cultural competencies inherent in new media use. The goal of NML is to help foster a broader perspective of what it means to be media literate in the digital age and provide tools for translating the skills and competencies into meaningful and engaging learning experiences in the classroom and beyond.

You can download the white paper at:
http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf

You can download the skills at:
http://newmedialiteracies.org/blog/2008/11/10/NMLskills.pdf

NH educators are exploring the urgent challenges that 21st Century learners face and also expanding their own learning experiences using a participatory, digital model of professional development. Educators are practicing their own skills as teachers by “creating, collaborating, connecting, and circulating” with one another in an interactive, multi-media environment. While the NH team is developing new materials for their own schools and districts, they are also assisting in the development of an 8-part webinar series focused on a comprehensive, practical understanding of the NML skills for the larger educational community.

Join us in the webinars to learn more about the framework of social skills and cultural competencies which shapes the work of NML. You will observe illustrations of the skills by looking more closely at learning through such cultural phenomenon as computer game guilds, YouTube video production, Wikipedia, fan fiction, SecondLife and other virtual worlds, music remixing, social network sites, and cosplay. Each webinar will closely examine new curricular materials which have emerged from New Media Literacies, Global Kids, Harvard’s GoodPlay Project, Common Sense Media, the George Lucas Foundation, and other projects which are seeking to introduce these skills into contemporary educational practices. Participants will leave the webinars with plenty of opportunities to take the materials, information, and methods back into their classrooms.

WHEN
NML and the NH team will host the first webinar on Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 7PM EST. The focus of this first session is on the new media literacies of judgment and appropriation and the importance of copyright, fair use, and creative commons.

To join the February 11th session, go to the Elluminate Meeting Room using this link:
https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/launch/meeting.jnlp?sid=voffice&password=M.0D40B502DA193CDA7C5579F7D8173A

If you have never used Elluminate before, please visit this tutorial page for a quick reference on setting-up your audio and internet connection speed:
http://www.elluminate.com/support/docs/9.5/participant.jsp

WEBINAR SCHEDULE

February 11, 2010 at 7pm EST — Judgment, Appropriation & Copyright Special guests Erin Reilly and Flourish Klink .

UPCOMING WEBINARS

• March 11, 2010 at 7pm EST – Networking and Negotiation
• April 8, 2010 at 7pm EST – Transmedia Navigation
• May 13, 2010 at 7pm EST – Collective Intelligence
• June 10, 2010 at 7pm EST – Performance and Play
• July 15, 2010 at 7pm EST – Distributed Cognition
• August 12, 2010 at 7pm EST – Simulation and Visualization
• September 9, 2010 at 7pm EST – Multitasking