Category: Reform Symposium Conference

Keynote: how a blog post and a Twitter conversation started a school #RSCON3

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Last week at this time I was getting ready for my Reform Symposium Keynote.  It was fun to share with everyone but what I really enjoyed about the weekend was learning from everyone else!  The Reform Symposium recordings are now live!  To keep that learning going I’m going to do a 27 days of professional development series.

For the next 27 days in addition to sharing a tech tool, I’m also going to share one of the Reform Symposium sessions.  Last weekend was such an incredible time of learning and sharing that I want to keep the momentum going.  It is also a GREAT excuse for me to attend all of the sessions I missed out on during the conference.

If you missed my keynote last week about how a blog post and a Twitter conversation started a school, you can view it here.  This is a link to the Elluminate session (a Java download).

Below are the slides I used in my Keynote.  For those who asked, I made the slides using Apple’s Keynote.  I just drew a timeline, inserted some pictures, text and voila- timeline!

 

 

Reform Symposium kickoff, prizes, iPad giveaway-what could be better? #RSCON3

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The countdown is over, tomorrow is the kick off to the Reform Symposium virtual conference!!  The virtual part of that name means that everyone is invited to attend, no matter where you are in the world, what time it is, or what you are wearing.  So, no excuses.

I’m doing one of the Keynotes tomorrow and I hope that some of you will stop by and cheer me on.  I love presenting in Elluminate and I also hate it.

Love:  I can wear my jammies, I can be cuddled up with my pups, I can interact with people from all over the world, no travelling.

Hate: I can’t actually SEE anyone so it is hard to tell if I am boring people to tears.  You can let me know I’m not by chatting and emoticoning during my Keynote.

As if the incredible line up of presenters and Keynotes wasn’t enough, we have prizes.  Check out this prize page for the lineup.  Even better? There is a Grand Prize.  It is GRAND. How would you like to win yourself an iPad 2 including a bunch of fabulous edu apps (including an app from yours truly)?  You would?  I thought so.  🙂

I’m not quite finished with the great news…even if you don’t win that outstanding prize, you can be a part of creating an iPhone and iPad app by filling out a survey (this also happens to be the way you register for the prize).  The Reform Symposium is a worldwide community of educators who believe in the mission of authentic 21st century learning, and the exchange of ideas and resources. By filling out a 5 minute survey with your thoughts of teaching creativity, innovation, collaboration, empathy, citizenship, digital literacies and student assessment, we aim to publish your thoughts within a FREE Reform Symposium iPhone and iPad app and accompanying mini-site late August/early September. This survey will be available at the start of the Symposium and closes at the end of the last session on the 3rd day. (So please don’t start looking for the survey to fill out just yet.)

The fun starts tomorrow, join us for any or all of the days.

The app donated by me was actually an app that my brilliant husband @jtenkely created.  A digital version of pick up sticks…I’m only a little addicted. You can check it out in the app store here.  There is also a Classic version of Pickin’ Stix without all the fancy stick choices.

 

 

#RSCON3 How a blog post and Twitter conversation started a school

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Today is Friday! The day elicits joy in and of itself but this Friday is a particularly exciting Friday because it means that we are exactly one week away from the Reform Symposium virtual conference!!  I’m excited for the learning and sharing in store for all of us next week.  If you aren’t familiar with the Reform Symposium check out my last post HERE or search the #RSCON3 hashtag on Twitter for all the latest buzz.

In the past I have only done the behind the scenes work as an organizer of the conference.  This year we had a last-minute shift in our Keynote presentations leaving one slot open.  I was honored when @ShellTerrell suggested that I take the spot and talk about the school I am starting.  I’m excited to share the journey with all of you and better get my tush in gear if I have any hope of being ready for that.  🙂

I hope you will join me for my Keynote next Friday, July, 29 at 4:00pm MST (if you want to translate that into a different timezone you can choose that here.)  I’m looking forward to sharing Anastasis Academy with my PLN who played such a LARGE part in making it what it is.

I’m only a small part of this 3 day FREE conference, take a look at the presenter page and you will quickly understand why I was so honored to be asked to be a part of that group-greatness!

See you there!

 

One more thing- if you are interested in lending a helping hand during the conference, we are still in need of some moderators!  You can learn more about what is involved in moderating here.

