The value of Wikipedia is becoming harder and harder to contest. This particular remix of Wikipedia (5500 articles, 20 volume encyclopaedia, 34 000 images, and 20 million words) should be downloaded by school and burned to dvd for every teacher and student to take home in their pocket.

And while you're at it, for your own professional development read what Wes has to say and download the entire K12 Online Conference (3 years worth of high quality PD) to carry around in your iPod. Take it in on the bus, or any time you have a free moment; maybe over coffee in the staff room. If you have a video iPod you could share it with a few of your colleagues.

With thanks to David Warlick I stumbled across this portable stack of pages from the first week of the K12 Online Conference. What a great interactive way to share the wealth of excellent content from all the presenters!

Here it is:

Searchme

View in searchme: full | lite

If you want to embed this stack on your own blog, webpage, or school website feel free to just copy and paste this code below:

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Thanks for sharing this Dave!

It's here! Please share it far and wide: The 2008 K-12 Online Conference marketing flyer! (PDF format) Many thanks to the K12Online08 PR committee!

We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for the third annual "K12 Online Conference" for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year's conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is "Amplifying Possibilities." Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. Some changes in the requirements for presentations are being made this year and are detailed below. The deadline for proposal submission is June 23, 2008. Selected presentations will be announced at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

OVERVIEW

As in past years, K12 Online 2008 will feature four "conference strands," two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday through Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two weeks. Including the pre-conference keynote, a total of 41 presentations will be published. Each twenty minute (or less) presentation will be shared online in a downloadable format and released simultaneously via the conference blog (www.k12onlineconference.org) the conference Twitter account, and the conference audio and video podcast channels. All presentations will be archived online for posterity. A total of 82 past presentations are currently available from K12 Online 2006 and K12 Online 2007. If you are planning to submit a proposal, please review archived presentations from past years to determine what you might offer that is new and builds on previous work. A variety of live events will also be planned during and following the weeks of the conference.

FOUR STRANDS


Week 1

Strand A: Getting Started

Everything you wanted to know about getting started with web 2.0 technologies for learning but were afraid to ask. The presentations in this strand will focus on specific, free tools for newcomers. Whether you have one classroom computer or a laptop for every student, digital technologies can provide new opportunities to connect with other learners, create new and exciting knowledge products, and engage students in an expanded learning process beyond the traditional "boundaries of the bell." Teachers first introduced to Web 2.0 tools are often unaware of the new possibilities for teaching and learning afforded by the Read/Write Web. Presentations in this strand will amplify and model what is possible in terms of pedagogy, student creation of content, and collaboration. Practical classroom implementation ideas will be emphasized. Presentations will focus more on the ways new tools can be used to engage students in learning, rather than focusing exclusively on how specific tools are used. If you've ever felt like everyone else knows more than you about teaching with technology and you need help getting started, this is the strand for you.

Strand B: Kicking It Up a Notch

You've been using blogs, wikis and other technologies for awhile but perhaps haven't seen them transform your classroom and the learning environment for your students in the ways you think they can. This strand amplifies ways new technologies can be used to transform classroom and personal learning. Rather than merely replicating traditional, analog-based learning tasks, how can digital technologies permit teacher-leaders to "infomate" learning to add greater interactivity, personal differentiation, and multi-modal exploration of curriculum topics? Fresh new approaches to using Web 2.0 tools for learning and authentic assessment will be highlighted. Presentations will explore innovative ways Web 2.0 tools can be blended together to help students create, collaborate, and share the knowledge safely on the global stage of the Internet. Maybe it's time to share your insights and experiences with your teaching community. Join these sessions to gain insights on amplifying the possibilities of learning in your classroom and/or your professional practice.

Week 2

Strand A: Prove it.

Although some teachers are excited to "amplify possibilities" using computer technologies, Web 2.0 tools, and 21st Century learning strategies in their classrooms, how do we know if these innovative instructional strategies are really working? Since information technologies and emerging brain research continue to rapidly evolve and change, it is challenging as well as vital to find current, meaningful research to under gird the learning initiatives we are using in our classrooms. What are "best practices" for teaching and learning with the new participatory media? This strand will share research results from the field that support students in using knowledge to communicate, collaborate, analyze, create, innovate, build community and solve problems. In addition, successful methods for developing and/or delivery of action research projects or research-based instruction in today's digital world will be explored. In some cases, participants may be invited to participate in ongoing or beginning research on Web 2.0 tool use, constructivist pedagogy, or other 21st Century research issues. Educational research about emerging professional development strategies, contemporary learning theory, systemic school reform, and other current themes of educational change are also appropriate for inclusion in this strand.

