EdTechTalk

On this episode of TTT, re-mix and get ready for EduCon 2.5 http://educonphilly.org with George Mayo, Harry Costner, and Bill Fitzgerald along with our friends Scott Shelhart and Kelsey Shelhart.

A few weeks ago, George wrote in an email:

Another teacher and I have this experiment for this year's Educon called @remixeducon http://educonphilly.org/conversations/remixeducon . We're planning on creating a structure for participants to share, download and remix media created throughout the conference. The other teacher's name is Harry Costner. He's a really cool middle school film teacher in Virginia.

Would it be possible for us to pitch our @remixeducon idea on a TTT show sometime after the new year as we get closer to Educon? I'm trying to think of ways to spread the word about our project before the conference.

How do you turn down an offer like that?

In addition, Harry and George are doing a second session at Educon on Video Production and Social Media http://educonphilly.org/conversations/Video_Production_and_Social_Media:A_Powerful_Combination

That's not all!

When we heard that Bill Fitzgerald would be remixing at Educon too, we asked him what he’s up too. Here was his reply:

We are definitely running a pre-Educon event - the details (and some of our thoughts about what we hope to achieve, big picture) are linked in this post: http://funnymonkey.com/when-we-talk-about-open-content-this-is-what-we-talk-about

Our Educon session on this is at http://educonphilly.org/conversations/Adopting-Using-and_Reusing_Open_Content

We are also doing a second session on starting a non-profit: http://educonphilly.org/conversations/So_You_Want_To_Start_an_Educational_Non-Profit

Sounds like fun doesn’t it? Enjoy!

With the impending snow heading our way,  Maria and Sheila talked about the possibility of a snow day! Snow days have to be made up at the end of the school year to meet the state's requirements. What if the students were able to do the school work at home and have the work count as a day of school. Some schools have implemented 'Blizzard Bags.'   

Lisa is still 'on leave' and we hope she will be able to return soon and add to the conversation!

This week Maria and Sheila talked about caring in our classroom/school and entrusting students to our care (in relation to the Sandy Hook school shootings). (Lisa was unable to join us for the show this week.)

We are joined by colleagues from England and Australia on this episode of TTT as we follow-up with them on an earler conversations about blogging in elementary schools: http://edtechtalk.com/node/5156.

Our goal is simple: we want to make plans for elementary school students to find and respond to each others blog posts this spring. Joining us on this episode of TTT are Makewaves’ Cliff Manning, KidBlog’s Matt Hardy, Sue Waters from EduBlogs, and some of us are from Youth Voices. We are also joined by David Mitchell, the Quadblogging guru and Linda Yollis an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles who Quadblogs her own way.

Suzie Boss describes Quadblogging like this in a September 25, 2012 post in Edutopia:

The idea is deceptively simple. Four teachers agree to have their students comment on each other's blogs in an organized fashion. Each week, one of the four gets a turn as the spotlight class. The other three classes visit and leave comments. Over the course of a month, every student's work gets read and commented upon. Along the way, students learn about respectful online communication. They may decide to revise their thinking if a commenter shares a perspective they haven't considered.

On this episode of TTT Paul Allison, @paulallison is joined by Cliff Manning, @cliffmanning, Sue Waters, @suewaters, David Mitchell, @DeputyMitchell, Gail Desler, @gaildesler, Linda Yollis, @lindayollis, Matt Hardy, @hardy101, and Suzie Boss, @suzieboss.

On his blog, David Mitchell describes Quadblogging like this:

QuadBlogging is a leg up to an audience for your class/school blog. Over the last 12 months 100,000 pupils have been involved in QuadBlogging from 3000 classes in 40 countries....

A Blog needs an audience to keep it alive for your learners. Too often blogs wither away leaving the learners frustrated and bored. Quadblogging gives your blog a truly authentic and global audience that will visit your blog, leave comments and return on a cycle. Here’s how it works:

You sign up using the form below, shortly after, you will be allocated a Quad four schools/classes including your own. Each Quad has a co-ordinator who is responsible for making sure each of the quad members know what is going on and when. Each week one blog is the focus blog with the other three blogs visiting and commenting during that week. In week two, another school/class blog is the focus with the other three visiting and commenting. This is repeated until each of the classes/schools has had their week in the spotlight. The cycle is then repeated. However, this time, your pupils know what is coming – They will work harder than you have seen them work in order to get content on their blog!

QuadBlogging has been mentioned very highly in recent OfSTED Reports here in the UK and praised for offering opportunities for:“profound impact in developing pupils’ team working, communication and problem-solving skills.”

It’s simple – Give it a try, sign up here.

In this webcast recorded on January 16, 2013, we kicked off the Designers for Learning project. Dr. Richard Schwier, professor of Educational Technology and Design at the University of Saskatchewan, joined our first discussion. Rick's bio ... http://www.usask.ca/education/people/schwierr.htm

Contact us on Twitter @schwier (Dr. Schwier) or @jenm (Jennifer)