Valerie Burton

“Online communities of practice and personal learning networks are grassroots phenomena. Through them, educators are taking charge of their professional learning, and research suggests the value is real and wide ranging,” says Dr. Darren Cambridge, American Institutes for Research (AIR).

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we are joined by an amazing group of educators as we help to kick off Connected Educator Month http://connectededucators.org/cem/ in our own way—with a conversation about what it all means to us, especially when we think about how important it is to be connected locally and physically as it is to be connected nationally or globally and virtually.  Paul Allison, Monika Hardy and Chris Sloan host this conversation about Connected Educator Month (CEM). This special show focus on online communities of practice and includes guests such as:

• Darren Cambridge - http://ncepr.org/darren/, director of the Connected Educator Month project
• Karen Fasimpaur - http://www.k12opened.com/blog/about, founder and organizer of P2PU’s School of Education https://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-ed-pilot/
• Kevin Hodgson - http://dogtrax.edublogs.org of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project http://www.umass.edu/wmwp/
• Pamela Moran - http://schoolcenter.k12albemarle.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=97282&, Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools and a teacher-consultant at the Central Virginia Writing Project http://curry.virginia.edu/community-programs/professional-development/cvwp/
• Paul Oh - National Writing Project http://dcomposing.com (http://www.nwp.org) Program Associate
• Valerie Burton - http://about.me/VRBurton English teacher and new member of the Greater New Orleans Writing Project http://gnowp.org/

Let’s connect the rest of August and beyond!

Tommy Buteau joins us on this episode of TTT, and it seems perfect to introduce you to him in this Connected Educators Month http://connectededucators.org/. Tommy teaches in Windsor, Colorado http://youthvoices.net/whs/ and he talks about these three connected projects and more:

• Letter Writing with “The Things They Carried” http://youthvoices.net/node/41202
• Post Modern Multimedia Research Project http://youthvoices.net/node/39997
• News Article http://youthvoices.net/node/33404

Add your comments to this post. Let us know what you think about Tommy’s connected pedagogy, and help us look into the future of Youth Voices. http://youthvoices.net. This episode might be a good moment for us to connect to old friends who want to work with us at Youth Voices again or meet new people as well.

Joining Tommy on this episode are:

Shantanu Saha, Monika Hardy, Jeremy Hyler, Deb Kauffman,
Gail Desler,Valerie Burton, Chris Sloan, and Fred Mindlin

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

On this special Meet the Authors episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Paul Allison, Valerie Burton, and Gail Desler have a conversation with two teachers and recently published authors from New Iberia, Louisiana,+Margaret Simon and +Stephanie Judice/@sagaofthesetti.

Margaret has been a frequent guest on Teachers Teaching Teachers since the BP Oil Spill. Her elementary school school students published memorable poems and multimedia commentary on Voices on the Gulf, and Ms. Simons' students continue to publish on Youth Voices http://youthvoices.net/posts/user/3587

On this episode of TTT, we celebrate and explore the recent publication of Margaret Simon's Young Adult novel, Blessen. http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0984891528/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

In this highlight from TTT#297, Margaret Simon explains that Blessen was born in a Writing Marathon led by Richard Louth, a director of the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project [http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/315 and http://goo.gl/ONqs7 ]. The character, Blessen grew real in a workshop with Sharon Arms Doucet [https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Sharon+Arms+Doucet%22 and after meeting a lot of Blessens as a teacher in New Iberia.

It may be a YA novel or a first-chapter book, but I agree with one Amazon reviewer who writes that Blessen is "a book for young readers, but an old reader like me can enjoy it just as well."

In this highlight from the videocast, Margaret reads "Piggly Wiggly," a chapter from her book, Blessen.

Margaret Simon is a teacher-consultant with the National Writing Project of Acadiana, Louisiana. In this podcast we explore Margaret's creative process, her use of a writing group, and her journey in publication. What questions do you have? Please add your comments below.

Margaret's friend and writing partner, Stephanie Judice, joins us as well. She published Rising last year and is working on Book 2. http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/B004YXL72O/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link Margaret writes, "She's the one who pushed me to publish."

An interesting review of Blessen: http://revmoore.blogspot.com/2012/04/blessen.html

Stephanie Judice's Saga of Setti on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Saga-of-the-Setti/203566846334918

Margaret Simon's Blessen on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blessenbyMargaretSimon

Enjoy!

Our second of three episodes of Teachers Teaching Teachers in which we discuss Howard Rheingold's New Smart: How to Thrive Online . Howard is joining us on May 2. For this conversation Paul Allison and Monika Hardy are joined by Fred Mindlin, Sarah Rolle, Mura Nava, Valerie Burton, Vinnie Vrotny, Tinashe Blanchet, and Christian.