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SCoPE event on World is Open book in Elluminate later today... |
| Monday, December 21, 2009 |
What's the SCoPE?: SCoPE people (namely, my friend, Sylvia Currie over in British Columbia) is hosting an Elluminate event on my World is Open book today. According their Facebook account, "SCoPE brings together individuals who share an interest in educational research and practice and offers opportunities for dialogue across disciplines, geographical borders, professions, levels of expertise, and educational sectors." What a wonderful mission statement. This is exactly what we need in education--borderless interaction among the educators and caring citizens of this planet. But this is exactly the type of thing that Sylvia is great at.
I met Sylvia, Cindy Xin, Brian Fisher, and many other fantastic people at Simon Fraser back in November of 1998 when I was on a sabbatical. I miss them all. At the time, they were working for the TeleLearning Centres of Excellence which was headquartered at Simon Fraser University under the direction of Dr. Linda Harasim. As a side note, I often tell my students that Linda was "Queen of Online Learning"--an early adopter with many books on e-learning--so it was great to be there and learn from them all. At the time, Sylvia was running the Global Educators Network (GEN). GEN brought in a different expert or set of experts on a topic related to using technology in teaching and learning. It was a fabulous idea that had a wide following. It ran wonderfully for a few years but I think lost some funding. So now SCoPE is sorta version #2 of GEN. And, like GEN, attendance at SCoPE Webinars, forums, and what-nots is free.
I cannot think of many organizations as important as SCoPE. With millions of teachers around the world and more than a billion people now connected to the Internet in some fashion, you would think that organizations like GEN and SCoPE would be in high demand and have thousands of weekly viewers or millions of readers. These forums can serve as both an educational opportunity as well as chance to network and share stories and best practices. But, while it is not large, SCoPE, and organizations like it, serve a vital role in progressive education; especially that related to learning technology. SCoPE is one of thousands of such entities which is providing the push we need for change. Each one does not need thousands of members--just a few people and their networks can impact countless others.
SCoPE Web Event Today: The event in SCoPE later today will be held at 5 pm today EST or 2 pm Pacific. More information on the event is also posted to Facebook. You can look up the time in the World Clock link from that homepage. Or you can go directly to Elluminate: http://tinyurl.com/9m668l
Sylvia also recently blog posted on the event and my World is Open book on her Webbed Feat blog. As I said, she is highly creative.
Hope to see you there. There will be a short presentation followed by questions and I hope a few answers. Sorry for the late post on this but I am having computer problems lately and so I am now forced to use one of my laptops that I normally do not use for Elluminate meetings. Fortunatley, it is working great! I think I will use it more often. Even better news is that my hard disk that crashed is not as bad as expected--data recovery center people in Louisville said that they can get it all using Level 1 data retrieval procedures which will not be that costly. Cool! |
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eCampus News: R2D2: A model for using technology in education |
| Friday, December 11, 2009 |
What a wild and wacky week. Hard disk failure on my main machine. And of course I forgot to back it up for 16 months. It is now safely (I hope) tucked away at a data recovery center in Louisville. This has all my work for more than a year, so it is a stressful time. Fortunately, I have all my talks on a laptop computer and a few other things on my other laptop. Still, it is a lot of work that is potentially lost. Boot recovery errors and blue screens of death are not pleasant things to see on a Sunday afternoon.
That was not all. My back-up server died during the past week as well. My car is also having serious problems and may not last too long. The worse news came yesterday when my brother called to tell me that my mom had minor stroke. I am headed up to Milwaukee tomorrow morning on Midwest Express on what was to be a birthday party for her. Not to be. She is in West Allis Memorial Hospital (on the grounds of what used to be the field my friends and I played baseball and football on when growing up). So I guess I will see her there.
I will head to Madison Monday for a couple of Webinars for Inside the School which is owned by Magna Publications; one of which will be on blended learning during the swine flu. This will be a live session in the afternoon from 3:15 to 4:30 central time. I will do a taped show to be broadcast in February 22nd, 2010 on my Perfect e-Storm talk.
In addition to packing for Wisconsin, I am grading papers this week. Yuck. And I am revising my course syllabi for spring. Yuck. Yuck. And when I get back, I need to do my annual productivity report. Triple yuck waste of time. People wonder where faculty members spend their holiday break. I can tell you it is in front of the computer. I will do one course online related to my World is Open book and the other on instructional strategies using videoconferencing from Bloomington to Indianapolis.
Well some good news just came to me. Invites came this week to speak in Vienna, West Virginia January 7th, Auburn University March 12th, St. Johns in Newfoundland on October 15th (I have never been there!), and perhaps the Desire2Learn conference in Chicago in mid July. The recession is over for those of us who are keynote speakers. I will also be in Houston and Austin January 18-21, Fargo, North Dakota January 26th, University of Minnesota February 2nd, Houston and Austin February 16-19, Oklahoma City March 8-9, Atlanta March 11, IUPUI March 26, San Francisco for ISPI April 19-21, Denver for AERA April 30-March 3 or 4. Malaysia for Global Learn May 17-20 and Korea before and after that. There is more but I will stop there. Suffice to say, there will be many speaking venues in 2010.
More good news...Dennis Carter at eCampus News (part of eSchool News) said my article on my Read, Reflect, Display, and Do (R2D2) model is their top news story day. Some of you may recognize this as my Empowering Online Learning book with 100+ activities in it. It was great to hear that. I have been writing many such types of brief articles this fall. My fingers are getting sore.
The title of the article at eCampus News is: R2D2: A model for using technology in education. Hope you enjoy it. If you read it, be sure to go to the 3rd and 4th pages which include a bunch of web links to illustate Web technologies and resources addressing different phases of the R2D2 model. Please note that they did not include the main figure that I had included in the article related to the model.
Sometime later one, I may write another piece for eCampus News on my World is Open book. First I need to check on my mom and get my syllabi ready. |
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Open Interview Tonight December 3rd with Steve Hargadon on "The World is Open" Book |
| Thursday, December 03, 2009 |
Well, looks like 8 pm EST tonight (Thursday), Steve Hargadon will interview me about my "The World Is Open" book for 30 minutes with 15-30 minutes of Q&A to follow. To join in, click here: Elluminate.
According to Steve, "The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event."
Steve has quite a line-up this year: James Paul Gee, Daniel Pink, Tim Magner, David Thornburg, Dennis Littky on Big Picture Schools, Patti Schank, Howard Rheingold, Allan Collins, Larry Cuban, Danah Boyd, John Seely Brown, Maya Frost, Chris Dede, and there were some Flat Classrooms connections to talks of Don Tapscott and Thomas Friedman. As an aside, the Flat Classrooms project is from my friends, Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay. This fall their Flat Classrooms project is analyzing my World is Open book. I did a short and fun (and fast and furious) YouTube video of the entire 170,000 word book for them in like 8 or 9 minutes a couple of months ago. Last month Don Tapscott and I did a couple of videos for the Flat Classrooms project as well (see Part 1 and Part 2). They featured his Grown Up Digital book last year.
When I look at the line-up Steve has assembled for his Future of Education Webinars, all I can say is wow! I am honored to be asked. It is interesting how the Web can connect someone like Steve (and all the people who listen in to his shows) to so many talented people around the planet. Anyone can now teach anything to anyone else at any time.
More information on tonight is available at his website. Hope you can attend tonight and enjoy it or view the archive. |
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