Help us to examine such research questions as:

• » What does research in learning science, instructional design, informal learning, and other fields tell us about today's learner and their success?


• » What design features must teachers incorporate into their instructional activities to support meaningful learning?


• » What is the role of assessment in today's changing classroom? How should assessment be structured to meaningfully assess student acheivement in the context of the modern classroom?

Strand B: Leading the Change

Innovative approaches to teaching and learning using web 2.0 tools are often utilized by a limited number of "early adopter" teachers in our schools. This strand seeks to amplify ways educators in a variety of contexts are serving as constructive catalysts for broad-based pedagogic change using Web 2.0 technologies as well as student-centered, project-based approaches to learning. Presentations in this strand will both showcase successful strategies as well as amplify critical issues which must be addressed for innovative learning methods to be adopted by teachers, librarians, and administrators on a more widespread basis. These issues may include (but are not limited to) issues of copyright, fair use and intellectual property, Internet content filtering, student privacy and safety issues, administrator expectations for teacher utilization of Web 2.0 tools, pilot initiatives utilizing key Web 2.0 technologies in different content areas, and innovative ways students and teachers are providing just-in-time support as well as formal learning opportunities for each other focusing on Web 2.0 tools. Successful approaches for both large and small schools, in rural as well as urban settings, will be included. This strand will explore and amplify a menu of practical ideas for educators in diverse contexts who want to continue amplifying possibilities in our schools.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

This call encourages all educators, both experienced and novice with respect to Web 2.0 learning tools, to submit proposals to present at this conference via this link. Take this opportunity to share your successes, strategies, and tips in "amplifying the possibilities” of web 2.0 powered learning in one of the four conference strands.

The deadline for proposal submissions is June 23, 2008 at midnight GMT. You will be contacted no later than July 2, 2008 regarding your proposal's status. The conveners reserve to right to reposition a presentation in another strand if they believe it is best placed elsewhere. As in past years, conveners will utilize blind review committees to evaluate all submissions.

Presentations for K12Online08 must conform to the following requirements:

• 1. Presentations must be a single media file of twenty minutes or less in length.


• 2. Presentations must be submitted in a downloadable and convertable file format (mp3, mov, WMV, FLV, m4a, or m4v.) Presenters wanting to use an alternative format should contact their respective strand convener in advance.


• 3. Presentations are due two weeks prior to the week the relevant strand begins. (Week 1 presentations are due Monday, October 6, Week 2 presentations are due Monday, October 13.)


• 4. Presentations must be submitted only one time and on time. Early submissions are welcomed! Repeat submissions (with changes and additional edits) will not be accepted. Presenters should proof carefully before submitting!


• 5. All presentations will be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

The following are optional but encouraged presentation elements:

• 1. Prior to September 13th, presenters are invited to submit a "teaser" (maximum video or audio file length: 3 minutes) about their presentation. This can be any type of online artifact and does not have to be downloadable. Examples may include videos, animations, posters, audio interviews, etc.




• » In addition to marketing the presentation, teasers can be designed to encourage and solicit community input related to the presentation topic in advance of the presentation submission deadline.


• » View teaser examples from 2007 at http://k12online07.wikispaces.com/Teasers




• 2. Supplementary materials supporting presentations are welcomed. These can be wikis with supporting material links, linked examples of student projects, school district exemplary initiatives, social bookmarking collections, and/or other related content.


• 3. Follow-up projects and/or live interaction opportunities for conference presentations which further amplify the possibilities of the presentation topic may be included. (This can include sharing and building of content prior to, during and after the conference.)

As you draft your proposal, you may wish to consider the presentation topics listed below which were suggested in the comments on the K12 Online Conference Blog:

• » Special needs education


• » Creative Commons, Intellectual Property, Copyright and Fair Use


• » Student voices


• » Community involvement


• » Games in education


• » Specific ideas, tips, mini lessons centered on pedagogical use of web 2.0 tools


• » Overcoming institutional inertia and resistance


• » Aligning Web 2.0 and other projects to national standards


• » Getting your message across


• » How Web 2.0 can assist those with disabilities


• » ePortfolios


• » Classroom 2.0 activities at the elementary level


• » Teacher/peer collaboration


• » Authentic assessment


• » Overcoming content filtering issues


• » Navigating "open web" versus "closed web" publishing of student work

Prospective presenters are reminded that the audience of the K12 Online Conference is global in nature and diverse in their educational context. For this reason presentations and presentation materials which address issues from a variety of perspectives are welcomed.

