I always learn at least as much in my conference conversations as I do at the sessions themselves. At TNT I spoke with Craig Nansen about some of the things he’s been doing in Minot, ND. I also met Darin King, Tech Coordinator in Grand Forks. Both Craig and Darin have been using FirstClass to promote teacher collaboration in their districts. The software looks pretty interesting and definitely much easier to administer than MS Exchange. I think we’re tending toward an intranet solution based on Plone though and I’m probably going to use Plone as the basis for our curriculum repository.
Archives For Professional Development
I’ll bet the teaching staff at your school is pretty much like our’s. There are a few teachers who really get technology and how to use it in their daily instructional practice, a few others who will never use technology no matter how hard people like me try, and a large group in the middle who would use technology if they could, but don’t feel confident in their ability to create technology-rich lessons from scratch. We need a way for the first group to share their expertise with that interested, but inexperienced, third group.
Does anyone know of a good tool to facilitate that kind of sharing? My inner geek prods me to create one from scratch, but reality kicks in to make me look around for an existing product. Bonus points for web-based solutions that are searchable, linked to district or state academic standards, and able to store multimedia content. I’m all ears.
My commute isn’t awful, but 30 miles and roughly 45 minutes each way is probably a little longer than average for the Twin Cities. At least we have outstanding public radio here. In the weeks since I discovered podcasting I’ve been mixing the MPR listening with various podcasts and have come to appreciate the IT Conversations podcasts most of all. A short list of some of my favorite IT Conversations sessions includes presentations by Steve Wozniak, Wil Wheaton, Malcolm Gladwell, and Janine Benyus; interviews with Bruce Schneier and Phil Zimmermann; and fantastic panel discussions from Gnomedex 4.0, PopTech!2004, and Bloggercon III. The content on IT Conversations alone justifies the price of my iPod.
So how about the educational conferences? I’m presenting a workshop and a couple sessions at the TIES 2004 Education Technology Conference in December. I think I’ll record my presentations and podcast them. Wouldn’t it be great if educational conferences started embracing this? How could this technology be used for professional development in a school district? What if someone recorded short interviews with master teachers and made them available as podcasts? What a great way to share knowledge among teachers.
