Thought-Provoking Presentations

Building Student Centered Blended Learning Environments
The latest statistics out of the U.S. show that 80% of college freshmen will take at least one online course. Most of these classes will be in the form of a “blended classroom” meaning that time will be spent both in a traditional classroom and online. This institute will focus on creating a blended classroom for learning. We will discuss tools such as Moodle, blogs, wikis, podcast and videos. We will also discuss how pedagogy changes within a blended classroom environment and how true student-centered learning is created with technology. As part of this institute, we will look at ways to manage your virtual classroom and create a plan on how you can incorporate it into your everyday teaching and make it just what you do. Teaching in a blended classroom is not about knowing technology, it is about having a mind set of allowing students to take control of the content and helping them to make meaning and create knowledge from it in multiple forms, styles, and media.

The Changing Nature of Communication
Being a leader in the 21st Century means going beyond e-mail and newsletters into the new digital world of communicating with parents and students. Understanding that society today wants information in short and more frequent bursts is the first step in utilizing tools that allow you to communicate using the new web. This presentation demonstrates and discusses the different ways schools and school leaders can harness the power of the Internet to communicate with their school communities.

Beyond E-mail: Communication with Your Web Community
From Friday Folders to Friday e-mails, the way we communicate with our school community is changing. But where do we go now from e-mail and how can we utilize the power of social web tools, such as Facebook and blogs, to create communities that engage and support our schools? This session will share ways to harness these web tools to reach out to your school community and create authentic and open communications within them.

Moving from Consumers to Producers of Knowledge
Content is free, production of knowledge is at an all time high. How do schools take advantage of the productive power of the web? How can schools engage students in meaningful projects that focus on creativity and apply the content students are learning? This session will be a discussion on how to move schools, classrooms, and students from consumers to producers of knowledge.

Preparing for the Potentiality of School Closures: Is your school ready to move online?
Open discussion on what schools are doing to prepare for the potentiality of school closure. Is your school ready to move learning online if it needs too? This session will focus on short term and long-term strategies that schools can employ to ready themselves against school closure. Participants will discuss the challenges that schools face in preparing to move education online. We will discuss how moving to a blended online/traditional classroom environment as normal operating procedure leads to not only deeper learning, but puts a school in a good position to move completely online if the worst was to happen and a school had to close.

A New Learning Landscape
It’s not just our schools that are changing, it’s society as a whole. A new learning landscape is emerging. A landscape of global education. What does this mean for our schools, our students, and communities? This presentation looks towards the future and what awaits today’s students.

The Power of a Link
We underestimate the hyperlink. This one link is what changes a static website into something that is interactive. This is the one link that makes an unknown author known. It is the one link that gives students an authentic audience.

Students as Creators and Contributors
New web 2.0 tools have changed the way we interact with the web. In a web 1.0 world we used the Internet to gather information, to find answers, and absorb information. There was not an easy way for the average person to contribute to this landscape of knowledge. As the 21st century is upon us so is a new web. Web 2.0 other wise known as the read/write web allows us not only to easily find information, but allows us to be creators and contributors to this new wealth of knowledge. As education as been slow to adapt to these new tools our students have taken them to heart and are using them to create content viewed the world over. Sites such as myspace.com, YouTube.com, Xanga.com, Facebook.com, wikipedia.org, and others allow our students to create information. Our students no longer want to sit in a classroom and be told information. They want to create it, share it, and contribute to the growing knowledge base on the web.

Theory Based Presentations

Looking for Learning in the Digital Classroom
Just because the laptops are open does that mean learning is occurring? We need to move beyond doing old activities in new ways to doing whole new activities that lead to deeper more meaningful learning. This session will help administrators learn what to look for in the digital classroom. Using new theories and new standards, administrators will walk away with a greater understanding of how digital tools change the learning landscape and allow for authentic learning experiences.

Nothing’s Changed Right?
The way we interact with information today is changing the way we learn. From Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher-Order Thinking to understanding connections created on the web, a new learning theory is emerging. This learning theory encompasses the chaotic mess that is the World Wide Web.