EVALUATION

Acceptance decisions will be made based on RELEVANCE, SIGNIFICANCE, ORIGINALITY, QUALITY, and CLARITY. Borrowing from the COSL 2008 call for proposals:

A submission is RELEVANT when


⇒ it directly addresses the conference and strand themes

A submission is SIGNIFICANT when


⇒ it raises and discusses issues important to improving the effectiveness and/or sustainability of 21st Century teaching and learning efforts, and


⇒ its contents can be broadly (globally) disseminated and understood

A submission is ORIGINAL when


⇒ it addresses a new problem or one that hasn't been studied in depth,


⇒ it has a novel combination of existing research results which promise new insights, and / or


⇒ it provides a perspective on problems different from those explored before

A submission is of HIGH QUALITY when


⇒ existing literature is drawn upon, and / or


⇒ claims are supported by sufficient data, and / or


⇒ an appropriate methodology is selected and properly implemented, and / or


⇒ limitations are described honestly

A submission is CLEARLY WRITTEN when


⇒ it is organized effectively, and / or


⇒ the English is clear and unambiguous, and / or


⇒ it follows standard conventions of punctuation, mechanics, and citation, and / or


⇒ the readability is good

KEYNOTES

The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote by a well known educator who is distinguished and knowledgeable in the context of their strand. Keynoters will be announced shortly.

CONVENERS

Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at Daniel Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice. Darren's professional blog is called A Difference. He will convene Getting Started.

Dean Shareski is a Digital Learning Consultant for Prairie South School Division in Saskatchewan, Canada. Dean is an advocate for the use of social media in the classroom. To that end he works with teachers and students in exploring ways to make learning relevant, authentic and engaging. He also is a part time sessional lecturer for the University of Regina. He is celebrating his 20th year as an educator. Dean blogs at Ideas and Thoughts. Dean will convene Kicking It Up A Notch.

Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach, a 20-year educator, has been a classroom teacher, charter school principal, district administrator, and digital learning consultant. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty member teaching preservice teachers at The College of William and Mary (Virginia, USA), where she is in the dissertation phase of completing her doctorate in educational planning, policy and leadership. As the cofounder of the Powerful Learning Practice Network she helps schools and teachers from around the world use community as a powerful tool for systemic change. You can find out more on her website at www.21stcenturycollaborative.com. She will convene Prove It.

Wesley Fryer is an educator, author, digital storyteller and change agent. He summarizes his ongoing work with educators and students in social media environments with the statement, "I'm here for the learning revolution." His blog, “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” was selected as the 2006 “Best Learning Theory Blog” by eSchoolnews and Discovery Education. Social media sites to which Wes contributes are listed on http://claimid.com/wfryer. Wes will convene Leading the Change.

QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions about any part of this call for proposals, please contact one of us:

  • Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com

  • Dean Shareski: shareski{at} gmail{dot} com

  • Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net

  • Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

Please duplicate this post and distribute it far and wide across the blogosphere. Feel free to republish it on your own blog (actually, we'd really like people to do that ;-) ) or link back to this post (published simultaneously on all our blogs).

Conference Tag: k12online08

Help us spread the word about the upcoming K12Online Conference 2007. Please share either three (3) reasons to participate based on your experience from last year or (if you didn't attend last year) three (3) things you hope to gain from the experience this year.

If you are new to memes--when you are tagged-- simply create a blog post where you link to the flickr photo below:

<img src="http://www.flickr.com/photos/snbeach/1438944952/">

Write your 3 reasons and tag several others who will do the same thing. After you tag someone in your post, please email them to let them know so they can help spread the word.

My Three Reasons

(1) It's Free!

(2) It's "just in time". Learn what you want when you want from some of the brightest lights in 21st century learning from across the globe.

(3) Camaraderie. Connect with like minded educators from across the world. Open your eyes to new ways of teaching and learning and make friends with some of the nicest people anywhere from everywhere. The personal learning networks and friendships you form will last a life time.

Tag: You're It! (you're not really "it", it's your turn ;-) ...)

Ewan McIntosh


Alan November


George Seimens


Terry Freedman


James Farmer


Leigh Blackall

... and anyone else who would like to help us spread the word ... you're it too.

