The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2007 conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries”. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 8, 2007. The following two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog for participants to download and view.

Here’s a small sample of what’s been presented already (and available for free download):

• Inventing the New Boundaries by David Warlick, author of Classroom Blogging: A Teacher’s Guide to the Blogosphere: “For decades, education has been an easy institution to define. It consisted of a set of accepted literacy skills, a definable body of knowledge, and the pedagogies for teaching those skills to willing students who were arranged in straight rows. Today, for the first time in decades (in generations of teachers), we are facing the challenge of changing our notions about teaching and learning to adapt to a rapidly changing world. We are struggling to rethink what it is to be educated, to reinvent the classroom, and redefine what it is to be a teacher and a student. There is much that has changed, and for much of it, we have responded to by attempting to ignore, filter, or to block it out. This presentation, by 30+ year educator, author, and technologist, David Warlick, will explore some of these changes and challenges and arrange them as a set of converging conditions that might just help us to redefine and retool the 21st century classroom.”
• Travel through Space and Time by Lanie Ritter Hall: “Global awareness is making its way into the educational landscape. We are recognizing that our students are growing up in a ‘flat world’ and cannot afford to live isolated from learning about other languages, cultures, traditions and points of view. The presenter took over 400 students and their teachers along…virtually…as she traveled physically half way around the world to China. Learn how, through the power of web 2.0 tools, she seamlessly combined a blog, podcasts, photos and videos to educate students about cultural universals, while addressing curriculum standards.”
• More than Cool Tools by Alan Levine, Brian Lamb and D’Arcy Norman: “There is no shortage of ‘Cool New Web Tools’ out there and all three of us are guilty as charged for presenting them to teachers via the firehose effect. In our session, we will begin with a nostalgic nod to our presentation past where just 3 years ago we were talking up “Small Pieces Loosely Joined” – blogs, wikis, and a little RSS. Now there is so much more, almost too much. So we may talk about some cool tools, but more at a level of looking at the affordances which make them compelling, and why these and future breeds of tools and platforms matter to K12 teachers.”

And check out these workshops yet to come:

• Step by Step – Building a Web 2.0 Classroom by Drew Murphy
• Sustained Blogging in the Classroom by Jeff Utrecht
• Learn to Blog: Blog to Learn by Anne Davis

Run, don’t walk to the K12 Online Conference 2007.  To get free audio and video of the presentations, subscribe to the following feeds in iTunes, Google Reader, or whatever blog reader you use:

• Audio podcast feed
• Video podcast feed

Grammar Girl is your hero if you want to know things like the difference between less and fewer, unlawful and illegal, or addictive and addicting. In a friendly, clear voice, Fogarty answers common grammar questions and offers sound writing tips.

The podcast can be a useful tool for middle or high school writing teachers. It’s published weekly and runs from 4-7 minutes, so you could play the podcast in your classroom and follow it up with some practice, or you could archive the episodes to use when you cover a particular topic in your curriculum. You could even encourage your students to email Fogarty with their own grammar questions.

The Grammar Girl podcast is also helpful as simply another professional development tool to keep you sharp and current. Check it out today at http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com.

• Have things really changed in schools, or are we still teaching in this way?
• Regardless of any changes in teaching methods, is the advice still relevant?

I’ve got my own ideas, but I’m interested in hearing what you have to say first. Leave a comment after you’ve watched and let’s get a discussion going.

Maintaining Classroom Discipline:

TeacherClockHours.com

One site that helps teachers, especially in the state of Washington, is the free site TeacherClockHours.com, which lists every teacher workshop in the state in one place. I developed TeacherClockHours.com myself for two reasons:

1. It’s more efficient for a few people to do all the work of finding workshops and gathering them in one place, than for every teacher to go hunting for inservices and conferences. I wanted to make teachers’ lives easier.
2. There are many teachers and presenters who give great workshops but need a place to get the word out. TeacherClockHours.com is that place. I wanted to help presenters find an audience.

If you live outside Washington State , there are resources for you as well. If you’re interested in becoming a workshop presenter yourself, check out Resources for Workshop Presenters. I’ve also set up a page describing a way for you to add to your teaching salary through shopping online. If you’re a regular blog reader, you probably shop online. The Teachers Shopping Network by My Power Mall harnesses the power of online shopping in order to help you make money.

Videos for Professional Development

Another professional development resource comes from Wesley Freyer at Moving at the Speed of Creativity. Wesley has added a terrific new section to his site called “Videos for Professional Development.” You won’t earn any credits or clock hours by watching these videos, but you’ll definitely learn by watching the videos he’s collected.

Learner.org

If you want to earn credits, clock hours, PUDs, or whatever they’re called in your state, be sure to visit Annenberg’s teacher resources at Learner.org. These are exceptionally high quality free video-on-demand workshops in many different curricular areas and age levels.

I am absolutely amazed at the overal quality of these workshops, from the printable materials to the expertise of the presenters to the production quality of the videos. Find a friend and register together for one of the workshops. You’ll get some terrific ideas for improving your teaching skills.

Conclusion

It’s not as difficult as it once was to find professional development opportunities, but it still takes time to actually take the classes and do the work. Make it a point to know when your credentials expire, and then make a plan to earn the credits or clock hours you need before it’s too late.