Learning2gether with GLoCALL 2014, Ahmedabad, India

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Learning2gether Episode 238 (Oct 9) and Episode 239 (Oct 10)

Vance Stevens participated in the GLoCALL conference in Ahmedabad, India as an invited speaker of the GLoCALL conference taking place there Oct 9 through 11th. Some events on the schedule were webcast.


Download mp3:
https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/vance_plenary2014glocall.mp3?

LEARNING2GETHER Sat Oct 11 Plenary Session #4: Vance Stevens

Chaos and Learning: What we learn from MOOCs about Professional Development and Flipping Classrooms 

Abstract from Program:
http://glocall.org/course/view.php?id=81&topic=0#section-3
The first MOOC was conceived in 2008 as a model of connectivist learning theory. Its proponents George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and Dave Cormier almost inadvertently seeded a revolution in re-thinking how we conceive learning in a highly networked digital age. Since then, MOOCs have tended to fall between two extremes which have come to be known as cMOOCs and xMOOCs. These are differentiated in part in the way they approach their subject matter; i.e. the degree to which they expose participants to the chaos they are likely to encounter in the real world, and the degree to which they engage learners in resolving that chaos. This talk examines what MOOCs can teach us about the role of chaos in our own learning, and suggests how we can apply MOOC models to our contexts of facilitating our students’ learning, and in learning from one another in our ongoing professional development.

2014-10-16_0553plen

What happened on the day …

The presentation followed a lunch break so there was plenty of time to set up the session and even to warm up the audience with some “pre-plenary” slides where they could shoot QR codes for the slides and blog of the presentation coming up, and take a poll on http://pollev.com/vancestevens602 where they could answer two questions about their prior knowledge of MOOCs. Kallol and Kalyan, the WizIQ technicians had brought up the live stream and were ready to record when it was decided that before I began, everyone in the auditorium should get up and pose for a group photo. This would delay us but otherwise seemed harmless, except that as we acquiesced, they decided to put everyone on stage and made to transform the setup we had prepared. They brought chairs on stage and to make room for them disconnected the projector and moved the podium aside which I had positioned just so, but worse, in moving wires around, they disconnected the live stream. The entire process took 20 minutes and after lining up everyone on stage and taking several photos, they put it all back together and I was asked to start, but the live stream was not quite ready at the beginning. So, though we had appeared to be on track as planned, I hope this explains the delayed start for our online participants, and the lack of introduction of speaker and smooth start to the recording.

plenary_kalyan

2014-10-11_1946kalyan

Announcements:

2014-10-16_0546kalyan

Thu Oct 9 0715 GMT at GloCALL Ahmedabad: Vance Stevens live-streamed workshop on Hangout on Air

Originally scheduled Oct 9 from 14:30 to 16:30 in Ahmedabad (but changed on the day to 11:15 to 12:15 local time), Vance Stevens gave a workshop on setting up Google Hangouts so that numerous participants can tune in to the stream, using the technique pioneered and mentored to us by Jeff Lebow, and familiar to participants in Learning2gether hangouts on air. The event has:

What happened on the day …

The Hangout did not function properly from the conference site due to poor bandwidth. At first, I was able to launch the HoA and enter it from the conference. The participants and I saw Robert and Maha enter. Maha wrote in the text chat that she could hear us, and later she entered the URL for http://connectedcourses.net/ (she said that one of her assignments for today was to introduce the course to another person, which was what she was showing Robert – I’ll introduce the course in my plenary :-). Apart from that, it appeared to those in the conference and me that we were recording ourselves, as we could see our video, but that the others were unable to join us. In fact, it was we who  were unable to join the recording of the HoA we had started. In the recording we eventually harvested, Robert was there by himself for some time and then Maha joined him, and they carried on a 9 minute conversation until the call terminated (not sure why, I think we continued for some time after the HoA terminated, though eventually I ended the call by hanging up).  But Robert and Maha continued off air; Robert wrote me: “We had a rather productive conversation: I told her about some second language teaching methods and she introduced me to virtual worlds, specifically, Second Life, which I’ll check out when time allows.”

I captured the screen shot with the video thumbnail from the Google+ event page right afterwards, but then I deleted the video from my YouTube channel because of the dead time while Robert was waiting for us. But I played it first and made an mp3 of the conversation he and Maha had.


Download mp3 https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/robert-maha9oct2014glocall.mp3

 This happened before we started the Hangout

On-site participants  were shown under the hood so to speak for the first hour the event, and taken through the steps of setting one up and announcing it. Bandwidth precluded having on-site participants coming into the hangout to do sound checks, attenuate echo, and learn a little about Hangout netiquette, but we ended by going live with the stream though we were unable to talk with the guests we had invited from around the globe.

The following information on the workshop is here: http://glocall.org/course/view.php?id=81&topic=0#section-

Connecting Live Online with our Personal Learning Networks

by Vance Stevens

This 2-hour workshop will introduce the concept and importance of Personal Learning Networks and suggest ways that educators can engage in almost unlimited opportunities for professional development online. One such possibility is participation in weekly Learning2gether events (L2g) coordinated by the presenter. This workshop introduces two tools used frequently in L2g and shows participants how they can use them in their professional development. The first of these is Blackboard Collaborate (available on grant to L2g participants) and the second is Google+ Hangouts. The workshop will walk participants through the process of setting up and conducting events using each tool. Topics include using social media to advertise your events, how to moderate sessions using each tool, and how to archive them. Participants will learn how to stream Hangouts so that they can be attended by many more than the ten allowed in the Hangout itself at any one time.

With long-time online and face-to-face collaborator and colleague Claire Bradin Siskin after her workshop Oct 9

Announcements:

Other GloCALL Conference in Ahmedabad: Plenaries streamed on WizIQ

The plenaries listed at the schedule here http://glocall.org/mod/page/view.php?id=247 are being streamed live from the conference via WizIQ on Oct 10 and 11

You may have to enroll in the Course http://www.wiziq.com/course/78873-glocall-2014-comference to view the following recordings:

2014-10-11_1837opening

Oct 10 Plenary Dr. M.M. Plant

Oct 10 Plenary Dr. Thomas Robb

Oct 11 Plenary Claire Siskin

Oct 11 Final Colloquium

2014-10-11_1922colloquium

Earlier this week

Sun Sep 28 – Learning2gether with ELT Live#5 – Professional Development Online and off

https://learning2gether.net/2014/09/30/learning2gether-with-elt-live5-professional-development-online-and-off/

Thu Oct 2 Hangout on National Geographic and iEARN Global Collaborative Projects

National Geographic’s Geo-Educator Community originally shared:

Join us to learn how you can connect your students with students around the world through #global collaborative projects. In this interactive hangout, staff from iEARN and PenPal Schools will share tips for getting started. You’ll also hear accounts from #teachers about how they’ve used global collaborative projects with their students. RSVP on this page to receive a reminder.

iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 140 countries. iEARN empowers teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. Find out more atwww.iearn.org.

PenPal Schools connects over 30,000 students from around the world to discover new cultures, learn about global issues, and practice foreign languages through 1-1 PenPal Exchanges. Their online app and curriculum include educational videos, texts, and discussion questions that make exchanges interesting for students and easy for teachers. Find out more at www.penpalschools.com.

This event is taking place during Connected Educator Month #CE14 . For more information and other events, visit: connectededucators.org.

Fri Oct 3 IATEFL YLTSIG Webinar with Jamie Keddie – Video cameras in and out of the classroom

In this webinar with Jamie Keddie, we will share ideas about how to use video-recording devices to give extra depth and meaning to the activities, tasks and projects that our students do.

Where?  https://iatefl.adobeconnect.com/_a875541554/yltsigwebinars/

You can find out more about Jamie’s interesting work and on-going projects here:

Learning2gether Sun Oct 5 IATEFL YLT-SIG Webinar: Marisa Constantinides discusses The Importance of Play in the Young Learners’ Classroom

I like what  Nellie Deutsch says in her invitation to “teachers from around the globe. Join IATEFL YLTSIG free bi-monthly webinars automatically. Receive reminders of the live online events and watch the recordings as many times as you wish. You’ll have an opportunity to learn by engaging with the presenters, the content material of the webinars, and with other educators from around the globe.

Tue Oct 7 on EdWeb.net Ten Educators For New Teachers to Follow on Twitter

http://www.instantpresenter.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=ED52D6838448

Ten Educators For New Teachers to Follow on Twitter
Presented by Shannon Holden, Assistant Principal, Republic Middle School, MO

In the “Olden Days” of education, novice teachers had limited options when looking for assistance with classroom management, lesson planning, and other challenges faced during their first years in the classroom.  With the advent of social media, hundreds of experts are available to help at the click of a mouse!  Join middle school administrator Shannon Holden as he introduces the best sources for teaching tips on Twitter.

Tue Oct 7 Library 2.0 – Connected Librarian Day

This year, as a Library 2.014 pre-conference event for K-12 and Teacher Librarians (and anyone else who wants to join!), we’re holding Connected Librarian Day on Tuesday, October 7th.

This is an open, online, and free event sponsored by Follett and The Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) at Rutgers.

http://www.library20.com/page/connected-librarian-day

Tuesday, October 7th 2014

1pm – 7pm PDT / 4pm – 10pm EDT

This year, as a Library 2.014 pre-conference event for K-12 and Teacher Librarians (and anyone else who wants to join!), we’re holding Connected Librarian Day on Tuesday, October 7th.

This is an open, online, and free event sponsored by Follett and The Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) at Rutgers.

Wed-Thu Oct 8-9 Library 2.0 annual online conference

The fourth annual global conversation about the future of libraries is scheduled for October 8-9, 2014. The conference will once again be held entirely online around the clock in multiple languages and time zones. Everyone is invited to participate in this FREE forum designed to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among information professionals worldwide.  More information, http://www.library20.com/2014

Click here to go to the YouTube channel for past keynotes, or here for all recorded sessions.