View CC license

Lani and I gave an overview of K12 Online from the perspective of developing personal learning networks. Lani made most of the slides, here they are:

There was a lively chat going on throughout our talk, which I think was the best part of the whole thing. The Discovery Educator Network hosts Webinars (seminars on the web) using WebEx software which supports a chat window for participants to talk to each other during the presentation and ask questions of the presenters. At the same time David Jakes was hosting a chatcast in skype and some folks (there were 50 people in the room at one point) were continuing the discussion over on twitter. Talk about your web 2.0 globally connected goodness! ;-)

We've also archived the presentation and various links and resources we discussed on the K12 Online 2007 Take Away Wiki. I captured the chat from the WebEx environment and archived it there. If anyone grabbed the skype chat please send it my way or drop it into the wiki yourself.

We also published a version of the presentation on Google's latest addition to the Google Docs suite, Presently (online collaborative presentation tool). While there are a number of bugs, or inconveniences, that need to be worked out of Presently (downloading a copy to your hard drive isn't straight forward, customizing slides background colour with a colour picker tool, live chat while two or more people collaborate on the doc are all features that need some improvement) it does have one very nice feature. When a presentation is published and simultaneously viewed by more than one person, live chat is automatically enabled. I hope the chat can be copied and saved, or perhaps just archived in a user's gmail account, but I really like the idea of a presentation with life after the presentation. If you head over there now, and someone else is watching it at the same time, you can chat with each other about it; live.

During the presentation I talked briefly about how using free online tools allows us control over time and space that we didn't have before. Learning can be shifted to any convenient time or space. With the the chat feature of Google Docs' new presentation tool, chatcasts can continue to be made, spontaneously. I hope if anyone does that they add the chats they create to the archive we've begun on the wiki.

This all turns around what I think are the emerging pedagogies related to teaching and learning with read/write web tools:

• » Make thinking transparent.


• » Publish artifacts of learning, particularly thoughts in the rough; we learn most from our mistakes.


• » Create content and share it with the goal of educating others.


• » Use tools that allow for shifting time and space for learning; facilitate "just in time" learning.


• » ...

What underlying pedagogical principles to teaching with the read/write web would you add to this list?

Update


I just checked out the google docs chat feature in Presently. The chat text cannot be selected, copied or saved. That's not good. Another inconvenience that needs to be improved. ;-)

Mirrored from the K12 Online Conference site.

---

There has been a bit of a glitch with the proposal submission form. It seems it is only accepting one submission from each IP address. The last submission overwrites the earlier written material.

The deadline for submissions is extended until Friday, June 22.

For all who made or would like to make multiple proposal submissions:

1. Your final submission has been received.

UPDATE

We fixed the form! It will now accept multiple submissions.

If you did not receive a confirmation email from Lani on June 19, please resubmit your proposal. Then contact Lani by email (lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net) to verify it’s been received.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience and understanding. The deadline remains extended until Friday, June 22.


/Update

2. Please email any other submissions to the convener of the strand for which the proposal is submitted.

To all who have not yet submitted a proposal:

1. The deadline is extended until Friday, June 22.


2. You’re encouraged to submit a proposal to present. Personal Learning Networks, in particular, could benefit from your expertise.

For your convenience, here is the list of conveners:

• » Convener Classroom 2.0
  
  
  Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com


• » Convener Personal Learning Networks
  
  
  Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net


• » Convener Obstacles to Opportunities
  
  
  Lani Ritter Hall: lanihall {at} alltel {dot} net


• » Convener New Tools
  
  
  Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

With only 7 days left to submit proposals Lani, Sheryl, Wes and I are honored to announce the keynotes for K12 Online 2007. We eagerly anticipate the kick off of the conference and each strand by the following distinguished and accomplished educators. "New Tools" features 3 co-keynoters.

