On this week's Teachers Teaching Teachers, we followed up on two collaborative projects that some of us have been working on: a new Drupal site for Youth Voices and "Letters to the Next President: Writing Our Future"

Paul Oh stopped by to report on the launch of the Website for teachers, which allows us to post student writing to the Letters to the Next President: Writing Our Future website. Paul Oh directed us to the website where: "At the secure area of that site, you will be able to log in using your Google account information. Once you do so, further directions will help you manage your students' pieces that were published using the special project submission
template described in Step 2. At that point, your students' work will be publicly visible along with all the writing from across the country."

Several teachers have tip-toed into Youth Voices, and on this podcast we report on the mechanics of joining this site and creating groups. Listen in, then consider having your students join us.

We invited several teachers and student to come talk about the site. In particular we talked about how to use the groups function of our new Drupal baby. (Thanks Bill Firtzgerald!) For
example, we set up a Digital Photography Community Group and a literature-focused inquiry group, "Catastrophe and Resiliency":

A space where we can take a stand against historical and current atrocities, genocides, ethnic cleanings, holocausts, occupations, and wars. A place to share our responses to books and stories about how humaity can not be stopped by these catastrophes, and how we must never again turn away from these disasters. A forum where we can connect around books, stories, and poems at all levels of difficulty and variety, books like Long Way Gone, What is the What? Persepolis, Maus, Night and other stories of spirit in the face of calamity.

Lindsea, a student from Hawaii joined us, and many others.

Looking for collaborative projects? Want to find out more? Listen to this podcast, and join in the coming weeks as we continue to plan together on Teachers Teaching Teachers.

Dave Cormier and Bonnie Stewart joined this show to discuss their project "A Living Archives." As you will hear them explain, this project, which is funded by Canadian Heritage, has students from all three school districts on Prince Edward Island (PEI) using leading edge technologies to bring PEI history and heritage to life. Bonnie and Dave have been building partnerships between the University of Prince Edward Island, the Provincial Archives and Records Office, the PEI Museum and Heritage Foundation, the PEI Library, and the three PEI Boards of Education.

Click Read more to find out what what Dave wrote about "The Living Archives project" in July 2007.

Chat Log

EdTechTalk: 21st Century Learning #42
Tim Lauer, Principal, Lewis Elementary School, Portland, OR
Leadership and Technology
May 8, 2007

This week we discussed Leadership and Technology with Tim Lauer, Principal of Lewis Elementary School in Portland, OR. Tim is a model Principal who has a wonderful sense of appropriate use of technology in education. This is a must listen for those of you who envision being in a leadership role at a school. 

Next week, we'll be celebrating our one year anniversary two weeks late. The week after, we'll be discussing faculty professional development with Jeff Ritter, from St. John's School in Houston Texas. See you all then.

To contact us, please submit a comment on this post or send us e-mail at 21 [at] edtechtalk.com.

March 28, 2007 - This week, we invited several National Writing Project (NWP) technology liaisons to join us to talk about how they manage Content Management Systems (CMS’s) for their local sites, schools, and classrooms.We discussed the possibilities of using the DrupalEd profile that Bill Fitzgerald has recently been piloting, and is threatening to release within weeks. Our conclusion was less than clear but it will make for a good show next week! See you then.