Click here for conference strands

Moodle MOOC 5: Teaching with Technology and Moodle Training Courses

http://www.wiziq.com/course/70332-moodle-mooc-5-teaching-with-technology-and-moodle-training-courses

Class Presenter: Dr. Nellie Deutsch
Class Title: MM5: Opening Ceremony and Syllabus of the MOOC.
Class Date: Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Class Time: 15:00 GMT
Click here to access the opening ceremony recording, and to find links to upcoming events.

Wed Oct 8 1000 GMT – MM5: Design Principles for Teaching Computer Programming

MM5: Design Principles for Teaching Computer Programming <– Direct class link

Presented by:Jacqui Chetty

By: Integrating Technology 4 Active Lifelong Learning

Thu Oct 10 1600 GMT – MM5: PD through Twitter chats

MM5: PD through Twitter Chats

Presented by:Stephan Hughes

By: Integrating Technology 4 Active Lifelong Learning

Learning2gether with ELT Live#5 – Professional Development Online and off

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Learning2gether Episode 237

On Tue Sep 30 Learning2gether was in a Hangout on Air with Jeff Lebow and ELT Live#5 – Professional Development Online and off


2014-10-01_1559eltlive

Earlier this week

Sun Sep 21 – Learning2gether with the Fall Blog Festival

https://learning2gether.net/2014/09/21/learning2gether-with-the-fall-blog-festival/

Wed Sep 24 ELT Live #4: How do students and teachers feel about going online with materials, assignments, and portfolios?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdndIy1f5nY

Fri Sep 26 Understanding The Teaching System on WizIQ: Managing Audio & Video 

Presented by: Dr. Nellie Deutsch

http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2086490-understanding-the-teaching-system-on-wiziq-managing-audio-video

This is the link to the PPT for the session on Managing Audio and Video:

http://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/827711-understanding-the-teaching-system-manage-audio-and-video-on-wiziq

Sat Sep 27 1400 GMT – IATEFL Webinar Susan Hillyard – Challenging ELT: Challenging Methodology to Reach Challenging English Language Learners

IATEFL monthly webinars are free of charge and are open to both members and non-members of IATEFL. No pre-registration is required, just click on http://www.iatefl.org/web-events/webinars on the day to join the webinar.

Susan photo Susan Hillyard – ‘Challenging ELT: Challenging Methodology to Reach Challenging English Language Learners’27 September 2014, 15:00 BSTTo find out what time the webinar airs from your location please check out the world clock hereDo you have some challenging students in some of your classes? Do you get frustrated with current methodology? Do you want to reach these students and engage them? Do you support inclusion? Do you want to change the refrain from “I can’t” to “I can”? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions then join us for this session. You’ll get lots of ideas to go, wherever you face the challenge and you and your challenging students may start shouting “I CAN!”

Sun Sep 28 IATEFL YLT-SIG Webinar: María J. García San Martín on the timeline of an e-connected story

I like what  Nellie Deutsch says in her invitation to “teachers from around the globe. Join IATEFL YLTSIG free bi-monthly webinars automatically. Receive reminders of the live online events and watch the recordings as many times as you wish. You’ll have an opportunity to learn by engaging with the presenters, the content material of the webinars, and with other educators from around the globe. Just click on the following link: http://www.wiziq.com/course/75751-webinars-for-iatefl-ylt-sig to join the  webinar area,”  or here to join this one: http://iateflyltsig.wiziq.com/online-class/2141496-ylt-webinars-the-timeline-of-an-e-connected-story

Mon Sep 29 Connected Courses Webinar

Learning2gether with the Fall Blog Festival

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Learning2gether Episode 236


Vance Stevens’s presentation: Download mp3
https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014sept21blogfest_vance.mp3?

Sun Sep 21 Learning2gether participated in the 10-hour Fall Blog Festival

The Fall Blog Festival (FBF) is a one day blog festival event showcasing bloggers, their work, and valuable tips for blogging for reflective practice, work with students, business and other reasons. This event takes place online on WizIQ, on September 21, 2014.  Highlights include: Why blog, background to blogging, influential bloggers, getting started, and best practices and challenges involved in blogging.

Vance Stevens at the Fall Blog Festival

Flipping the flip: Organizing students around a wiki and training colleagues to do likewise

Recordings:

What was this about?

This session demonstrates a wiki developed for my classes over time that colleagues in my teaching context started collaborating with, and how I created a wiki to help my colleagues create their own, in such a way that it modeled how learning can be facilitated through a wiki

This presents a wiki that’s suddenly found traction with my colleagues where I teach. I’d like to talk about (1) how we use it to collaborate on the course we teach in common and (2) because I don’t want to be the constant go-to person for materials they create, how I have started a wiki to train colleagues to put up their own materials, at http://kbzpd.pbworks.com

Some time ago I organized my contribution to teacher training where I work around a blog http://toolkit4learning.blogspot.com. This presentation will be linked from that blog, illustrating some different affordances between blogs and wikis which allow each to work together in blended pedagogical and professional learning environments.

Announcement

Join #learning2gether at the Fall Blog Festival: http://www.wiziq.com/course/53478-fall-blog-festival
Sun Sep 21, 10 hours from 11:30 GMT
Selected events in WizIQ
– noon GMT ELT for Peace with Dr. Doris Molero
– 1300 GMT Susan Hillyard – sharing a life’s work on Blogspot
– 1400 GMT Vance Stevens – Flipping the Flip
The latter is about organizing students around a wiki and training colleagues to do likewise. The session demonstrates a wiki developed for classes over time that colleagues in the teaching context started collaborating with, and how the presenter created a wiki to help his colleagues create their own, in such a way that it modeled how learning can be facilitiated through a wiki
– The model wiki: http://kbzpd.pbworks.com
– Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/vances/fall-blogfest2014
All are welcome. Find connection and time links here: http://tinyurl.com/learning2gether

The above announcement posted at …

2014-09-26_0950fbfcert

Sun Sep 21  Susan Hillyard sharing a life’s work on Blogspot

Click here to access the class and its recording

Earlier this week

Sun Sept 14 – Learning2gether with ELTAI 2014 Post-conference Webinar

https://learning2gether.net/2014/09/14/learning2gether-with-eltai-2014-post-conference-webinar/

Sun / Mon Sept 14 / 15 IHAQ #16

http://edtechtalk.com/ihaq16-more-questions-about-set-course-or-project-website

http://youtu.be/xAa9qfBn-O4

http://youtu.be/YsGU-H-JNF4

Sep 2-14 ConnectedCourses Pre-Course

http://connectedcourses.net/thecourse/pre-course/

Looks like F.U.N. http://youtu.be/XS3GssVNdXw

Streamed live on Sep 2, 2014 – “You’re not on the edge unless  you’re falling off it” – Howard Rhinegold

Jim Groom, Alan Levine, and Howard Rheingold will talk about the how and why of setting up your blog for Connected Courses http://connectedcourses.net/

Ongoing through Sun Oct 5 HSLMOOC14 on WizIQ

Healthy and Sustainable Living MOOC free online course September 1 – October 5, 2014.

The Mon Sep 15 1700 GMT event of Marie-Hélène Fasquel Experimenting with the flipped classroom has been postponed

Because the presenter has moved to Nantes and does not know when she will have reliable Internet

E4.123-0145: Experimenting with the flipped classroom
Marie-Hélène Fasquel
15. 09. 2014 – 19:00h – 20:30h
Zugangslink: http://webconf.vc.dfn.de/flippedclassroom
Info: http://v.gd/MHFflipped

This is part of a series of webinars offered by Saarland Landesinstitut fur Padagogik und Medien (LPM) in various European languages; schedule and recordings here: http://tinyurl.com/aufzeichnungen. If it’s a first time registration, please send along the name of your school, university, institute, etc. to JWagner@lpm.uni-sb.de   

Mon Sep 15 Gaming in Education begins, ends Fri Sep 19

Gaming in Ed, September 15th – 19th, 2014

The inaugural Gaming in Ed conference is a great opportunity for you to share about what gamification looks like in your classroom, library, or household. Conference strands include Game-Based Learning: How to Use Games in Educational Settings, Games & Assessment, Connecting Educators With Game Developers: Make Your Voices Heard, Students as Content Creators & Game Designers, Research on Game-Based Learning, and Professional Development. Share your experience with game-based learning with an audience of game developers and peer educators!

Schedule

A sampling of sessions:

Thu Sep 18 Minecraft as Self-Directed Learning and a Community Development Tool

http://gamingined.com/forum/topics/minecraft-as-self-directed-learning-and-a-community-development

Links to other Learning Revolution Events

Sep 17 Mobile tools and strategies

Sat Sep 20 Doris Molero on VenTESOL

http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2139062-elt-for-peace-with-dr-doris-molero-urbe

 

Learning2gether with ELTAI 2014 Post-conference Webinar

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Learning2gether Episode 235


Download mp3:
https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/learning2gether-with-eltai-2014-post-conference-webinar-g4akv7w28n8.mp3?

The webinar started in WizIQ, recording at: http://go.wiziq.com/2tsw 

Eventually Vance Stevens joined in WizIQ and guided participants there to join a Google Hangout on Air (HoA) 

This special Learning2gether event was a part of the post-conference of the 9th International and 45th Annual ELTAI Conference – http://eltaiconferences.com/WEBINAR_14.html

Webheadsinaction.org archive: http://webheadsinaction.org/learning2gether-eltai-2014-post-conference-webinar

ELTAI is the English Language Teachers’ Association of India, Rajasthan: Jaipur Chapter (An Associate of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language [IATEFL], U.K.)