Reform Sympoisum: Who wants to help moderate?? #RSCON3

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Perhaps you will recall a few weeks ago when I wrote about the Reform Symposium virtual conference? This is the FREE conference that will be held July 29-July 31st that you all are invited to!  Ringing a bell?  Good, because now I need to ask for a little help 🙂

The Reform Sympoisum is a labor of love, put on by people who care about education and professional development just like you!  We need moderators to help with each session.  The job of a moderator is to help the presenter field questions, introduce the presenter and press “record” so that we can make sure we capture each session for our iTunes feed.  It is easy to do and you can do it in your jammies from home!  If you are available the last weekend of July, we hope you will consider helping us out!  We need moderators from EVERY timezone so that we can cover everyone.  If you can help, check out the Moderator Planning Sheet (a Google Spreadsheet) and sign up for the time you are available.  Please be sure to enter your full name, a twitter handle and an email address in the space provided.  We need multiple moderators for each session so feel free to volunteer for a session that has already been volunteered for.

We will send out more information, directions, and training opportunities (easy) for those willing to moderate.

 

Feel free to spread the word about this request 🙂  Thank you in advance to all who will help to make this weekend successful!

Save the Date: Reform Symposium Conference #RSCon3

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I’m pouting a little bit today.  You see, this is the time of year when Twitter springs to life with plans for the ISTE conference.  I won’t be there this year because I’m a little busy what with starting a school and all.  I’ll be stalking those of you who are going to be at ISTE and living vicariously through you.  I am bummed to be missing out on the ISTE fun but I am looking forward to connecting and learning with everyone at the Reform Symposium virtual conference.


 

If you aren’t familiar with the Reform Symposium, it is time you get familiar with it.  Honestly, what could be better than 3 days of professional development with all of your edu best buddies from around the world in your jammies?  That’s right, not much.  RSCon3 will be held from Friday July 29th to Sunday July 31st.  We are on our way to being the biggest global online conference in education.  With more than 65 presenters and 12 keynotes and thousands of conversations, it is sure to be a fantastic weekend!  This conference is organized by educators (yours truly included) for educators.  Best of all, the conference is completely and totally FREE!!  You really can’t beat that! So, go ahead and pull up that calendar right now and save the date so you don’t forget.  Want to tell another educator how much you appreciate them?  Go ahead and invite them to the conference as well.  They will be thrilled that they have such a kind and thoughtful friend that thought to include them. 🙂

If  you are an administrator, please send the Reform Symposium flyer to your staff.  Did I mention this is FREE professional development?!

If you happen to think of it in the next month, take a minute to check out the organizer page and THANK those people profusely; pulling off a conference like this takes a lot of organization and planning.  I am honored to be working with such inspiring people!

Reform Symposium: Free professional development you can get in your jammies!

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This Saturday (January 8, 2011) is the Reform Symposium Virtual conference.  We have an incredible lineup of speakers, presentations, and conversations.  It just doesn’t get much better than a conference you can attend in your jammies! Don’t forget to spread the word to all of your friends (use #rscon11 hash tag on Twitter).  You don’t have to take my word for it, take a look at the full program embedded below!

Register now (doing so makes you eligible for our prize giveaways!) by heading over to the Reform Symposium website.

Reform Symposium 2011 FREE Worldwide Virtual Conference/Professional Development

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Everyone could use FREE professional development.  As an organizer of the Reform Symposium, I wanted to personally invite you all to our annual Reform Symposium Conference for New Teachers (but don’t be fooled, it is really for ALL teachers), which will take place on Saturday, January 8th, 2011.  You can attend this worldwide conference from the comfort of your home or anywhere you have Internet access.  We have some of the best educational speakers in the world involved. This conference provides you the opportunity to connect with educators and professionals in the field of education worldwide.  Over 2400 educators from 59 countries attended our last conference in July.  This year we will focus on interactive presentations that help teachers with creating engaging classrooms and lessons, building relationships with students, improving literacy, working with interactive whiteboards, and much more.  This year we look forward to 2 keynote speakers, 18 presentations, and open discussion on classroom management, a panel discussion on parental engagement, a mentor program, and an open lab for hands-on support in helping you continue your professional development in online educator communities.  You have never attended a conference quite like this one!  Join us for one session or multiples.

The Reform Symposium virtual conference has opportunities for continuing education credits, connections with educators around the world, an amazing lineup of raffle prizes (including prizes to EVERY educator who registers for the conference), and fantastic keynotes and presenters.

Check out the Reform Symposium website here or download the brochure here.

Please pass the word about this free conference, print out the brochure and stick it in the teachers lounge, stick it in teacher’s school mailboxes, and pass this post on to the administration at your school.

We hope to see you all there!

Reform Symposium: George Curous

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The Reform Symposium is in full swing, George Curous is our first session!  His presentation is titled: Identity Day-Revealing the Passions of Our Students.

