Palm Springs: EduBloggerCon West and the Classroom 2.0 Meetup

Next week is the always-exciting CUE.org annual conference in Palm Springs. So, of course, it's also time for EduBloggerCon "West," Wednesday, March 4th, which now combines with the Classroom 2.0 Workshops series to provide for a really terrific day of meeting, discussing, and sharing in EduBloggerCon style. The event is free (thanks to CUE), but you do not need to be attending CUE to participate. Both beginners and experts will have a great time.

We meet at the Palm Springs Convention Center, Mesquite F at 12:00 noon and will map out the topics and ideas around Web 2.0 and education that we want to drill down on. If you haven't done this before, you might be wondering how you can organize a conference on the fly--don't worry, it's an exciting process and leads to some really great sessions and discussions. You can see the agenda page we will us for organizing at http://www.edubloggercon.com/Cue2009Agenda, and you can sign up (not required but fun to let people know you are coming) at http://www.edubloggercon.com/cue2009attending or at http://www.classroom20.com/events/edubloggercon-west-classroom. Bring your laptop if you have one!

Pretty much guaranteed topics will include:

• What is Web 2.0? (Begginer Session)
  
• Blogs and Blogging
  
• Wikis
  
• Social Networking in Education (or the politically more appealing: 21st Century Learning Environments) - Beginning and Advanced
  
• RSS and Readers
  
• Twitter
  
• Video Streaming
  
• Social Bookmarking
  
• Online Meetings
• Google Everything
  
• Podcasting

There is also big news today: Mike Lawrence of CUE has offered to let us use the Wynham Presidential Suite (5th floor, overlooking the pool!) to extend our meeting (for those who want) into the evening. Mark Wagner has suggested that we might do some kind of pot-luck or bring snacks. I've changed the time for EBC West above to having us finish at 9pm -- we have to be out for sure by 9:30 when Mike will get back.

I'll be using my Eluminate Live! meeting room to broadcast the whole of EduBloggerCon this time, so if you can't make it in person, feel free to watch (and participate) at https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.449193AC6826A3D080C3E4E087804F

Hope to see you there or online!

[Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandytri/405993099/sizes/s/ There is often snow visible this time of year in Palm Springs!]

Adult Educators Followup

Yesterday I spoke to a group of adult educators at the "Technology and Distance Learning Symposium" held by the Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) in Sacramento, California. Because the time was tight, and because I didn't do a great job of tightening up my talk, we didn't get all the way through my usual "Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education" points! So I promised to post some links with the additional information, which are below.

Luckily, they had scheduled me during the next hour in an informal discussion format, which allowed me to finish the material for those who were there, and to have a great discussion about social media, learning, and especially, the needs of educators who work with adults.  I was also struck by just how ubiquitous Facebook is becoming, and how much it is opening the door to some understanding by the general public about the value of social media.  (It's playing a role not unlike Wikipedia has played for Open Source, where familiarity starts to encouragae understanding.)  

Links:

• http://www.slideshare.net/SteveHargadon/new-web-20-is-the-future-of-education-slides-only-presentation
  
• http://www.slideshare.net/SteveHargadon/web-20-is-the-future-of-education
  
• www.stevehargadon.com/2008/03/web-20-is-future-of-education.html
  
• www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/moving-toward-web-20-in-k-12-education/