Saturday, May 30, 2009

Connecting Classrooms to Classrooms Worldwide

I'm holding a special online meeting on Monday, June 1st, to work out the details of building resources that can help educators easily connect classrooms of students together from around the world-especially using Elluminate's audio/video/more environment for communicating and collaborating. One of my jobs for Elluminate is to help facilitate free and easy communication of this sort through the new LearnCentral network I'm helping to build. If you're available Monday at 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am (Tuesday) GMT please come to this "LearnCentral Pioneers" meeting with advice or ideas on how to best do this.

Here are some examples of questions I want to ask: Where do you go now to find other willing classes? What kind of training would you like to help you to do this? What are the best examples of this kind of world-wide classroom-to-classroom collaboration?

Join on Monday by going directly to the Elluminate room at http://tinyurl.com/lcpioneers or logging into LearnCentral.org and clicking on the event link at the bottom of the "Community" page.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Speed Demo Bonuses: Dropbox & Picnik

At the Sacramento Classroom 2.0 workshop a couple of weeks ago during our "speed demos" session, one of the participants showed a program called DropBox.  It's turned out to be an amazingly helpful tool for me.

Dropbox creates a folder on your computer that automatically backs up all data put in it (2GB for free) to their backup server in a password-protected account for you.  It also allows you to put a parallel folder other computers you use, syncing those folders among your computers and the "cloud."  That means that every computer I use (and that's actually four--which amazes me) has the full folder with all the files, and dragging a file into or out of a particular computer's folder mirrors the change on the my Dropbox folders on the other computers and in my web storage "locker."  

I'm not exaggerating if I say it's saved me a TON of time and work, since I now always have access to all my graphic, logo, and doc files no matter which computer I'm on, and that everything is accessible and backed up on the web.

If you sign up using this link, you increase your and my 2GB free quota by 250MB:  https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEwNDQ5MDg5

Picnik: photo editing awesomeness
Another program that I'm using almost daily--and which I'm now demoing with some regularity at the workshops--is Picnik, the web-based photo editing program that crops, resizes, and more without even registering.  While I've bought the full-featured version (my kids love the high-end effects features), I often don't even log in since it's not required for many of the fast graphic editing I need to do.  I just make the changes and save the file to my Dropbox folder! :) 

Have fun!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Next Wednesday - Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders Through Innovative Technology

On Wednesday, May 20th, the National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI) will host an interactive webinar entitled "Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders Through Innovative Technology."

Since this event includes me as a guest speaker, I'll quote from their press release:

"Technology is transforming how students learn and engage in our information society. Learn about forward-thinking technology solutions from three leading educational entrepreneurs who have unleashed student talent through the use of online, interactive platforms. Join Steve Hargadon, Founder of Classroom 2.0; Paul Kim, Chief Technology Officer for Stanford University School of Education and a leading researcher for Programmable Open Mobile Internet; and Jennifer Correiro, Executive Director of TakingITGlobal, as they discuss successful strategies for developing the entrepreneurial spirit of global youth in advancing social media and innovation."

The Webinar will take place on May 20th from 3:00 pm - 4:15 pm ET. To register for this free Webinar, visit the National Center for Technology Innovation Web site:  http://www.nationaltechcenter.org/index.php/2009/04/20/developing-tomorrows-leaders-through-innovative-technology-free-webinar/

I hope you'll consider joining us!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

EduBloggerCon 2009/DC and NECC "Unplugged" - On-site or Virtually

The wiki pages for EduBloggerCon 2009/DC and NECC "Unplugged" are both "live" as of this week, and have--I think--turned out great. Please visit them and consider being a part of these fun (and free) events.

EDUBLOGGERCON / CLASSROOM 2.0 "Meet-up": This is an international all-day "meetup" of educational bloggers and those using social media and collaborative technologies in education, held on the Saturday (June 27th) before the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in the same venue (thanks, ISTE!). All are welcome--whether you yourself blog, are just an educational blog reader, or even just want to hang out with an interesting group of people. This event is based on the idea of an "unconference", and is being organized by the participants in real time on the wiki and later on-site. There are no formal presentations, just "conversations" that you want to facilitate. Get different-sized "I'm Attending" web badges on the site.

Big Announcement: You'll notice that we now have "virtual tracks" for those who cannot attend EduBloggerCon physically but want to participate remotely (thanks to Elluminate). You can even organize your own small or large EduBloggerCon physical "meet-up" in another city! More online...

Links:

NECC UNPLUGGED: Held during and as a part of NECC on June 28th - July 1, NECC "Unplugged" is three days of 30-minute presentations where anyone can sign up to present, either on-site or virtually--held on-site in it's own "lounge" area and hosted virtually in Elluminate . Always wanted to present at NECC but weren't selected? Or have a topic to present or discuss that wasn't timely when formal presentation applications were due last year but is so now? Sign yourself up! (And then put the web badge somewhere for folks to see it).

NECC Unplugged will stream all its sessions (on-site and virtual) live through Elluminate. We'll also be absorbing the functions that the NECCLive.com wiki performed last year: anyone streaming, liveblogging, back-channel chatting, Tweeting, or otherwise generating content for remote users can list those resources here in right-most column.

Link:

Here's to an ever-expanding and great NECC experience this year!