POST CONFERENCE WEBINAR Coordinators: Dr. Ashok Kapil and Dr. V.Anitha Devi

Instructions for joining the Hangout (you can join directly in the HoA or you can watch and listen to the stream)

If you wish to join directly, you need to

  1. Log on to your Google (e.g. Gmail) account
  2. Put on your headphones or ear buds
    (If you have no headset please listen to the stream. Sound from speakers creates echo in the Hangout)
  3. Click on the link to launch the HoA
    https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/hoaevent/AP36tYf6eFPWuEIQwgAJmI4BKvOzHhLcX4UrJy3S5QFvn2yhaY03kQ?authuser=0&hl=en
  4. Activate your mic and webcam (optional)
    1. Unmute your mic when ready to talk
    2. Please mute your mic when not talking.

If you wish to listen on the stream, you can do so in any of several ways

  1. You can visit http://webheadsinaction.org/live (here you will also find a Chatwing text chat)
  2. You can visit the Google+ event page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/c07nnb1ffl76k3ljflejink7nlo
  3. You can watch on YouTube directly: http://youtu.be/g4AkV7W28n8

Vance Stevens touched on Learning2gether https://learning2gether.net/about and ways we could connect with Indian educators in the way we met  Anitha Devi through Webheads (Learning2gether is an extension of Webheads). The plan is to

  1. meet at WizIQ, where everyone will be for Dr. Sanjay Arora’s presentation
  2. explain how to move either to Hangout or to follow the stream on YouTube, as per the writeup here:
    Stevens, V. (2013). Tweaking Technology: How Communities Meet Online Using Google+ Hangouts On Air with Unlimited Participants. TESL-EJ, Volume 17, Number 3, pp. 1-16. Available: http://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej67/int.pdf (also at http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume17/ej67/ej67int/).
  3. move to Hangout on Air (links to be provided shortly; as per instructions at http://webheadsinaction.com/live)

This is also a yesteryear and future experience.

Announcments

Earlier this week

Sun Sept 7 – Learning2gether in Hangout with Marijana Smolcec talking about the EU LLP Comenius Project

https://learning2gether.net/2014/09/07/learning2gether-in-hangout-with-marijana-smolcec-talking-about-the-eu-llp-comenius-project/

Thu Sep 11 1400 GMT Bron Stuckey on The Gaming Revolution

THE GAMIFICATION REVOLUTION

Weekly gamification webinar featuring Gabe Zichermann, where the gamification community come together and answer user questions about gamification design and engagement.

http://www.gamification.co/gamification-revolution/

REMEMBER TO SIGN IN TO CHAT, ASK QUESTIONS, AND GET SHOW REMINDERS!

CLICK THE “LIVE CHAT” BUTTON TO SEE THE CHATROOM!

Upcoming Episode: Sept 11th – 10:00 AM ET – Innovative Educational Ideas Bron Stuckey

Thu Sep 11 Webinar on Video Game Design as the New 21st-Century Literacy

http://connectedlearning.tv/video-games-new-21st-century-literacy

http://dmlhub.net/

This seems to have come to me through the Connected Courses Mooc in the FB post above

Sun Sep 14 Timeline of an eConnected Story

http://www.wiziq.com/course/75751-webinars-for-iatefl-ylt-sig

Past deadline for proposals for EVO 2015 – get yours in asap 🙂

Call for Proposals is at http://evosession.pbworks.com

https://www.canvas.net/courses/minecraft-for-educators

Learning2gether in Hangout with Marijana Smolcec talking about the EU LLP Comenius Project

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Learning2gether Episode 234


Download mp3:
https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hangout-with-marijana-smolc48dec-on-the-eu-llp-comenius-project-6nwmnzgsccc.mp3?

Learning2gether Sun Sep 7 1400 GMT Hangout with Marijana Smolčec on the EU LLP Comenius project

Marijana Smolčec met with us in Hangout to tell us a little about the EU LLP Comenius project she has been working on for the past 2 years. This was her presentation topic at the recent RSCON5 online conference

http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/comenius-multilateral-school-partnership-project-enterprising

At this event, Marijana explained how her European Comenius project connected students from 4-countries on a project where they simulated forming companies in their respective countries based on wholesome foods produced locally in each country, and how their funding allowed them to non-virtually transport the students to each of the 4 countries for events ranging from farmers’ markets that were in fact set up for the project (but in the videos look like the real thing), job interviews for one of the companies, and so on. They appeared on TV in their countries, produced eBooks, and the students learned a lot about business, culture, geography, cool tools to use in international communications both online and F2F and in documenting their experiences. This is really some amazing work with regards to commitment to teaching and engagement of students. Marijana has talked about this before but I got her to slow down, back up, explain how it got started. Since it was just the two of us and not time bound, we explored and I screen shared it all. Checking the video I see I managed to put up the screen share but except for a slip of the mouse at 53 minutes, did not have any of the usual talking heads in the recording. But I hope our followers will benefit from the recording.
How this works at showtime

http://www.slideshare.net/msmolcec/comeniusmultilateral-project

Announcements

Earlier this week

Sun Aug 31 – Learning2gether with Dawn Bikowski discussing gaming and language learning

https://learning2gether.net/2014/08/31/learning2gether-with-dawn-bikowski-discussing-gaming-and-language-learning/

Mon Sep 1 through Sun Oct 5 HSLMOOC14 on WizIQ

Healthy and Sustainable Living MOOC free online course affilated with WizIQ and Sustainability Studies (MASS) program at Ramapo College of New Jersey is scheduled for September 1 – October 5, 2014. You’re all invited: http://www.wiziq.com/course/62978-healthy-and-sustainable-living-mooc-2014

Blog: http://www.wiziq.com/teachblog/healthy-sustainability-living-mooc-wiziq/

Mon Sep 1 1500 GMT HSLMooc -Opening Ceremony

Class Presenter: Drs. Nellie Deutsch and Ludmila Smirnnova

Class Title: HSLMOOC14: Opening Ceremony.

Sat Sep 6 1330 GMT HSLMooc – Michael Edelstein on Sustainable Transition

Class Presenter: Professor Michael Edelstein, Ph.D

Class Title: HSLMOOC14: Making the Sustainable Transition

Sat Sep 6 1600 GMT – Understanding The Teaching System on WizIQ: CO-Presenter

Drs. Nellie Deutsch and Ludmila Smirnova  ‘Understanding The Teaching System on WizIQ: CO-Presenter’

Click here to access the Class

Sun Sep 7 1330 GMT HSLMooc Discussion1: Regional Activists

Class Presenter: Aytakin Asgarova

Class Title: HSLMOOC14: Panel Discussion1: Regional Activists.

Mon Sep 8 Martha Gold on MM5: Books and Lessons to Present Information on Moodle

Class Presenter: Martha Gold
Class Title: MM5: Books and Lessons to Present Information on Moodle.
Class Date: Monday, October 6, 2014
Class Time: 7:00 PM ((GMT+04:00) Abu Dhabi, Muscat)
Click here to access the class.

Sat Sep 6 L’usage de francais at Virtlantis

Time http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converted.html?iso=20140906T12&p1=234&p2=2059

Please have a look at the online activity calendar for additional info:
http://virtlantis.com/calendar/index.php

VIRTLANTIS is a free language learning resource and community of practice in the virtual worlds of Second Life® and Avination®.
We have been offering and facilitating free language learning activities since 2006.

What do we do at VIRTLANTIS?
We offer free informal learning activities for a growing number of languages!
Simply check out our activity calendar for additional information about our activities and how to participate.

Learning2gether with Dawn Bikowski discussing gaming and language learning

Uncategorized 2 Comments

Learning2gether Episode 233

Download mp3 here: https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014aug31dawnbikowski-64k.mp3

On Sun Aug 31 Learning2gether was honored to meet with Dawn Bikowski discussing gaming and language learning

Dawn discussed projects she’s working on for teacher training by putting digital gaming into her MA teacher training courses, including pedagogical grammar and teaching reading & writing. She also talked about her experiences as lead author of the teacher’s manual for the digital game Trace Effects, which she did for the U.S. Department of State.

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/12/k-12/u-s-state-department-launches-online-game-to-aid-english-learners/

Dawn mentioned using Aurasma with teacher trainees in her discussion with us. On YouTube you can see many examples of what Aurasma does; e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBKy-hSedg8 and she explained in greater detail in her talk at the CALL-IS and IATEFL LTSIG webinar on Gaming and Gamification on Jun 14 this year, where she spent 10 minutes talking about Aurasma and how she uses it to help teachers experience games.

TESOL CALL-IS Keynote, Dawn Bikowski
Training Teachers to Think in Games

At the Learning2gether link you can find an mp3 rendition of her talk. She starts talking about Aurasma and demonstrating its use about 20 minutes into it. I extracted audio from just that portion of her talk, here:

Download mp3 here: https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/dawnbikowskiwebinaraurasmaonly.mp3

Where? Blackboard Collaborate (Elluminate)

Announcements 

 

Earlier this week

Sun Aug 24 – Learning2gether with Rita Zeinstejer on Maximizing Collaboration and Sharing with Google+ and Hangouts

https://learning2gether.net/2014/08/27/rita-zeinstejer-maximize-collaboration-and-sharing-with-google-and-hangouts/

Aug 24 IT4ALL started with Understanding the teaching system on WizIQ

This is a part of the course Learn to Blend and Flip with Technology: http://www.wiziq.com/course/14339-blogging-reflective-learning

Tue Aug 26 1500 GMT Jason Levine with Mark Barnes -Throwing Out Grades: Revolutionizing Student Feedback for the Digital Age

Tuesday, August 26 at 11am EST (3pm GMT). Join world-renowned teacher, author, and teacher trainer, Mark Barnes, for “Throwing Out Grades: Revolutionizing Student Feedback for the Digital Age”, a free webinar on WizIQ. Here’s the link: http://goo.gl/lYy6Js

Tue Aug 26 AltEd Virtual Film Festival Interview with director Ian Reid

Alternative Education Virtual Film Festival: http://www.virtualfilmfestival.com/alternative-education.html

interviews director Ian Reid of Building the Machine on Tuesday, August 26th at 8pm ET

Thu Aug 28 0800 GMT edWeb.net hosts Mary Jo Huff – Literacy Learning with Storytelling and Puppetry

Make Literacy Learning Fun with Storytelling and Puppetry!