Tools Based Presentations

Starting your Online Personal Learning Network
This workshop will focus on helping teachers understand and create their Personal Learning Network (PLN). From RSS Feeds, to Twitter, FriendFeed, and Blogs. This workshop will get you started and connected into the most powerful professional learning community online today.

I Don’t Get Twitter!
What’s all this Twitter about? Why should I care? I don’t get it? What’s all the fuss? I’ve asked myself these same questions. This presentation looks to discuss Twitter and all it has to offer educators and students.

An Administrator’s Guide to Web 2.0
The Administrator’s Guide to Web 2.0 is designed to get 21st Century administrators started using new web tools today to communicate with their school community. From weekly podcasts for students to listen to on the bus, to an administrative blog that engages the community in conversation, using Web 2.0 tools as an administrator makes you more visible and connects you with your educational community. This workshop will also introduce you to emerging technologies such as Twitter and social-networking sites such as Facebook. The latest and greatest web based tools for communicating will be explored. Using these technology tools in innovative ways is what 21st Century Leadership is all about.

10 Digital Tools for Digital Educators
A fast pace hour of tools, tricks and tips for educators. We’ll cover 10 digital tools that every educator should know about. Fast pace, fun, and engaging. Bring your laptop so you can bookmark, install, and play with the new tools as we discuss.

What in the World is a Wiki?
Wikis are powerful web 2.0 tools that allow anyone to edit a web page via a web browser. Wikipedia.org is the most popular wiki with over 3.9 million articles and growing by the day. Wikis come in all shapes and sizes and there are wiki projects starting up that focus on education.This presentation looks at wiki software, how wikis can be used in the classroom and some examples from teachers using wikis for everything from lesson planning to communicating with parents, to creating and grading student work.

Podcasting for Educators
Podcasting is a fun and engaging way to communicate with parents and your community. This presentation will cover the basics of podcasting. The hardware and software needed and how to register your site with iTunes for easy downloading. There are many misconceptions about podcasting. The fist being that you need an iPod to listen to or create a podcast, the second being that creating a podcast is difficult. In this presentation we will cover the hardware and software needed to start podcasting and talk about free web space where you can host your file.

RSS: Stop surfing the Web
If there is one web 2.0 that is under utilized and well worth the time and energy to learn, it’s RSS. RSS or Really Simple Syndications is becoming the standard on the web, allowing you to aggregate sites you like into one program or web page. Using RSS cuts down the time you spend waiting for pages to load and surfing the web. Think of RSS as a supermarket. A supermarket where you get to stock the shelves with all of your favorite items and then you get to browse those items whenever you want. RSS can also have a powerful effect on students. Allowing them to create Personal Learning Networks (PLN) with other students and professionals around the world. No longer is the teacher in the classroom the only source for information. Students can learn from a variety of people and media via the web. RSS allows teachers and students to create learning networks that can then be integrated into the daily lives of students in schools.

(The New Web is a four part series of presentations for administrators that can be done together and build on each other, or presented separately)

The New Web: Why International Students are Ahead of the Technology Curve
International students use the web, due in part to the fact they move and relocate frequently. This session will explore the tools students are using today on the web and discuss how our schools can take advantage of these tools to communicate and engage students in the learning process.

The New Web: The Changing Nature of Communication
How do you communicate? How should you communicate? How are parents and students expecting you to communicate? The Internet allows schools to communicate in a variety of ways. This presentation demonstrates and discusses the different ways schools can harness the power of the internet to communicate with their school communities.

The New Web: Building a Positive School Profile
In today’s fast paced information world, trying to stay ahead of our students in the web space can be difficult, but at the same time a necessity for our schools today. Your school’s web presence is at risk if you are not actively controlling it. Come learn how and why you need to control your school’s web presence.

The New Web: An Administrator’s Guide
The Administrator’s guide to the new web is designed to get you started using new web tools today to communicate with your school community. From podcasts, to blogging, to using twitter we’ll cover the latest and greatest tools for your school and send you back ready to get started communicating on the new web.