Week of April 3 - 10, 2010

Welcome to this week's EdTechTalk (ETT) newsletter! There was some difficulty with the dissemination of last week's newsletter so last week's webcasts will be combined with this week's information. Throughout the past week, there were fantastic sessions offered at ETT. Plans for Earthhcast 2010 took place with Matt Montagne and the many organizers for the upcoming 24-hour webcast on April 22nd. If you would like your class to participate in the webcastathon, visit the wiki at http://earthbridges.wikispaces.com/Ways+to+Participate to find out ways to get involved. Of special note, Dave Cormier introduced a new online course he and George Siemens will be offering during April through June.  More about their Future of Education course can be found at http://davecormier.com/edblog/2010/03/09/the-future-of-education-a-course-in-futures-thinking/ and http://edfutures.com/

The Week in Review

Instructional-Design-Live #13: Social Presence in Online Courses Jennifer Maddrell leads off a three part series on the Community of Inquiry framework. The CoI framework addresses the need for the elements of social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence to be present in order for a learning experience to be successful. In the first show, key definitions of social presence are highlighted and we discuss the practical activities that enhance social presence in online courses. Sessions are also available for viewing in a web-conferencing format.

ETT21 #127: Brad Rathgeber from the Online School for Girls21st Century Learning #127     April 6, 2010 Brad Rathgeber, President of the Board at the Online School for Girls joins us to discuss the new online school specializing in single gender online education for girls.

Teachers Teaching Teachers #192 - Students and Teachers Finding our Missions on Evoke: Rachel Smith and Robin - 03.17.10Robin is playing Evoke, and on this podcast he tells us why. Robin is in Paul Allison's English class and is a tenth Grader at the East-West School for International Studies, and on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Robin talks about his experiences in the first couple of weeks of playing Evoke.We are also joined by Chris Wood, a student teacher from Queens College, CUNY who is working with Paul this semester.Ninmah! Rachel Smith is also playing Evoke and she joined us to talk about this Alternate-Reality Game (ARG) as well. Rachel Smith is the Vice President, NMC Services the New Media Consortium. In addition to being the lead writer on the Horizon Report, Rachel writes on her blog that she has,

"...a hard time explaining what I actually do. Some of it is writing (a lot of it, lately, which is not a bad thing). Some of it is drawing, which is pretty cool. I used to doodle in high school and get detention. Now I doodle at work and get kudos. Go figure. I also organize things and direct projects and try to be generally helpful."

Rachel wrote an wonderful introduction to Evoke on her blog, "Urgent EVOKE: Agent Ninmah is Born," and she started a Discussion on Evoke, in which she is “calling all teachers!” to find ways to collaborate.2010-04-01 Seedlings #84 with Wes Fryer

We were joined by Wes Fryer- Live in Maine the Magical Show! Anne Fraser counted the word magical used 4, 586 times throughout the show. See if you come up with the same number! We had a great conversation in the EdTechTalk studio with Wes Fryer. The conversations were about Race to the Top, Apple's new product release, Maria Knee, and the upcoming workshop at Wells Junior High School.Teachers Teaching Teachers #187 The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching New Media w/ William Kist & Mike Slowinski - 02.17.10

This episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, was recorded during a live webcast back in the middle of February. We think you will enjoy this conversation with William Kist and Mike Slowlinski, one of the teachers who is featured in William Kist's new book, The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age. Troy Hicks has a thought-provoking question to ask toward the end of this podcast as well. Get the book, and learn along with all of us.

Instructional-Design-Live#12 2010-4-2 Michael Power on Designing Effective Blended Online Courses with Faculty