Presented by Mary Jo Huff, multi-award winning author, master storyteller and puppeteer for the early childhood classroom

Hosted by Don Monopoli, co-founder of the award-winning children’s recording and performing group, The Learning Company

More info and free registration: http://www.instantpresenter.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=ED53DD878148

Fri Aug 29 Shelly Terrell American TESOL webinar on Survival Tips for Teaching with Chromebooks

The following screen with its many links live can be found at http://bit.ly/eltlinks which redirects to

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?tab_layout=side&id=292127#anchor

Aug 30 IT4ALL Understanding the teaching system on WizIQ

This is a part of the course Learn to Blend and Flip with Technology: http://www.wiziq.com/course/14339-blogging-reflective-learning

Rita Zeinstejer – Maximize Collaboration and Sharing with Google+ and Hangouts

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Learning2gether Episode 232

Download mp3:
https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/webheads-learningtimes-rita24aug2014-64k.mp3

On Sun Aug 24 we enjoyed Learning2gether with
Rita Zeinstejer – Maximize Collaboration and Sharing with Google+ and Hangouts

Rita Zeinstejer has been asked to prepare a presentation on Google+ and Hangouts, so in this event, she piloted it first for Learning2gether in the the Webheads Bb Collaborate / Elluminate room

Would you like to easily connect, collaborate, and communicate with other educators, parents, or classrooms- whether they’re next door or around the world? Join Rita Zeinstejer as she explains how GOOGLE+  is the social network that adds to all of Google’s other services, including Gmail, YouTube, and Blogger; how Google+ brings popular social-media features like comments, photo- and music-sharing, videochat, etc. to your social circles.

She will also share how to easily connect and collaborate with the free video chat resource, Google Hangouts, and how you can use Google Hangouts to conduct parent-teacher conferences, collaborate with other teachers, or chat with other classrooms. You will also learn how students can work on collaborative projects with students in other parts of your state, country, or the world.

“With Hangouts on Air, you will be able to broadcast yourself publicly to the entire world, see how many viewers you have, and even record and reshare your broadcast. The public recording will be uploaded to your YouTube channel and to your original Google+ post.”

Announcements

Earlier this week

Sun Aug 17 – And the winner is … Learning2fly high with iTDi

https://learning2gether.net/2014/08/18/and-the-winner-is-learning2fly-high-with-itdi/

iTDi continues with participant sessions

Jason Levine is indefatigable, obviously enjoying himself; e.g. Thu Aug 21

  • Using the WiziQ Whiteboard to Write Chinese Characters
  • Online Student  Retention – Rob Howard
  • To Use or Not to Use L1 in the ESL classroom’. by Anastasia

Mon Aug 18 – Steven Anderson on Digital Citizenship, from Learning Revolution calendar

  • Monday, August 18th at 4pm Steven Anderson on “Building a Solid Digital Citizenship Program from Day One”, The beginning of the school year is such an important time for digital citizenship. Schools are distributing their Acceptable Use Policies or Responsible Use Policies. Students may have access to new technologies. Teachers are often planning on integrating new digital tools into their teaching. And parents may be hopeful about the educational potential of digital tools, but also anxious about their kids’ media use. What are some ways for you to start off the school year right and set the foundation for your digital citizenship program throughout the year? Hear from Steven Anderson, who will share advice and strategies to build a positive school culture around digital citizenship. Get inspired with practical ways you can implement your digital citizenship program, and involve the school community throughout the year!
  • For a full calendar of all upcoming events and conferences, click here.

Mon Aug 18 TL News Night LIVE from Learning Revolution calendar

  • Monday, August 18th at 8pm TL News Night LIVE, This is a LIVE show presented in news show format featuring a Wrap up of “This Month in School Libraries” and deeper discussion of topical school library issues with special guest experts. Did we mention it was LIVE?

For  full calendar of all upcoming events and conferences, click here.

Tue Aug 19 Karen Collias Fostering Creativity Inside and Outside the Classroom on EdWeb
Presented by Dr. Karen Collias, founder of Knowledge Without Borders
Hosted by George DeBakey, President, DeBakey International

Fri Aug 22 Shelly Terrell American TESOL webinar on Survival Tips for Teaching with iPads

The following screen with its many links live can be found at http://bit.ly/eltlinks which redirects to

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?tab_layout=side&id=292127#anchor

 Sat Aug 23 Carlos Fernandez and 81DASH on Classroom 2.0

Peggy George, Lorie Moffat and Tammy Moore will be hosting another Classroom 2.0 LIVE show. As an extension to the Classroom 2.0 Ning community, Classroom 2.0 “LIVE” shows are opportunities to gather with other educators in real-time events, complete with audio, chat, desktop sharing and closed captioning. A Google calendar of upcoming shows is available at http://live.classroom20.com/calendar.html.
On Saturday, August 23rd, the special guest was Carlos Fernandez, creator/developer of a fantastic, free new backchannel tool for the classroom called 81DASH. He will be joined by Jerry Swiatek, a District Technology Specialist for the Citrus County School District in Citrus County, FL where he works with teachers and students helping them integrate technology into their classrooms. Jerry is the founder and organizer of EdCamp Citrus, a Google Certified Admin and Teacher, and is also the archivist for the very successful #edchat community. Please join us to learn about 81DASH and the ways teachers are using it in their classrooms. We know you are going to be eager to start using it too! If you’re already using it we hope you’ll share your experiences either in the chat or on the microphone during the Q/A. Communication is vital in the 21st Century way of work and education is no exception. As the 81DASH team saw schools make the digital transitions, they knew that they needed to come up with a safe solution that would allow students access to communicate anytime, anywhere. But they also needed a solution that would keep students safe and give the teacher the opportunity to monitor and have full control of that chat environment. Although the chat feature is heart and soul of 81Dash, they believe that students need more than just a safe chat environment. They need a Dashboard that allows them to communicate, share files, take notes, and keep track of important tasks. 81Dash has been a tremendous passion project of theirs and is created by teachers for teachers. Follow 81DASH on Twitter and sign up on 81DASH to start using it with your students. More information and session details are at http://live.classroom20.com. If you’re new to the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! show you might want to spend a few minutes viewing the screencast on the homepage to learn how we use Blackboard Collaborate, and navigate the site. Each show begins at 12pm Eastern (GMT-5) and may be accessed in Blackboard Collaborate directly using the following Classroom 2.0 LIVE! link at http://tinyurl.com/cr20live. All webinars are closed captioned.On the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! site (http://live.classroom20.com) you’ll find the recordings and Livebinder from our recent”Assessments That Don’t Suck!” session with our special guest Paul Bogush. Click on the Archives and Resourcestab. When tweeting about Classroom 2.0 LIVE, be sure to use #liveclass20. Special thanks to our sponsors Weebly, The Learning Revolution and Blackboard Collaborate!Classroom 2.0 LIVE Team: Peggy George, Lorie Moffat, Tammy Moore, Steve Hargadon

Visit Classroom 2.0 at: http://www.classroom20.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

And the winner is … Learning2fly high with iTDi

Uncategorized 3 Comments

Learning2gether Episode 231

Sunday Aug 17, we had a session lined up for Learning2gether. Marijana was going to meet with us to talk about the Comenius project she has been working on recently, and we were all set to go, the Hangout was started and counting down, announcements were made … and then … everything last-minute recanted, Google+ event announcement was reset for 20 days later, all because iTDi had scheduled Shelly Terrell and Sylia Guinan for a closing ceremony right at the time Marijana was supposed to meet with us, and as we have both been participating in iTDi for the past month, she every day and as one of its presenters, me less assiduously but still, almost daily, well iTDi was just the more compelling event, and as such, the most appropriate one for Learning2gether this Sunday.

2014-08-25_1355flyhi

It was hard to resist the hard-working and fun-loving team of Jase Levine and Chuck Sandy, who kept the ball not only rolling but juggling in the air every day for almost a month, with practical and inspirational talks put on by a panoply of young and energetic teachers, many of whom seemed even younger due to that enthusiasm. Jase set the tone with a rap-a-day, and was getting pretty good at it there at the end. What’s the time? It’s time to rhyme! Chuck lent a sentient dimension with poetry, and Shelly contributed her unbridled enthusiasm in a call for teachers to continue sharing beyond the end of the MOOC.

I like the way the WizIQ app makes it easy to know what’s coming up, and convenient to join and participate on your iPad

During the event, I discovered that WizIQ was a great match for iPad. On PC I was having to dig out event announcements in order to find the link I needed to click to connect to the sessions, but with the app, you stay logged in, and a swipe at the top updates it for you so you can see at a glance when the next session is, and they all appear ready for launch in the iPad app. And of course iPads are easier to carry around a house than are computers, making it possible to enjoy iTDi almost anywhere; e.g. in the kitchen preparing dinner, or consuming it, as can be seen here

Aug 17 1400 GMT iTDi Summer School MOOC closing keynote by Shelly Terrell & Sylvia Guinan

Closing Keynote: League of Edu Heroes by Shelly Terrell & Sylia Guinan

2014-08-19_1605eduheros

The only thing I would improve with iTDi is that in order to attend the live events or see the recordings you had to first enroll in the MOOC. It would be easier to share with others if there were an open entry, though I can understand that the presenters of this event would want to know who their participants were (still, the MOOC was not technically ‘open’ though it was freely accessible to registered participants). Due to this constraint I’m not sure if the recordings are freely available without pre-registration, but if I find that they are, I will announce that happy fact right here!

