EduTechie.com

This afternoon I had the opportunity to connect up with a whole bunch of schools for a video conference from all around North Carolina put on the by the North Carolina Connectivity Council.  It was really cool.  We could see all of them and they could see us.  There should be an archive of the video posted soon.  Here is the excerpt from the announcement.  

The challenge for North Carolina educators is to ensure that every public school student graduates from high school, globally competitive for work and postsecondary education and prepared for life in the 21st Century.  Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis and social networking sites, provide students the opportunity to communicate, create and collaborate in new and exciting ways.  However, some educators and parents are concerned that these “just in time”technologies create an unsafe environment for our children.

Technology specialists from four NC school districts will describe their school systems’ approach to using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning.  Panelists will present the best practices from their respective districts while discussing the challenges of implementing these new technologies. 

Ideas from around North Carolina that Teacher are currently using that IS working:

• Teacher Created Wiki’s
• Teacher Created Blogs for Professional Development
• District Blog to model, share resources, and collaborate. 

Things Students are doing that is working.

• Green County Schools have a 1 to 1 laptop program.  (Wow)
• Student created Wiki’s – Creating based on the information that is created in class.  Do it in the class while the teacher is speaking. 
• Kids created blogs and commenting on other blogs. 
• Book Study through Wiki

Tools that People ARE using

• PBWiki (safer than Media Wiki and WetPaint)
• WikiSpaces (Private domain that is password protected)
• Blogger.com or EduBlogs
• Google Docs – Collaboration across district
• Teacher Tube (Block YouTube) (Use Tools to download YouTube if Teacher’s Want)
• DimDim – Collaboration
• Skype – Global Connections
• Animoto – Video Creation
• Glogster.com – Poster Creation
• Moodle - Learning Management System
• PRIVATE Ning Social Networking Group in School
• TakingItGlobal.org  - Place to find some collaborators for all sorts of subjects

Challenges

• Time on Task… there are a ton of kids online and it is hard to monitor what they are doing.  
• Social Networking (Teachers are no longer allowed to be friends with students in some schools… good idea.)
• Keeping Acceptable Use Policy up to date
• Time… there are so MANY tools… not enough time to address them all. 
• Expanding the global learning network so that learning can be global.   Finding people to collaborate with people around the world via Skype and other technologies above. 

Trainings for Teachers

I found it interesting that in many cases the instructional technologist are working with a group of teachers to train and prepare them to use this web 2.0 technology.  It is sometimes done as a monthly meeting, a mandated technology hour requirement, training classes, an annual fall conference, or using the web 2.0 technologies themselves.

• Shift Happens – Did you Know 2.0 - Used as a starting point for Faculty discussion.

Popularity: unranked [?]