Breaking free of traditional conferences, the upcoming K-12 Online Conference: Playing with Boundaries (October 15-19th & October 22-26th) provides educators with an engaging, ongoing learning experience without time constraints. The K12 Online Conference is a unique professional development opportunity for teachers to engage with ideas and technologies that are having a real impact on 21st century classrooms.

The entire conference will be delivered as downloadable digital media via the Internet with over 40 sessions presented in four strands: Classroom 2.0, New Tools, Professional Learning Networks, and Obstacles to Opportunities. The conference launches with a keynote address on October 8th from respected blogger and author David Warlick and concludes with a global 24 hour live event, As Night Falls.

I learned a great deal from the free sessions in last year’s k12onlineconference. I didn’t find the conference until late November, so I did not participate in any of the live events, but instead accessed the online presentations at my convenience, in small increments, as my schedule allowed. So, even though the content of the conference is posted in October, you can access it months later. I highly recommend you check out this conference, this year’s sessions as well as last year’s session. There are a few teasers available to if you want a preview.

Willard Staff Members: Request preapproval to count your participation toward Salary Advancement Workshop credit.

Technorati Tags: K12Online07 professional_development k12 etech conference David_Warlick

Monday evening, my husband and I were guests at the Southwest Region Missouri State Teachers Association Fall Meeting. The conference room was filled with 800+ educators enjoying dinner and an inservice program. We especially enjoyed the presentation by Dr. Zachary Clements. He was entertaining and inspiring. The program also included Media and Communication Awards for various categories including newspaper, television, school websites and newsletter.

The competition recognizes outstanding coverage of education and education issues by the Missouri media. In addition, MSTA recognizes school district communication achievements. Nominations are judged on originality, impact, objectivity, timeliness, appeal and contribution to education.

I was honored to have my Fusion: Educators Integrating Technology website receive the award for school district website. Fusion may not be the expected flavor of district website (a website listing all the buildings, administrators, staff resources, patron info, etc…we have one of those too), but it is a website published for the benefit of our district staff. It is the homebase for all my workshop resources and more. Thank you, Cindy Miles (Willard’s CTA President), for nominating Fusion for this honor.

Fall is here, although you could hardly tell my looking at the thermometer. Mums, pumpkins, hay bales, and cornstalks are appearing and Jen is starting The Pumpkin Seed Project. Registration opens Sept. 28th for grades PreK-3. I know many of our primary teachers already do pumpkin units and will want to check this out.

The only required supplies are a 1-5 lb pumpkin per class, and the The Biggest Pumpkin Ever book. For this collaborative project, you just submit the actual seed count from your pumpkin to the online data collection board on Oct 30-Nov 1. Participants will be able to download all the data as an Excel spreadsheet. Think how excited your students will be to know they are part of an international project. Jen also provides a list of activities that teachers can choose to do including: Pass the Pumpkin, Create a Pumpkin Patch, Pumpkin Seed Mosaic, and more.

Pumpkin Image Credit: MGarton

Seed Image Credit: Heathere Willoughby

Technorati Tags: pumpkin collaboration project Jen_Wagner seeds prek-3 fall math excel

Download Fusion Finds: Getting the Most of RSS

• The Futures Channel
• Bloglines
• Fusion RSS Workshop Webpage
• Google Docs
• Google Calendar
• On-line Forms from Jot Form
• Flickr
• Daily Lit
• Ebay custom search
• Target circular
• RSS in Plain English video by Common Craft
• YouTube Feeds
• Movies: Movies.com
• iTunes new music
• Food Network
• ESPN News Feeds
• Travelocity
• Real Estate Feeds
• Stock Quotes
• Smartboard Lesson Podcast
• 10×10

Image Credit: photopia/HiMY SYeD

Below is the contents of an email invitation I received from MOREnet. If anyone is interested in participating I am happy to assist you.

Join us for a virtual tour of Riverbluff Cave – at nearly 1 million years old, it is one of the oldest caves in North America. This preserved ice-age environment is so fragile that only a few highly trained scientists are allowed to enter. One of these scientists, Matt Forir, the cave’s lead paleontologist, will host this virtual tour to allow students a unique glimpse into prehistoric life. Students will observe stunning cave formations and artifacts such as a bear bed, animal tracks and fossils, plus they’ll be able to interact with Matt, learning real-world applications for the research and discoveries in the cave. Mark your calendars for November 7, 2007 and attend a Riverbluff Cave virtual tour.

10:15 – 11:00 a.m.: Tour for Grades 3-7

Hosts: Matt Forir, Lead Paleontologist, Riverbluff Cave and David Harrison, author of Cave Detectives

This session is appropriate for elementary schools and will feature some basic science principles and explanations of cave artifacts. Find information regarding Mr. Harrison’s book for those who wish to read or purchase copies in advance.

1:15 – 2:00 p.m.: Tour for Grades 9-12

Host: Matt Forir, Lead Paleontologist, Riverbluff Cave

This session is appropriate for high school students. Dr. Forir will cover the science of the cave and the animals that inhabited the cave.

Please contact us at mets@more.net to confirm your participation and method of connection by October 26.Libraries and higher education institutions are encouraged to participate in either tour via streaming video. Both sessions are appropriate for library content and college-level teacher preparation courses.

One school from each of the seven GPN states (Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska) may participate in each of the virtual tours via videoconferencing. Other participants may view the streaming broadcast online. Both connection methods allow for the audience to interact with the presenters in the cave. Please forward this invitation to any educators who might be interested in attending.

Riverbluff Cave is also the only known cave that is connected to the information superhighway. Thanks to MOREnet and a crew at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, MO, there is a fiber-optic network connection that allows real-time videoconferencing and video streaming capability from the cave over the MOREnet network.

Image credit: km6xo