And wow! A certificate of completion!

TTO-Vance-Stevens-8868 (1)

iTDi events were taking place all this past month. Here are a few from last week

(this is not a comprehensive list)

Mon Aug 11 1400 GMT Aysegul Liman Kaban on iTDi – Topsy Turvy Teaching Experiences

Tue Aug 12 on iTDi – Social networks in ELT: The Taming of the Shrew by Anna Loseva

Wed Aug 13 on iTDi – Teach Grammar Inductively Deductively & Creatively by Irina Ostapchuk


Wed Aug 13 on iTDi – Self Publishing Your Materials by Dorothy Zemach

Thu Aug 14 on iTDi – I’m going  to italy and  other mistakes  by James  Taylor

Professional Development for Now & The Future by VIcky Loras

Fri Aug 15 Disguising learning via games by Ragu Raganathan

Fri Aug 15 Helping YLs with Language Learning Difficulties by Karen Frazier Tsai

Aug 16 1230 GMT iTDi Pecha Kucha Session by Seven Fabulous Presenters

Reflections on the Pecha Kuch
http://mymathima.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/the-steps-that-take-us-forward-pecha-kucha-with-itdi/

Aug 16 14:30 GMT iTDi Exploring easy web tools by Nina Septina

Sun Aug 17 1400 GMT Hangout with Marijana Smolčec postponed to Sept 7

Marijana will be participating in the  iTDi event scheduled at this time

Explanation: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/evonline2002_webheads/conversations/messages/31299 

Earlier this week

Sun Aug 10 – John Hibbs and Jeff Lebow: Connecting participants via POTS, smart phones, and mobile devices

https://learning2gether.net/2014/08/10/learning2gether-with-john-hibbs-and-jeff-lebow-connecting-participants-via-pots-smart-phones-and-mobile-devices/

Mon Aug 11 2000 GMT Leona White – Yikes, I Have Two Days or Less to Set Up My Classroom!

Presented by Leona White, second grade teacher at Samuel Tucker Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia.

Info, and register free: http://www.instantpresenter.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=ED52DA808047

AltEd Virtual Film Festival Interviews with directors

Alternative Education Virtual Film Festival: http://www.virtualfilmfestival.com/alternative-education.html

  • Alt Ed Film Fest. It’s a big week for the Alt Ed Film Fest director interviews. Be sure to check out the schedule below to make sure you’re able to join us for some great interviews with the directors of Free to Learn, Grown Without Schooling, andSchooling the World.

If you missed any of last week’s interviews, be sure to check them out at https://www.youtube.com/user/vfilmfest/

Tue Aug 12  Bhawin Suchak of Free to Learn 
Wed Aug 13 – Peter Kowalke of Grown Without Schooling

 Thu Aug 14 – Carol Black of Schooling the World

Thu Aug 14 0900 GMT on EdWeb.net – Lee Ann Tysseling: Gaming for Literacy! CCSS and Text Complexity in Video Games

Gaming for Literacy! CCSS and Text Complexity in Video Games

Registration: http://www.instantpresenter.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=ED52DC80804E

Thursday, August 14, 2014
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Coordinated Universal Time-11) Show in My Timezone
Presented by Lee Ann Tysseling, Associate Professor of Literacy at Boise State University and author of Word Travelers: Using Digital Tools to Explore Vocabulary and Develop Independent LearnersYour students’ work is being affected by their out-of-school video gaming!  The average gamer plays 13 hours a week. (McGonigal, 2011).  
Don’t you wish your students were spending that much time reading and writing outside of your classroom?  Well—in many cases they are!  MMOPRGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) such as World of WarCraft, Minecraft and Guild Wars 2 are a powerful force in many students’ lives.  The good news for educators is that there are huge literacy demands of the players involved with these and other games.  
In our community’s next webinar, Boise State University’s Lee Ann Tysseling will unfold the literacy demands (text complexity in both reading and writing) of game play and explore strategies to help students learn to apply the advanced literacy skills and strategies they have acquired while playing games to their academic literacy tasks.  If you work with educators who blame video games for almost all the problems of youth, this webinar will provide some concrete responses to their criticisms.  
In addition to vocabulary and comprehension development ideas, Lee Ann will also share ideas for how to transfer valuable gaming soft skills such as persistence, resilience, research strategies, and group work to students’ academic tasks.  If we hope to achieve the goals of CCSS we will need to use every available resource.  Helping students leverage the skills and strategies they have honed in countless hours of gaming is a powerful strategy toward achieving CCSS mastery. Join Lee Ann on August 14 to learn more about gaming for literacy!

Sponsored by Filament Games
Co-hosted by edWeb.net, ISTE VEN, and SIIA
Join the Game-Based Learning community to access the webinar recording and resources.

Fri Aug 15 Shelly Terrell American TESOL webinar on Transforming physical learning spaces

The following screen with its many links live can be found at http://bit.ly/eltlinks which redirects to

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?tab_layout=side&id=292127#anchor

Fri Aug 15 event announced in Learning Revolution calendar

  • Friday, August 15th at 10am Google EdTechTeam Summit: Five Skills to Help You Discover, Use, and Share Great Digital Tools for Learning, As technology is integrated into classrooms, teachers need to know how to discover and use quality tools for learning, while meeting Common Core standards. Learn about five important skills for teachers, including how to: discover high quality apps, websites, and games for students; evaluate the learning potential of these tools; curate tools into useful collections; innovate by reimagining lessons to seamlessly weave in technology using a framework called App Flows; and collaborate by sharing best practices with other teachers on how you’re using digital tools in your classroom. Learn how you can achieve these five skill with Graphite, a free service by Common Sense Media. In a hands-on session, you’ll practice these important skills and reflect on how they can help you integrate technology into your curriculum.
  • For a full calendar of all upcoming events and conferences, click here.

Sat Aug 16 – event announced in Learning Revolution calendar

  • Saturday, August 16th at 11:30am Making a Better World: Teaching Digital Citizenship and 21st Century Skills, Students grow up in a digital world with potential for communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creation. How can we help students participate safely, responsibly, and ethically in digital spaces? Learn about the eight 21st century learning skills students need to learn about digital citizenship. You’ll learn about free, research-based curriculum to help teach students safe, responsible, and respectful participants in a digital world, while fostering 21st-century skills and meeting ISTE and Common Core Standards. The curriculum is available online as downloadable lessons, and as iBooks textbooks, with interactive activities, videos, and assessments. You’ll also learn about Digital Passport, a game-based interactive for students in grades 3-5 that teaches the “rules of the road” for digital citizenship, and how to engage families with the Connecting Families program. You’ll do hands–on work by getting familiar with the curriculum, sampling lessons, and much more.
  • For a full calendar of all upcoming events and conferences, click here.

Sat Aug 16 – event announced in Learning Revolution calendar

  • Saturday, August 16th at 12pm CR20 LIVE Weekly Show: Paul Bogush on “Assessments That Don’t Suck”, Is there a single kid in your class who looks forward to taking a test? Is regurgitating answers on a test that were learned by studying the night before causing your kids to have massive fits of boredom? Assessments can be fun, challenging, and memorable. Join us as we talk to Paul Bogush who will share 9 assessments that don’t suck during a fun, challenging, and memorable Classroom 2.0 discussion. Details to join the webinar:http://live.classroom20.com
  • For a full calendar of all upcoming events and conferences, click here.

Sat Aug 16 on Classroom 2.0 LIVE – Paul Bogush on Assessments That Don’t Suck

Date: Sat., August 16, 2014
Time: 9:00am PT/10:00am MT/11:00am CT/12:00pm ET
Location: http://tinyurl.com/cr20live (http://tinyurl.com/cr20live)

Peggy George, Lorie Moffat and Tammy Moore will be hosting another Classroom 2.0 LIVE show. As an extension to the Classroom 2.0 Ning community, Classroom 2.0 “LIVE” shows are opportunities to gather with other educators in real-time events, complete with audio, chat, desktop sharing and closed captioning. A Google calendar of upcoming shows is available at http://live.classroom20.com/calendar.html.

Join us on Saturday, August 16th, when our special guest will be Paul Bogush. Paul is an 8th grade teacher at Moran Middle School in Wallingford, CT. Is there a single kid in your class who looks forward to taking a test? Is regurgitating answers on a test that were learned by studying the night before causing your kids to have massive fits of boredom? Assessments can be fun, challenging, and memorable. Join us as we talk to Paul Bogush who will share 9 assessments that don’t suck during a fun, challenging, and memorable Classroom 2.0 discussion. Paul is a creative, high-energy teacher who is respected and adored by his students as someone who is “not boring and makes learning fun!” He blogs with his students, holds video conferences with students and business leaders, uses Google apps, wikis and Twitter, holds live broadcasts of class activities and uses Genius Hour/20% time. He received grants to acquire technology to record the oral history of the town’s senior citizens, a grant to create a podcast studio, and a second grant to expand the podcast studio. Follow him on Twitter or sign up to receive updates from his terrific blog: Blogush

More information and session details are at http://live.classroom20.com. If you’re new to the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! show you might want to spend a few minutes viewing the screencast on the homepage to learn how we use Blackboard Collaborate, and navigate the site. Each show begins at 12pm Eastern (GMT-5) and may be accessed in Blackboard Collaborate directly using the following Classroom 2.0 LIVE! link at http://tinyurl.com/cr20live. All webinars are closed captioned.

On the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! site (http://live.classroom20.com) you’ll find the recordings and Livebinder from our recent”Featured Teacher” session with our special guest Kyle Pearce. Click on the Archives and Resources tab. When tweeting about Classroom 2.0 LIVE, be sure to use #liveclass20. Special thanks to our sponsors Weebly, The Learning Revolution and Blackboard Collaborate!

