Spotlight

The last week of December I was sitting on the patio of my parents Florida home and checking email and plurk. Martha Thornburgh posed a question about where people were posting their photo-a-day. So I read the comment replies and also accepted the challenge to post a photo-a-day in 2009. It is not as easy as I thought and we are only to January 14! I think it will be easier when the weather is warmer or snowy, but I'll give it a try. My attempt can be viewed at: Photo-A-Day on blogger. Can you rise to the challenge? If you do, share your site.

Steve Dembo from DiscoveryEducation is offering a challenge to folks who wish to improve their blogs or blogging skills. His 30 day offering will begin November 1, 2008. Visit his blog to see the details at Teach42. Although it is not aimed specifically at educators, I am sure Steve will provide some great Discovery style tips. Every time I attend a session with Steve be it online or face to face, I come away with many nuggets of information I can share with others. So I am taking the challenge to improve my blogging skills and hopefully make Spotlight a bit more interesting.

I have been prodded to try plurk.com in addition to, or in place of, Twitter. I liked Twitter, I could post or lurk and learn. There are people who contribute some really good tips and sites to use in education. Generally after a workshop or conference I find I want to follow some more people and continue to learn from them.

Twitter is easy. I log in leave it floating on my MAC desktop with Twitterific and glance at it once in a while. Sometimes I reply or post, but not very often.

Plurk.com is a bit more engaging. I love the fact that you can follow a thread. But some of it is a bit confusing. It is much more interesting if you follow about 30 or more people. Choose wisely so you can find some quality posts. I know there are a few people in my personal learning network I want to follow. I visited their plurk page to see who they were following and added a few of them to my list. Right now I am following about 40 people and will be adding a few more today.

NECC opening session keynote:
"Author, journalist, and historian James Surowiecki kicks off NECC with his perspective on The Wisdom of Crowds and the ways in which a diverse collection of independently deciding individuals is likely to make certain types of decisions and predictions better than individuals or even experts."...NECC
His links:

• book review
• Wikipedia entry
• Amazon.com

..

Google Earth
Presenter link
Presenters:Pam Leland, Beaverton School District with Kelly Kuntz
Learn to create a place mark and make a tour in GE.

Session filled by 8:15! So I walked over to another session in the hotel next door and.... even though it was in a huge ballroom too, it was filled by 8:25. Lesson earned: get moving earlier than early! Bring something to read or do while you are in a session 30 minutes early waiting for it to begin! Yikes,how many people are here?

Saturday morning:
Social Networking for Professional Development - Facebook, Twitter, Moodle, and Netvibes. When does it make sense to become part of the environment? One question people have is "what will these social sites do with your intellectual property later on? After all, they own what you put on the site. However, the ning for NECC has been the perfect storm where you join, can choose your own groups.

For PD -
Need to have asynchronous and synchronous communication. Start people in a common format and lead them to be creative and explore different options. Start with a ning and provide different groups, Ustream, etc.

What was the event that caused you to continue using blogs, wikis, etc? Most people "fade" after a while, but will continue if they get network feedback from the audience of readers. Take time to give feedback to those who post or are beginners. Create a digital rapport with people. Provide conversations that will encourage participation.

How do you get teachers to be self directed in their professional development? Don't think of tech as a seperate subject, but use it as a tool to deliver curriculum. We need to find a comfortable way to encourage teachers to take chances on their own time to learn.

Saturday Afternoon
This was a great experience and it was FREE. There were great discussions, good networking with others, and a ton of excellent suggestions for products to use. As one person said: "It was like attending a class reunion" because you feel like you know many of the people from Twitter, Ning, or other networking projects. Some new friends were made, people were very excited to learn from those with experience. And there was a level field as the experience users were very willing to explain, in simple terms, how to get started in some project.
Even if you cannot attend NECC when it is in your city, you MUST attend one of the Edublogger experiences. I know I will search for another opportunity to network.