Two Wonderful Professional Development Opportunities!

When it rains it pours. In a good way this time.

I'll be sharing about virtual worlds next Monday morning at a uniquely blended online and in-person conference in Iowa, all from the convenience of my garage home office. I did so last Saturday as well, and the forum platform was the same, Google Hangouts. Last Saturday's one hour session was a panel on the impact of technology on learning and teaching, organized and moderated by dear friend Jane Wilde at Marlboro College in Vermont; and it was thoroughly enjoyable, archived at YouTube (a feature of Hangouts). You can watch the session right here if you wish, or watch part of it and come back later to finish. It's digital, y'all.

Scroll on down to see the schedule for the Iowa conference, which is designed in such a way that I don't really have to present at all, just attend, share the viewing of a K12OnlineConference video presentation I created last year, and then be present via hangouts for q and a. I do plan to desktop share my current build for MNPS Virtual School in Kitely, though, so if you want to watch via the live YouTube Stream have at it! Here's the "Connected Learning Hangout":





And here's Leigh Zeitz's online poster for the ITEC:

Learn from Leaders in

Our Online PD Community

These leaders in the field will video conference into our sessions. We will watch their videos on their topic and discuss ideas afterwards. Experience this innovative model for professional development.

Monday – October 14    (Room 309)
*	Scott Merrick - Tennessee Virtual Worlds for Learning and Teaching: Power Examples to Get You Thinking Scott Merrick has been exploring 3D online environments and their potential for extending learning and teaching onto the global stage. This session uses a live exploration of a custom-built Wallwisher.com webpage with voice narration created in Audacity. Learn a little bit about several more or less randomly selected (from hundreds existing) examples of the power of virtual environments to help establish “sense of place at a distance.” 10:45 – 11:35
*	Naomi Harm - Minnesota Creating Seven Habits of Highly Effective Professional Development Learning Experiences Naomi Harm explains how technology can radically change instructional strategies to bring about socially meaningful learning. Learn how an organization can move to deeper and more creative staff development practices. Seven online highly collaborative tools will be explored and demonstrated. She will discuss how to provide support for an online community-based reflection portal for educators. 12:40 – 1:30
*	Leigh Zeitz - Iowa Making 21st Century Learning Come To Life in Your Classroom Dr. Leigh Zeitz will explore 21st Century Learning from the practical side. What is a 21st learning environment? What is the difference between 20th and 21st Century learning? Dr. Z will share ways to integrate new paradigms into your classroom and tools/applications that can address today’s students’ learning needs. 1:45 – 2:35
Tuesday – October 16   (Room 309)
*	Shelly Sanchez Terrell - Texas The Magic of Mobile Learning Shelly Sanchez Terrell advocates transforming learning through mobile technology. Features and apps allow learners to move around the classroom sparking creativity and imagination. In this session, we explore activities that get learners analyzing, and engaging with the concepts they are learning. These activities with mobile devices include recording videos, taking photos, and recording audio. We will also explore fun apps that allow students to be imaginative and creative. 8:00 – 8:50
*	Bud Hunt – Colorado Make/Hack/Play – Lenses for Learning Bud The Teacher shares the journey they have taken to conceptualize and develop their Discovery Center for Make/Hack/Play in his Colorado school district.  This session will be valuable to Iowa educators because he identifies the many ideas/problems/issues that they encountered as they entered the Make Movement and how they addressed them. 11:00 – 11:50
*	Tricia Fuglestad - Illinois Teaching Art in a Technology Rich and Connected Classroom Tricia Fuglestad, PBS Teachers Innovation Award winner, explores Integrating technology, web 2.0, and interactive tools in her art room. These activities give students the opportunity to enhance their 21st-century learning skills, practice creative problem-solving, and develop higher-level thinking as they create art. Tricia will share stories and examples from her technology-rich elementary art room and how their online connections have enthralled, enriched and engaged her students. 1:00 – 1:50

ITEC in October Looks Promising

Here's something to blog about--old friend Leigh Zeitz emailed me the other day and invited me to share in a remote session at the Iowa Technology & Education Conference in October. I'll do so.

This "flipped" conference is built upon educational videos which are watched onsite and then augmented by a Skype or other technology-supported videoconferencing platform visit by the video's creator. For my session they selected my K12 Online Conference piece from last November. This prompted me to go back and revisit it and, what do you know, it's pretty interesting.

I've been pretty much removed from 3-D synchronous learning environments for the past year or more as my "real-life" work has captured my passion and focus, such as it is (that's a little joke for those who know me and my sometimes scattered attention span). I've been too busy with that to even propose a topic for this year's K12 Online Conference, which I see will be Keynoted by one of my very favorite Professional Learning Networkers, Shannon Miller. Sheesh, another online event for my calendar, albeit a distinctly necessary one.

In preparation for this session I plan to do some update research, so do stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, if you missed it, you can take that 20 minutes and catch the original here:



I for one am looking forward to ITEC, and to catching as much of the conference as possible, with luminaries and PLN colleagues Jeff Utecht and Kathy Schrock amongst the speakers. I'd actually love to get up to Iowa, but I can't see pulling away from the important work I'm doing at MNPS Virtual School to do so.

Thanks, Leigh and ITEC, for the invite, and I'll be there virtually and promptly!