Classroom 2.0 LIVE Team: Peggy George, Lorie Moffat, Tammy Moore, Steve Hargadon

Visit Classroom 2.0 at: http://www.classroom20.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Learning2gether with John Hibbs and Jeff Lebow – Connecting participants via POTS, smart phones, and mobile devices

Uncategorized 1 Comment

Learning2gether Episode 230

Download mp3: https://learning2gether.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/learning2gether-with-john-hibbs-and-jeff-lebow-pots-smart-phones-and-mobile-devices-pxippbgrtpm.mp3

Sun Aug 10 John Hibbs and Jeff Lebow – connecting participants via POTS, smart phones, and mobile devices

We billed this event as follows:

Three long-time friends get together to swap war stories, lending the perspectives of each’s unique accomplishments, and from the dust arising from the impact each has made, try to create a discernible cloud image foretelling the future of the convergence of telephony and CMC.

John Hibbs and Global Learn Day were early inspiration for Webheads and its three online convergences in 2005, 2007, and 2009, which led us to Learning2gether in 2010. John blogs at http://oregonhibbs.com/. Jeff Lebow has inspired thousands through his Worldbridges network, notably EdTech Talk whose most recent venture is I Have a Question; e.g. http://edtechtalk.com/ihaq15-ethics-innovation. Jeff was an early innovator with Google Hangout in education and we are counting on him to patch John into Hangout through telephony, as we explore the benefits of converging traditional and new communications to develop a vision of a more accessible and far-reaching connectivity than most of us imagine. We welcome YOUR contribution to this important discussion

Where? Google+ Hangout

Who was present?

This was a conversation between Vance Stevens, John Hibbs, and Jeff Lebow in Google+ Hangout to talk about how in this day and age online events can be staged to include people who might be more comfortable joining by phone. Robert Wachman  and Rita Zeinstejer also joined us in Hangout and Maria Colussa and Peggy George were in the Chatwing text chat and listening to the video being streamed on YouTube.

Our events aspire to be not so much set-piece presentations as experiments in online communications through whatever means seem interesting. Robert wrote me later “It was unexpectedly weird to enter the Hangout and find kind of a virtual tangled mess of connections, echoes, and smiling faces…but also fun!”

What actually happened?

As it turned out, John’s situation computer wasn’t up to Hanging Out, but Jeff had anticipated that John might want to patch in by phone and so he had activated a feature whereby you can bring phones into Google events. At the last minute we found that this worked only for video calls via Hangout but not for HoA (Hangouts on Air). So 15 min before show time Jeff was marvelous to behold on the yet-to-be broadcast Hangout as he started thinking and muttering through what he would need to do to have us all join him in Skype, and how he would patch that in through the HoA.

We had just set it up as the recording begins, all of us on Skype and our voices streaming through the HoA but with a problem whereby John could not hear anyone who was in the HoA but not in the Skype call. We got Robert into Skype and both he and I had debilitating echos which turned out in hindsight to be caused by hearing ourselves in both HoA and Skype on the same computer, but with a lag. The solution for us both was to drain the sound away from HoA (I did it by plugging a spare set of earbuds into the HoA computer and throwing that sound overboard and then having Jeff call me back on another computer where I could plug in another set of earphones and hear just the Skype there). Robert managed to solve his problem and once the initial difficulties had been resolved we settled into a conversation wherein we made the point that we had just done what we had set out to do, and that was, to patch a phone call into a free online tool that anyone (in theory, or if his initials are JL) would have available through a browser using only a little ingenuity, Google+ and Skype.

Fortunately the echo doesn’t come out on the recording, the participants do not appear as confounded as they were at the start of the event, the conversation was doable for all participating, and those in the stream seemed to think it went well, despite the fact that it was not even meant to be a polished performance. Our events can by nature and proclivity be experimental. This was the spirit of Global Learn Day from 1994 to 2003, for Webheads since 1998, and for Worldbridges since 2005. We like seeing what works and Learning2gether through trial, error, fleeting failure, and eventual success.

How our hangouts work at showtime

Announcements

  • Ning: http://taedtech.ning.com/events/learning2gether-with-hibbs-and-lebow
  • Yahoo Groups: Webheads, Multilit, and Learningwithcomputers
  • Facebook Groups: Webheads, Learning2gether, Multiliteracies, TAEdTech
  • Google+ communities: Webheadsinaction, Learning2gether, EdTech Mojo, MultiMOOC, Intergrating CALL with Web 2.0 and Social Media, Teachers for Interactive Language Learning (TILL)

Earlier this week

Another significant event, completely open, recordings immediately available, took place

Fri Aug 8 and Sat Aug 9 Toronto TESL BELTA online conference

Events took place in one of these online spaces

ROOM BELTA http://lancelot.adobeconnect.com/belta

ROOM TESL TORONTO http://learningtimesevents.org/webheads/

iTDi Summer School MOOC For English Teachers continues through Aug 17th

Here are a few of the events this week; This list is not comprehensive.

  • Mon Aug 4 Using Multi-path Stories in the Classroom by Marcos Benevides
  • Wed Aug 6 Adam Simpson on iTDi – 10 Ways to Engage Generation Y with Technology
  • Wed Aug 6 Kieran Dhunna Haliwell on iTDi – The Culture Chat Project 
  • Thu Aug 7 1400 GMT Vicki Hollett on iTDi – How To Make Videos 
  • Fri Aug 8 Traditional Games Across Borders by Marco Brazil 
  • Fri Aug 8 Inspiring L2 Writers: Immediate&Motivating Feedback by Steven Herder
  • Fri Aug 8 Jason R. Levine on ‘Meet and Greet in the VC 
  • Sat Aug 9 ‘Web Tools to Make Writing More Engaging by Budi Azhari Lubis’
  • Sun Aug 10 1300 GMT Rose Bard on iTDi

Focusing on Learning: Reflective Learners & Feedback by Rose Bard

2014-09-24_1523rosebard

Replay the recording here

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rfkPlWx1L5CjRdoRcofLxSePwoWJayvaIbDxXsqJs7o/viewform?usp=send_form

In order to attend the live events or see the recordings you must first enroll in the MOOC

Mon Aug 4 1st pre-conference keynote for the second annual Homeschool+ Conference and Virtual Film Festival

The second annual Homeschool+ Conference takes place August 7th + 8th, 2014, with pre-conference keynotes the three days before. This online and free event provides an opportunity to share strategies, practices, and resources for those involved with homeschooling, unschooling, free schools, democratic schools, and other forms of alternative, independent, and non-traditional education.

  • To attend the conference, to be kept informed of the latest conference news and updates, and/or to submit to present, please 
join this network!
  • The conference welcome letter is here.

The Alternative Education Virtual Film Festival: http://www.virtualfilmfestival.com/alternative-education.html

Interviews this week:

  • Tue Aug 5 Interview with director German Doin of La Educación Prohibida
  • Wed Aug 6 Interview with director Cevin Soling of The War on Kids

Fri Aug 8 at 2000 GMT Shelly Terrell American TESOL webinar 

Note that times in GMT may vary because the timing is fixed to a local time zone where clocks are moved forward / back periodically

As an example, this is the one for May 16, 2014, 1600 EDT, 2000 GMT

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Shelly+Terrell%27s+Weekly+Friday+TESOL+Seminars&iso=20140516T16&p1=179&ah=1

The following screen with its many links live can be found at http://bit.ly/eltlinks which redirects to

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?tab_layout=side&id=292127#anchor

Homeschool+ Conference, August 7th + 8th, 2014

Upcoming deadlines: The Call for Proposals for the 2014 Homeschool+ Conference is now open. Conference strands include Learning Theory, Homeschooling, Unschooling, Free Schools, Democratic Schools, Alternative and Non-Traditional Education, Student Presentation, Technology, Politics and Policy, and Faith-Specific Topics.

Sat Aug 9 Nellie Deutsch – Understanding WizIQ – Polling

http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/1951961-understanding-the-teaching-system-on-wiziq-polling-for-engagement

About the Class: Welcome to understanding the Teaching System on WizIQ. This webinar is part of a series of weekly online classes on the features available on WizIQ to organize online conferences, deliver MOOCs, and teach synchronous and/or asynchronous courses for fully online, blended, and flipped class programs for the private and public sectors.

Sat Aug 9 Classroom 2.0 – Kyle Pearce on integrating tech into Middle School math using iPads

Date: Sat., August 9, 2014

Time: 9:00am PT/10:00am MT/11:00am CT/12:00pm ET

Location: http://tinyurl.com/cr20live (http://tinyurl.com/cr20live)Peggy George, Lorie Moffat and Tammy Moore will be hosting another Classroom 2.0 LIVE show. As an extension to the Classroom 2.0 Ning community, Classroom 2.0 “LIVE” shows are opportunities to gather with other educators in real-time events, complete with audio, chat, desktop sharing and closed captioning. A Google calendar of upcoming shows is available at http://live.classroom20.com/calendar.html.Join us on Saturday, August 9th, when our special guest will be Kyle Pearce. We are so excited to have Kyle Pearce on Classroom 2.0 LIVE as our Featured Teacher for the month of August! This will be an excellent opportunity to learn about some of the amazing ways Kyle is effectively integrating technology into his Middle School math class using iPads, his Tech Toolbox, blogs, Google apps, Dropbox, going paperless, and more! Kyle is a Secondary Math Teacher and Intermediate Math Coach with the Greater Essex County District School Board leading a Ministry funded 1:1 iPad project called Tap Into Teen Minds. He is an Apple Distinguished Educator from the Class of 2013 and is working to become a Google Certified Teacher. He is currently teaching at Tecumseh Vista Academy K-12 in the morning and focuses on duties for the Middle Years Collaborative Inquiry (MYCI) Project in the afternoon. Follow him on Twitter or sign up to receive updates from his fabulous blog: Tap into Teen MindsMore information and session details are at http://live.classroom20.com. If you’re new to the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! show you might want to spend a few minutes viewing the screencast on the homepage to learn how we use Blackboard Collaborate, and navigate the site. Each show begins at 12pm Eastern (GMT-5) and may be accessed in Blackboard Collaborate directly using the following Classroom 2.0 LIVE! link at http://tinyurl.com/cr20live. All webinars are closed captioned.