I hope that you were able to join us, here are the notes I took during the session:

  • Identity day- near the end of the year
  • School philosophy- relationships are central to everything they do, everyone has the ability to be a leader, recognition of the whole person, effective teaching leads to effective learning. Learning must be relevant to the student.
  • Never pass a student without saying something (whether they are in your classroom or not).
  • Distributed leadership, find strengths and capitalize on those strengths.
  • Everything that we do is based on the best interests of the students and then work backward from there.  If you focus on that the confrontations are reduced.
  • Dan Pink’s What’s Your Sentence Video
  • Everyone needs to find their sentence. We aren’t preparing kids for the real world: this is the real world.
  • The “Why” of the day: Identity day was a staff initiative.  A science fair activity where students could set up displays and tell one thing that they are passionate about.  Everyone in the school did this: teachers, students, admin, staff.  “What is one thing about you that you really would love to share about yourself?  Think of the different ways you can share this with others and create some type of display to show your passions.”
  • This was about everyone getting to know each other.  (k-6 school)
  • Keep it simple-share ONE thing!
  • Work as partners with parents.
  • The entire school community was invited.
  • If you take 2 min. a day to learn about the “problem child” by the end of the year they won’t be a problem any more.

I recommend you take a look at this great session so you can see all of the awesome examples of Identity day!

See the recorded session here.

Reform Symposium: Opening Keynote Steve Hargadon

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This weekend is the Reform Symposium eConference, 48 hours of free learning! I am going to do my best to keep notes of all of the great conversations and learning when I am not moderating or sleeping 🙂

This was the opening keynote by Steve Hargadon:

  • Information overload vs. Web as a conversation
    We have to get past our perception that participation is only for the elite. Everyone is a participant and a creator.
    The answer to content overload is to create more content because our paradigm shifts and we start seeing everything as conversation.
  • Our students hold in their hands technology that was the stuff of dreams when we were growing up. They are incredible devices for learning. Learning is everywhere.
    We are seeing an amazing shift toward openness. Consider Wikipedia that in a relatively short amount of time an open encyclopedia took the place of a cultural institution.
    MIT is now providing classes to free when anyone goes online. The value is no longer in the specific content but in being actively engaged and they are doing something that is valuable to humanity by providing this openness.
  • Flexbook- online open virtual textbook initiative. This will bring value and save money.
  • Participation is being reinvented, it is a return to participation. It is a pre-broadcast, pre-factory, un-consumer model. This is dramatically changing the lives of youth because their lives are largely interactive.
  • Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Myspace are showing us a new model of growth and success that is driven by consumer demand instead of top down economics.
  • Linux is running Google’s servers.  This is incredible!
  • Volunteerism 2.0- we have always recognized value of volunteering but we are now seeing the opportunity to volunteer and participate in ways that weren’t possible before.  Clay Shirky calls this the “Redistribution of Our Cognitive Surplus”.  We are spending time creating instead of consuming.  This is unleashing energy.  Clay Shirky Ted Talk.
  • This is a change in structure it is participative (like democracy).  The Internet is doing this for content and knowledge.  We need the same structure in education.
  • We have to move toward the freedom end of the structure in schools.  We aren’t used to thinking this way.  It is possible for students to be their own driver in education.
  • We are organizing without organizations. What used to take financial resources to pull together to get something happening, doesn’t require that any more.  (Case in point the Reform Symposium conference!!)
  • Wikis let us organize information the way we want them, post at our convenience (not every day like a blog), but social networking has been widely adopted in a way wiki’s and blogs weren’t.  Social networking opened the door to the participation and conversation and made it easy to come in.  Blogs take longer to get the conversation going. Wikis are a little more complex and have a learning curve.  Social networking aggregated web 2.0 tools in a single location.  Facebook is now up to 500,000,000 members.
  • Steve started Classroom 2.0 and it now has 45,000 members, social networking is valuable to the education world.  It gives peer-to-peer practice sharing and conversation.
  • We have to get over that social networking is a dangerous place to be.  It will become the framework structure of the educational experience.
  • Communication platform: social networking + learning management system + live collaboration
  • It makes us rethink how teaching and learning take place.
  • We have to ask how well are we preparing students for this world and how prepared are we from this world?
  • Principles of school 2.0: contributing, collaborating, creating.
  • The best way to predict the future is to be it: Be a learner first, we need great teachers to be a part of the conversation and figure out how to harness web 2.0’s inherent capabilities, keep perspective-students need really great teachers more than ever, join an educational or social network (lurking is allowed), become a part of the conversation and encourage others to do so, help collaborate to build a new playbook and be a voice in the public discussion (Twitter #edchat!!), embrace the change process (this is going to be a wild ride, it is going to challenge the way we think).

Find the recording of the Keynote here.