Web 2.0 and Teaching

It seems that this year is the true explosion of trying to make Web 2.0 happen in the classroom. 2005 seemed to be the year of the educational blog, but many of these crashed and burned.
I am in 3 different initiatives which are all looking to figure out how to help teachers bring Web 2.0 into the classroom.
Powerful Learning Practices: Lead by Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach this initiative is a year long professional development with teams from schools (required that it be a team). The idea is to help teachers work on their own professional practice and then through the 'aha' that comes to all who use these bring to the classroom.
EdTech Leaders Online: This course is a more traditional online course (ironic that I am calling it a traditional online course...isn't it. We have already moved into the time when an online course can be considered traditional). Structured in Moodle, we are working through a set curriculum and interacting through the discussion forums and then we have added a wiki. The elluminate session is optional. The idea is for us to learn a curriculum and course and then teach this course to our teachers/leaders in our region.
Class-centered initiative: This is just developing, but the idea here is that the students should be helping to lead the way. The teacher is a co-learner and together the use of the technologies and how to learn from it are discussed with the students. Right now, this is only being done with blogging in 5 classrooms. This is more of a concept than a true initiative. We have a number of districts heading this way. The idea is to get the technology into the classrooms as quickly as possible. The teachers 'dive-in' and then are supported as they go in whatever way they need.
So three approaches---which is better is the question many may ask. I think that it is more of a match of the approach, teacher, and system they are working within (ie school district/building).
There are negatives and positives to all three. It seems the positive aspect with the first, is that the teacher becomes connected and has made the mental shift needed to be a lead learner. The second approach is more comfortable and helps a larger group of teachers move forward. The final is wonderful for the speed at which we move into the classroom and the students help inform our understanding of the way that learning shifts for not just teachers but also students.
I tend to not talk about the negatives yet, until I have really thought about these and if the issues I see are true negatives or merely different approaches.
Keep exploring,
J:)

Exploring on Superintendent's Day

I had the wonderful opportunity to present at a Superintendent's Day with teachers who are interested in eLearning. Feel free to check out the presentation. It was my first time creating a presentation from nothing on Google Docs. I found the presentation templates very easy to use and with the added benefit of being online, I could embed links and allow those who were interested in moving ahead or staying on a certain topic, they could do just that. BIG negative, it isn't easy to export it back out to a PowerPoint or Keynote. So if you see yourself wanting to have an online and offline version, it might be good to start offline and move online. BIG positive...I didn't do this in this particular workshop...however, imagine presenting with a group and sharing the presentation with them. You could group author your day. Talk about truly constructivist.
We started with a conversation on what is eLearning and why we are talking about it. The beautiful aspect of this day was that by the end we were talking about what each person wanted to do to move forward and how we would work together to meet those goals. I would say the primary goal was to connect with other classrooms or experts around the world. How do we do this? Well....share your ideas with me and I will keep all updated on the progress. To date, I am pursuing those presenters who I know that are international and asking that they share out my name and information with anyone who asks the same question I am: How do we connect with others around the world who are interested. My collegue, over at Streaming Thoughts has the right way, IMHO (in my humble opinion). Start connecting with Web 2.0 blogs, wikis, etc. on those things you are interested in and participate!!! Send emails, skypes, talk with those in second life, etc and talk about the projects you are interested in. You will find that those who have time to work with you will also be the ones who respond. Finally, you should start your own blog or some other way to get your name out there. Once you share your success about yoru first project or two you will start to get heard about and people will come to you. The truth of the matter is that those who actually follow through and DO this whole global connect thing are few. So, if you become one of those, then others will want to connect with that success.
OK....so that was my wonderful opportunity beginning to connect directly with the teachers in the region.
Happy exploring,
J:)

Exploring eLearning

I am headed for a fun-filled two hours at a district today. There are some 30 individuals who have elected to discuss What is eLearning? on their conference day. I hope that some choose to follow-up and I will definitely share our wonderful ideas.
Feel free to look at the presentation over on Google Docs--- What is eLearning?
J:)

Classroom 2.0

I have been bouncing around this site for a couple of months now and although the breadth of participation is a little low, the quality of the posts is very high. So if you are looking to connect with some other teachers who are really dedicated to connecting with others, this might just be a home for you. The tools at the site are great for the classroom. It allows for closed and controlled social bookmarking and wikis and blogs.
Recently Ian posted about a great tool called Sketchcaster. It is worth looking into if you do presentations or teach pieces. There was also a great link to a blog posting about a school use of Twitter-like application which has been getting a lot of attention over the past 3 or 4 months.
I would say well worth your time to at least hop over there a little.
Happy exploring,
J:)