On the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! site (http://live.classroom20.com) you’ll find the recordings and Livebinder from our recent”Unleashing Student Superpowers” session with our special guests Kristen Swanson and Hadley Ferguson. Click on the Archives and Resources tab. When tweeting about Classroom 2.0 LIVE, be sure to use #liveclass20. Special thanks to our sponsors Weebly, The Learning Revolution and Blackboard Collaborate!

Classroom 2.0 LIVE Team: Peggy George, Lorie Moffat, Tammy Moore, Steve Hargadon

Visit Classroom 2.0 at: http://www.classroom20.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Learning2gether all weekend Aug 1-3 with MMVC14 and iTDi

Uncategorized Leave a comment

Learning2gether Episode 229

There have been some remarkable events on this summer. July has seen at least one professional development session a day, first with TTO MOOC and RSCON5, and then iTDi
(see https://learning2gether.net/2014/07/20/reflecting-on-rscon5-idti-mooc-tto-mooc-and-mmvc14/).

This post documents the last week in July and then takes us to the top of August with MMCV14, a three day Moodle Moot virtual conference organized by Nellie Deutsch
(see http://www.wiziq.com/teachblog/august-moodle-moot/).

We start the weekend on on Friday, Aug 1, 1300 GMT, with simultaneous events for each iTDi and MMVC14 (had to choose!).  This carries on Saturday, and then through Sunday, traditional Learning2gether day, with the final day of the MMVC14 conference.

Sunday August 3, Learning2gether with final day 3 of MMVC14, Moodle MOOT Virtual Conference

2014-08-04_1623mmvc14badge

Sessions for Aug 3

  • 1200 GMT Nitin Jain Mass Enrolment is possible on Moodle, on a plugin for bulk loading participants to Moodle courses
  • 1300 GMT Maria Jesús García San Martín In and Out of Moodle
  • Sun Aug 3 1400 GMT MMVC14 presents AgileBill Krebs – SL Flat but Spatial
    Click here for the recording
  • 1500 GMT MMVC14 presents Professor Michael Edelstein Charting the Path to Sustainable Future
    Click here to access the recording
  • 1600 GMT Dr Ebba  Ossiannilsson MOOCs Hope and Hype
  • 1700 GMT Stephan Hughes Teaching the teacher on MMC14
    Click here to access the recording
  • 1800 GMT David W. Deeds Teaching/Training with 3D Virtual Worlds
  • 1900 GMT Rosmery Ribera Ferrier Blended Learning Debate
  • 2000 GMT Ludmila Smirnova, Ph. D Designing and Teaching a Moodle Course Online: How to Do it Right
  • 2100 GMT Nellie Deutsch Closing Ceremony

Sun Aug 3 1400 GMT iTDi MOOC Barbara Sakamoto – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

In order to attend the live events or see the recordings you must first enroll in the MOOC

Saturday August 2, second day of MMVC14

iTDi Summer School MOOC For English Teachers: Fly High With iTDi! through Aug 17th

Fri Aug 2 iTDi MOOC Teaching children with special needs – Autism with Priscila Mateini

‘Teaching Children with Special Needs – Autism by Priscila Mateini’. The class will start at 06:00 PM (GMT+04:00) Abu Dhabi, Muscat and is 60 minutes long.

To join the class or view its recording, you must enroll in the iTDi Summer School MOOC For English Teachers: Fly High With iTDi! runs July 20th – August 17th

In order to attend the live events or see the recordings you must first enroll in the MOOC

Fri Aug 1 thru Sun Aug 3 MMVC14 free online conference

Sat Aug 2 Day 2 of MMVC14 free online conference

  • 1200 GMT MMVC14 – Sheeba Ajmal Enhanced Learning Environment – ELE
  • 1300 GMT MMVC14 – Dr. Ramesh Sharma OERs: Emerging Scenarios in India
  • 1400 GMT MMVC14 – Dr. Arkady Zilberman Going Mobile for Acquisition of EFL Skills
  • 1500 GMT MMVC14 – Janvier Nkurunziza Teacher training with Moodle in Africa, action research
  • 1600 GMT MMVC14 – M.A. Halina Ostańkowicz-Bazan Online Education and Netiquette
  • 1700 GMT MMVC14 – Dr. Nancy Zingone Learning by Teaching
  • 1800 GMT MMVC14 – Shelly Sanchez Terrell on MMVC14: Creating Meaningful eLearning with Digital Badges
    Click here for the recording
  • 1900 GMT MMVC14 – Charles Goodger Online Action Song Packs

2000 GMT MMVC14: Guiding Students Online with Leo JC and Danilo Pereira
http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2028676-mmvc14-guiding-students-online

Time: 4 PM EST(global time given in schedule)

The group FEO – Friends, Helpers & Doers on Facebook allowed FEO e-book 1’s creation.

The constantly updated e-book, built on Google Docs, suggests specific links about vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation for the basic students of English.
Far from intending to be a complete language course, the e-book aims at incentivating students to learn and practise English online, by suggesting links recommended by English teachers.
In 2014, Face English Online , Facebook group and the main blog  , were launched.
Nowadays, the 5 English teachers mentioned below look for more educators to border the online project by not only implementing e-book 1 but also co-building e-book 2.
Teachers
1. Leo JC
2. Danilo Pereira
3. Ahmed Al-Qadhi
4. Rosana Baraldi
5. Chaouki M’kaddem

Sat Aug 2 1600 GMT CR20 Live on Practical Teaching Strategies for 21st Century Students

Kristen Swanson and Hadley Ferguson, co-authors of “Unleashing Student Superpowers: Practical Teaching Strategies for 21st Century Students”

  • Saturday, August 2nd at 12pm CR20 LIVE Weekly Show, Classroom 2.0 LIVE is an opportunity to gather with other member of the community in regular “live” web meetings. Special thanks for this go to our sponsor, Blackboard Collaborate, for providing the service that allows us to do this! Details to join at http://live.classroom20.com.
  • For a full calendar of more upcoming events and conferences, click here

On the Classroom 2.0 LIVE! site (http://live.classroom20.com) you’ll find the recordings and Livebinder from our recent ”Evernote in the Classroom” session with our special guestJeff Bradbury. Click on the Archives and Resources tab. When tweeting about Classroom 2.0 LIVE, be sure to use #liveclass20. Special thanks to our sponsors Weebly, The Learning Revolution and Blackboard Collaborate!

Fri Aug 1 started at 1300 GMT with simultaneous events

iTDi MOOC event

Using Videos to Improve Reading Comprehension by Naomi Epstein

Obviously Naomi showed a number of videos meant to prompt reading and expression (as in writing, conversation)

In order to view the recording you’ll need to enroll in the iTDi Summer School MOOC For English Teachers: Fly High With iTDi! runs July 20th – August 17th

In order to attend the live events or see the recordings

Fri Aug 1 thru Sun Aug 3

MMVC14 free Moodle Moot virtual conference

From Nellie: “You’re invited to join the 4th annual free 3-day online conference from August 1-3, 2014. Recordings will be available for anyone who is registered. You may also access the content and engage in discussions with the presenters and other participants. Certificates are available for those who reflect on 3 of the live classes or the recordings of the webinars.

Here’s the link to the conference: http://www.wiziq.com/course/30546-moodlemoot-2014-mmvc14

There are 26 webinars. Recordings and MP4 files will be available for download. You can check your timezone by clicking on the time scheduled for each session.”

Aug 1 1300 GMT Dr. Nellie Deutsch Opening Ceremony

Class link: http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2016340-mmvc14-opening-ceremony-with-dr-nellie-deutsch

Following sessions for Aug 1

  • 1400 GMT Dr. Jukka Holm and Maija Loikkanen ActionTrack – Learning by Experiencing
  • 1500 GMT Brenda Mallinson Offline Solutions for Online Learning
  • 1600 GMT Exploring Use of iPads 4 Engaged Learning by Lindsay Bordonaro
    Lindsay Bordonaro discusses Exploring the Use of iPads for Engaged Learning in the Elementary Classroom: A Survey of Teachers. Research demonstrates that well integrated technology has a positive impact on student learning outcomes. This survey was implemented to examine if and how elementary and middle school teachers use iPads in their classrooms, what iPad applications are used and preferred by students and teachers. This presentation explains the results.
    Recording    :
    http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/2020967-mmvc14-exploring-the-use-of-ipads-for-engaged-learning
  • Aug 1 1700 GMT Dr. Nellie Deutsch, Ed.D Blended Online Learning with Moodle and WizIQ
    Dr. Nellie Deutsch, Blended Online Learning (Moodle & WizIQ) with Nellie Deutsch
    Click here to access the recording
  • Aug 1 1800 GMT Anna Grabowska Moodle Case Studies since 2003
  • Aug 1 1900 GMT Paul Beaudoin, PhD Beginnings, Middles and Ends
  • Aug 1 2000 GMT Mau Buchler Tripppin on ESL

Also Friday, Aug 1

Fri Aug 1 at 2000 GMT Shelly Terrell American TESOL webinar – Preparing your best year yet

Note that times in GMT may vary because the timing is fixed to a local time zone where clocks are moved forward / back periodically

As an example, this is the one for May 16, 2014, 1600 EDT, 2000 GMT

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Shelly+Terrell%27s+Weekly+Friday+TESOL+Seminars&iso=20140516T16&p1=179&ah=1

The following screen with its many links live can be found at http://bit.ly/eltlinks which redirects to

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?tab_layout=side&id=292127#anchor

Fri Aug 1 AltEd Virtual Film Festival begins

Alternative Education Virtual Film Festival: http://www.virtualfilmfestival.com/alternative-education.html

The films are available for free or nominal cost viewing during the month of August. Click on the Alt Ed Film Fest Director Interview Schedule to access the films and take this opportunity to view them. You can also find the schedule of interviews with the directors here.