	Preconference Keynote: David Warlick David Warlick, a 30 year educator,has been a classroom teacher, district administrator, and staff consultant with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. For the past ten years, Mr. Warlick has operated The Landmark Project, a consulting, and innovations firm in Raleigh, North Carolina. His web site, Landmarks for Schools, serves more than ten-million visits a month with some of the most popular teacher tools available on the Net. David is also the author of three books on instructional technology and 21st century literacy, and has spoken to audiences throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. David blogs at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/.
	Classroom 2.0: Clarence Fisher Clarence has been a classroom teacher for the past 13 years. He blogs professionally at remoteaccess.typepad.com, with his class at mr-fisher.edublogs.org and has spoken at conferences across North America. Clarence has won several awards, including one of Canada’s highest teaching awards, the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching for his integration of technology into daily classroom life. Clarence's innovative classroom practices have been featured online, in books, magazines, and newspaper articles. He is an advocate of classroom 2.0, learning spaces that take complete advantage of the tools that are available to learners in their quest to learn rather than having school be something that is done to them.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: Alan Levine Alan Levine Vice President, NMC Community and CTO for the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international consortium of more than 250 world-class universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies dedicated to using new technologies to inspire, energize, stimulate, and support learning and creative expression. He is widely recognized nationally and internationally for expertise in the application of new technologies to educational environments and was a pioneer on the web going back to 1993. Alan blogs at http://cogdogblog.com.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: Brian Lamb Brian Lamb is Manager, Emerging Technologies and Digital Content with the Office of Learning Technology at The University of British Columbia. He teaches a course on “Text Technologies” for UBC’s Master of Educational Technology Program. He is also a Research Fellow with Utah State University’s Center for Open and Sustainable Learning. Brian maintains his weblog Abject Learning http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/brian/, where he mutters ll-tempered observations on social learning, open education, disruptive technologies and other such things.
	New Tools: The Three Amigos: D'Arcy Norman D'arcy Norman is a software developer at the Teaching & Learning Centre, a service department at The University of Calgary. In his current primary role, as an educational technology developer, he explores new technologies and works with faculty to implement tools for blended learning. He has also been involved in the open source development of the Pachyderm project, an easy-to-use multimedia authoring tool. D'Arcy spends a fair amount of time thinking (and rethinking) about the concept of control and copyright, and how they might affect academia. D'Arcy blogs at http://www.darcynorman.net.
	Personal Learning Networks: Derek Wenmouth Derek is currently the Director of eLearning at CORE Education Ltd based in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has a broad background in education, with experience at the primary and secondary school level, and as a teacher educator. He was manager of the eSection at The Correspondence School in Wellington and is currently an adviser to the Ministry of Education. Derek is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars, and maintains a regular blog where he shares his ideas and thinking across a range of areas relating to the use of ICT in teaching and learning. Derek blogs at http://blog.core-ed.net/derek.
	Obstacles to Opportunities: Brian Cosby Brian Crosby, an elementary teacher for 26 years, teaches fifth grade in Sparks, Nevada, and has infused technology into teaching since the 1980's. While piloting a 1:1 laptop program, students in his class utilizie many Web 2.0 tools including Skype, Fiickr, blogs and wikis. His award winning student produced video about including a classmate that couldn't attend school using video-conferencing software has been downloaded by thousands. Brian teaches several popular tech classes for teachers in his role as a Nevada Writing Project Consultant. You can try keeping up with him on his blog "Learning Is Messy" at http://www.learningismessy.com/blog/.

We strongly encourage you to join these educators at the conference by sharing your take on "playing with boundaries" in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! It's time to submit your proposal. The deadline is June 18, only 7 days away!

For your convenience, you can find the initial call for proposals here and the link to the proposals submission form is here.

Yesterday morning (in Winnipeg) EdTechTalk hosted the awards ceremonies for the 2006 EduBlog Awards. K12 Online 2006 won in the category of Best Post, Resource or Presentation. Sheryl, Wes and I have said to each other many times: "This is really a win for the broad cross section of the edublogging community that came together to make it such a success." -- Congratulations, and thank you.

I neglected to mention one person who worked tirelessly and quietly behind the scenes. Without her poise, charm, sensitivity and class, K12 Online would have been less than it was: Lani Ritter-Hall. Thanks Lani, this is as much your win as anyone else's; both as a presenter and a volunteer who gave unselfishly of your time and energy for the benefit of us all.

On another note I just finished reading Graham Wegner's reflection of the results of this year's Eddies. He's got mixed feelings after looking through the stats published on the Awards site.

Personally, I don't attach too much significance to these stats. The percentages would be a little more interesting if we also knew the total number of votes cast, but even then, I don't think it would be terribly relevant. The fact of a blog's nomination is the most significant datum here.

In order to be nominated your site must be blindly and consistently chosen by many different people as one of the best in a category. One email address, one nomination per category (I think). For me, the whole exercise could be concluded when the nominees are announced. The annual list of nominees is a significant contribution to my personal learning network.

