Week of February 27 - March 5, 2010

Welcome to this week's EdTechTalk (ETT) newsletter! One of our goals in providing this newsletter each week is to make it convenient for our readers to quickly review the excellent ETT webcasts that have been posted in the previous week (in case you missed the live session). We just provide the links and highlights in the newsletter, but if you go to the actual link you not only will be able to listen to the recording, but you can read the chat log and additional information provided by the show hosts. Often there are links shared in the chat, videos, and other resources.  Also many of the show hosts have created websites or Ning Networks to post additional information about their shows with an opportunity to continue the conversations. 

Earthcast 2010
It's time to start thinking about how you and/or your students and communities can get involved in EarthCast 2010, an incredible project that involves many EdTechTalk community members and is facilitated by Matt Montagne and Doug Symington. Come and join us!


The Week in Review

 
We were very fortunate to have Kelly Hines as a guest on the Echo. Her K12 Online 2009 presentation, Little Kids - Big Possibilities was streamed. She elaborated on the work she does with her students. It was a lively discussion.  
 
 
 
 
This week, differences and similarities between Instructional Design work in corporate and higher education settings were explored with Karl Kapp: http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/, http://karlkapp.com.  Karl's background teaching e-learning classes and experiece training CEO's and front line staff gives him a unique perspective on desiging learning for these environments. Some of the points discussed included:
  • Differences in the purpose of designing learning
  • Designing instruction to suit the different environments
  • Assessing the effectiveness of e-learning design



   EdTechWeekly #155

   This week, Dave celebrated Canada's hockey victory while Jeff waxed philosophically about his last show before a 21-week hiatus. John was just along for the ride. Jeff, we are going to miss you!



Parents as Partner Episode #34 March 1, 2010

Show hosts Matt Montagne, Lorna Costantini and Cindy Seibel welcomed Mike Herrity, Assistant Head master at Twynham School In Christ Church in the UK. Mike gave an overview of the way that Twynham School works with parents. They engage parents around their student's school work through the use of a portal which is accessed by students, mentors, parents and teachers. Mike talked about the success stories that they are enjoying with increase student achievement with the support of parents.
 It seems like we have been on hiatus, but we are back. Well, mostly. Alice Barr was unable to be with us for good reasons. She was being honored as a finalist for Maine Teacher of the Year! Listen in to our show as we interviewed Mike Gorman who is new to the blogging scene and how he has transformed his school by using project  based learning and something called an Integrated Solutions Block.

 

Teachers Teaching Teachers #186 - Texas in the house with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast on doing digital make-overs - 02.10.10

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we were excited to have a conversation with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast about their new book, Using Technology to Improve Adolescent Writing: Digital Make-Overs for Writing Lesson.
Liz Campbell Stephens teaches graduate courses in Educational Technology and is Director of the Office of Educator Preparation at Texas State University-San Marcos. She serves on the National Writing Project’s Board of Directors and was Director of the Central Texas Writing Project for 11 years. She co-authored Technology, Reading, and Language Arts and has written numerous chapters and papers on technology and literacy.  Liz is former high school English teacher and brings that experience to her work as a teacher educator, federal programs director, and consultant. Her research has centered on literacy, technology, and teacher education.  Kerry Ballast is a Teacher Consultant for the Central Texas Writing Project and a secondary English language arts teacher with 14 years classroom experience. She has worked with students in grades 6-12 to explore various forms of writing, both traditional and digital. Currently, she works for the Texas


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EdTechTalk is a community of people interested in the use of technology to improve teaching and learning at all levels of education throughout the world. As a Worldbridges community, it embraces the values of collaboration and inclusiveness. The primary activity of the community is the production of a number of live, interactive webcasts. These programs cover a wide range of topics relating to educational technology. Shows are typically streamed live, and listeners can interact with one another and the show hosts through a text chat. Recordings of the shows are released as podcasts. Participation in the community is encouraged for anyone who has an interest in educational technology. Participation may take many forms, from simply listening to shows produced by the community to more actively working to produce and distribute content for the network.

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Enjoy your week,

Your enthusiastic ETT Newsletter Gang.


 

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