Earlier this week

Wed Jul 23 Learning2gether with Joe Dale about AppSmashing with iPads
https://learning2gether.net/2014/07/23/learning2gether-with-joe-dale-about-appsmashing-with-ipads/

Thu Jul 24 Future of Museums free online conference
Future of Museums, this free, online event will give those of you who work in the museum and archives fields an opportunity to share your passion for the future of museum services, spaces, and innovations. Conference strands include Bring Your Own Device, Location-Based Services, Crowdsourcing, and Makerspaces.

  • Twin Events on the Future of Museums: Wednesday + Thursday. This week will kick off twin events about the future of museums – July 23rd & 24th. Both events are focused on four main themes from the NMC Horizon Report > 2013 Museum Edition: Bring Your Own Device, Location-Based Services, Crowdsourcing, and Makerspaces.
    • Wednesday: NMC Virtual Symposium on the Future of Museums is an exclusive symposium for you, the curators, creators, innovators, museum professionals, and educators. In this limited-space event, engage with panels on these topics and help shape the conversation – get your burning questions answered! There are still spaces left, so please see more information at go.nmc.org/future-museums.
    • Thursday: The Future of Museums Conference will be a free, online, collaborative global conversation about technology, museums, and the future. This event will be held from 9:30am – 5pm US-Eastern Time, and will feature keynote speakers Suse Cairns, Lath Carlson, Alex Freeman, Jeffrey Inscho, Barry Joseph, Elizabeth Merritt, and Holly Witchey, and crowdsourced presentations by your peers. Attendees can expect to learn best practices to implement in their museums, and will hear real-world examples of innovative practices in the field. We are looking forward to these fun events, and to your participation.

Are you planning to attend? Don’t forget to print out this flyer to hang on your door, letting your colleagues know what you’re up to and how they can join you!. More promotional materials are available at http://futureofmuseums.com/page/promotion.

Fri Jul 25  iTDi and Ana Maria Menezes and Jennifer Verschoor

Fri Jul 25 Shelly Terrell American TESOL webinar – 10+ ways to get tech into the classroom

The following screen with its many links live can be found at http://bit.ly/eltlinks which redirects to
http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?tab_layout=side&id=292127#anchor

Sun July 27  Learning2gether with iTDi MOOC and Chuck Sandy

Date & Time

Presenter

Session Title and Description

July 27th

1 pm GMT

Chuck Sandy  believes that education has the power to change the world: one student, one teacher, one classroom at a time. He’s is a cofounder and director of the International Teacher Development Institute (iTDi). He’s also  a teacher trainer, essayist, and author of several coursebooks such as the just published Passages 3rd Edition series from Cambridge University Press  which he wrote with Jack C.Richards. His most recent book which he coauthored with Dorothy Zemach is English For Scammers, a guide to writing effective business emails.  Read Chuck’s most recent essays about education on the iTDi Blog and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

This Is Just To Tell You … (about poetry, projects, and power) In this session we’ll explore the power of collaborative learning using a few simple poems as our starting point.  We’ll do some activities together, develop some additional possibilities, and then I’ll invite you and your students to participate in a collaborative online project in which we’ll build a database of recorded poetry. To prepare for this session please read my iTDi Blog post Invitation Standing: Bringing Poetry To The Classroom

This MOOC is open in the sense that it is free to sign up for and to enjoy, but not open in the sense that its artifacts are accessible to anyone online without pre-condition, which is that you must enroll in the iTDi Summer School MOOC For English Teachers: Fly High With iTDi! runs July 20th – August 17th  in order to attend the live events or see the recordings

Mon Jul 28 IHAQ #15 The Ethics of Innovation
http://edtechtalk.com/ihaq15-ethics-innovation

Mon July 28 2014 More than activities: #FlashmobELT by Ann Loseva & Michael Griffin

Mon Jul 28 1800 GMT Open Badges MOOC webinar on Cities of Learning

Presenters

  • Nichole Pinkard, Associate Professor at DePaul University and Founder of DYN (Representing CoL overall)
  • Sybil Boyd-Madison, Learning Pathways Program Director at DYN (Representing Chicago)
  • Margaret Black, Director of Operations at Big Thought (Representing Dallas)
  • Luis Mora, Administrator at Beyond the Bell (Representing LA)
  • Megan Cole, The Badge Alliance

Our world is increasingly complex and connected. Today’s youth need learning that is powerful and relevant and that links the academics they study today to the real world they will live and work in tomorrow. This is a challenge that no single institution can solve. Our community must come together to connect our youth to rich learning experiences, both inside and outside of school, to discover and develop their talents and ambitions.

The Cities of Learning http://citiesoflearning.org/ offers just that. As a nationwide movement to leverage community and government resources, the Cities of Learning turns a whole city into a campus, opening doors across neighborhoods to ensure all youth have access to creative and academic opportunities in our libraries, museums, parks and other community institutions, as well as to exciting learning experiences online.

Cities of Learning are designed around the principles of Connected Learning, a new approach that builds on the basics, leveraging technology to make learning relevant to the demands and opportunities of the digital age. In addition, the Cities award digital open badges to showcase the knowledge and skills youth acquire during out-of-school learning.

Chicago launched the Cities of Learning movement in 2013 with a successful summer program that now continues year-round. This summer, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh have kicked off their Cities of Learning, with Columbus and Washington, D.C., joining the lineup this fall. More cities are planning to launch in 2015.

Join us for a live presentation as we dive deeper into the Cities of Learning movement. Megan Cole, Director of Marketing and Operations at the Badge Alliance, will facilitate the discussion between the key partners and open badges experts that are behind building the Cities of Learning infrastructure and badges systems, as well as local city officials that have had a direct hand in implementing the Cities of Learning program to-date.

  • Review the history of the Cities of Learning vision
  • Discuss what it takes to launch a Cities of Learning
  • Get details on the foundational Connected Learning principles used
  • Receive an overview of how badge systems are created within each city
  • Take a look at what will be happening in four major cities this summer
  • Get answers to questions you might have about the Cities of Learning
  • For more information, visit http://citiesoflearning.org.

To join the live sessions, please use the Blackboard Collaborate Web Conference link: http://tinyurl.com/OpenBadgesCollaborate

Looking forward to your ongoing participation in the Open Badges MOOC! You are welcome to continue to use the MOOC resources (badges.coursesites.com) and submit challenge assignments for review by our experts. You’ll also find an extremely useful set of resources on the Reconnect Learning site.

Anne Derryberry, Deb Everhart, and Erin Knight

MOOC leaders

Tue Jul 29 iTDi MOOC Chuck Sandy and Barbara Sakamoto

Tue Jul 29 iTDi MOOC Marijana Smolcec and Marcia Lima

Link shared during the presentation:

(my badge)

This MOOC is open in the sense that it is free to sign up for and to enjoy, but not open in the sense that its artifacts are accessible to anyone online without pre-condition, which is that you must enroll in the iTDi Summer School MOOC For English Teachers: Fly High With iTDi! runs July 20th – August 17th  in order to attend the live events or see the recordings

Tue Jul 29 Appy Hour – SimCity

Tuesday, July 29th Appy Hour: Inspiring Students to Design Great Cities with SimCity, SimCity is an always-online, fast-paced, intuitive, and forgiving city simulator that lets kids build (and destroy) single-player cities in multiplayer regions. Students can learn about what makes a great city, city management by keeping a budget, running a surplus, or issue bonds to keep afloat. Kids can play together in the same region, or as a single player who manages all the cities in it. In this Appy Hour, videogame journalist, critic, and teacher David Thomas will present on how SimCity can be used by teachers.

For a full calendar of more upcoming events and conferences, click here.

Wed Jul 30 Debora Tebovich and Roseli Serra

Wed Jul 30 Teachers Teaching Teachers

  • Wednesday, July 30th at 9pm Teachers Teaching Teachers, Weekly conversations hosted by EdTechTalk, a collaborative open webcasting community. For more information, click here.

Thu Jul 31 Strategies for a Whole-Community Approach to Digital Citizenship 

  • Thursday, July 31st Strategies for a Whole-Community Approach to Digital Citizenship, How has your school built a positive culture around digital citizenship? How have you involved students, faculty, staff, leadership, and parents? In our community’s next webinar, learn about the three elements necessary to take a whole-community approach to digital citizenship at your school or district: educating students, engaging parents, and enriching leadership. See examples from Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy in Melbourne, Florida, which is a Digital Citizenship Certified School by Common Sense Media. Learn how the school a taught students digital citizenship, see examples of how the school has engaged parents, and hear examples of school leadership. Join Susan and Brad on July 31st and walk away with specific ideas and examples of how you can build a positive school culture around digital citizenship, and involve all stakeholders. Register here.
  • Thursday, July 31st Laura Candler: Active Engagement – Simple Strategies for Success, Another exciting webinar by Laura Candler to jump-start your new school year with simple strategies that you can use to make your classroom more engaging and help kids retain what they are learning. During this free webinar, Laura will share strategies for making every lesson more effective with active engagement. Strategies will include cooperative learning methods, team formation tips, how to use dry erase boards effectively, classroom management ideas, and more. You are also invited to share your own strategies via the online chat during the webinar. If you can’t attend the live session, register to receive the link to the recording. Participants who attend the live session will be able to download an attendance certificate that they may be able to use for PD credit. Register here.