The voting process is such that one person can vote many, many times as long as they do so from different computers. (How many computer labs are in your school?) As a matter of fact, a knowledgeable computer user could vote many times from the same computer. (What do you know about "cookies?")

Now it's possible that someone might use many different email addresses to skew the nominations in their favour but given the amount of time and effort required to do that I think it unlikely. The ease with which one person can cast multiple votes makes that a far more likely practice.

Are people actually doing these things? I don't know. And I don't really care. Look, it's nice to win. I would have been happy to win in my category but that I didn't doesn't really bother me. In my view, the fact of my nomination carries far greater significance. I think the same is true for all the nominees. I wish nothing but the best to all the winners ... and congratulations to everyone who was nominated! You've earned the recognition of your peers. Peers who really understand what it is you've been doing. Bravo!

The winners and nominees are, or rather, my reading list for next little while is:

Best Audio and/or Visual Blog


absolutely intercultural! Anne Fox (Denmark), Laurent Borgmann (Germany)

• Classroom Displays


• iHistory Podcast Project


• TalkingVTE

Best Group Blog:


Polar Science 2006 YES I Can! Science team, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Diane Hammond, Susan Stiff, and Dr. Tom Stiff (Canada)

• Digital Chalkie


• Infinite Thinking Machine


• Teachers Teaching Teachers


• The Fisch Bowl

Best Individual Blog:


Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog Christopher D. Sessums (USA)

• 2¢ Worth


• alexanderhayes


• bgblogging


• Purse Lip Square Jaw

Most Influential Post, Resource or Presentation:


K12 Online Conference 2006 Darren Kuropatwa (Canada), Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (USA), Wes Fryer (USA)

• Barbara Ganley: Finding Our Way through the Edublogging Labyrinth


• danah boyd and Henry Jenkins: MySpace and Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA)


• Terry Freedman et al: Coming of Age

Best Library/ Librarian Blog:


Hey Jude Judy O’Connell (Australia)

• Deep Thinking


• Libraries Interact


• nja


• The L Files

Best Newcomer: (joint winners)


Ed Tech Journeys Pete Reilly (USA)


tilt! Paz Peña (Chile)

• Artichoke


• Beth’s Thoughts on Technology in the Classroom


• missterri’s podcast

Best Research Paper:


Nancy White: Blogs and Community Nancy White (USA)

• Henry Jenkins et al: Confronting the challenges of participatory culture (PDF)


• Martin Owen et al: Social software and learning


• Ulises Mejias: Teaching social software with social software

Best Teacher Blog:


Have Fun with English! 2 Teresa Almeida d’Eça (Portugal)

• A Difference


• Borderland


• Cool Cat Teacher blog


• MITE 6323


• Teaching Generation Z

Best Undergraduate Blog:


CILASS Student Blog University of Sheffield Student Ambassadors of the Centre for Inquiry-based Learning In the Arts and Social Sciences (England)

• Be all that you can be


• Remstravels


• Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach

Best Wiki:


Flat Classroom Project Vicki Davis (USA), Julie Lindsay (Bangladesh)

• APWH Wiki


• Classroom Google Earth


• David Warlick’s CoLearners Wiki


• Schome


• SupportBlogging

Edublog Star Award (Convenors choice):


Duck Diaries Barbara Cohen (USA)

This was a shocker.

I've been nominated for an Edublog Award 2006 in the category of Best Teacher Blog. The other teacher blogs in this category are simply outstanding. I'm privileged to be counted among them.

K12 Online 2006 was also nominated in the category of Most Influential Post, Resource or Presentation. Sheryl, Wes and I said to each other many times as we were planning the conference that the success of the conference is a function of the time, energy and effort contributed by the presenters and participants and many, many people like Lani-Ritter Hall and all the moderators for When Night Falls who worked behind the scenes to make it all happen. Although the nomination notification was sent to three of us, this is really a nomination for a whole lot of folks. Congratulations to everyone who helped make K12 Online such an overwhelming success. ;-)

K12 Online shares this nomination with other exceptionally high quality "Posts, Resources or Presentations." One of which is the collaboratively authoured ebook, edited by Terry Freedman, Coming of Age. I did not contribute to the first edition but I do have an article being published in the second edition coming out in January 2007.

Looking back, 2006 has been a blogging good year!

I'm grateful to everyone who nominated me in any category. My friend Ron used to always say to me: "Darr, you just never know who's looking at you." He was right. I really didn't expect any of this. Thanks.