Alice Barr

On this special episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim -- with Alice Barr, a technology teacher in Yarmouth, Maine -- welcomed to the show a couple of teachers, a couple of Writing Project Directors, and a researcher of Writing Projects. These folks (along with James Shiroff from the Denver Writing Project) will be presenting and facilitating a 2-hour session at the National Writing Project's 2008 Annual Meeting this week. The name of their featured presenation, "Writing in the Digital Age," identifies some of the issues discussed on this podcast.

• Seth Mitchell, high school teacher and Tech Liaison for the Maine Writing Project (University of Maine)
• Sarah Hunt-Barron, middle school teacher, teacher consultant of the Upstate Writing Project in South Carolina and doctoral student at Clemson University
• Rebecca Kaminski, Director Upstate Writing Project in South Carolina and professor at Clemson University, SC
• Felicia George, Associate Director of the New York City Writing Project at Lehman College, NY
• Laura Stokes, Inverness Research in California

We think you'll enjoy this conversation whether or not you are planning to join these folks at the National Writing Project’s Annual Meeting in San Antonio November 20 and 21.

These Writing Project teachers and their colleagues also shared stories about how they support their fellow teachers to further their development in teaching writing in a digital environment. Many interesting ideas about the students’ enthusiasm for writing to real audiences and generating more writing were discussed along with issues that local programs face when offering professional development services to teachers in their area.

Click Read more to see a transcript of the chat that was happening at the same time as the webcast.

Joining us to discuss the K12 Online Conference is  Wes Fryer, Darren Kuropatwa, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, and Dean Shareski

Geek of the Week Links 

Chat Transcript :

Three amazing young women joined us on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers:

• Farisa, 10th Grader at East-West School of International Studies, Flushing, NY, NY
• Hannah, 11th Grader at Science Leadership Academy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Lindsea, 12th Grader at Punahou School, Honolulu, Hawaii

Paul Allison, Alice Barr, and Gail Desler stayed out of the way as much as possible. We asked the students to help us keep on track with the mission of Youth Voices: to be "a space where teachers nurture student-to-student conversations, collaborations, and civic actions." We seek to sustain student-sponsored work on our new site.

Click Read more, below, to see the chat transcript.

Join Alice, Bob and Cheryl as we chat with Jo McLeay about how her network has been creating a path for sustainability before and after the conference. A little while into the show Sue Tapp hopped into the chat room and then she joined the conversation. It was great to hear about how our friends in Australia are creating virtual spaces for conversations can happen before, during and after conferences. Jo gives some great advice for anyone attending NECC.

Our SEEDLINGS show this week is a wonderful interview with Tracy Pariseau, a special educator, from Sanford, ME, talking about her students radio show, blogs and use of technology. Tracy is such an inspiration to the cause, all who were in the chat room wanted to join her class. In fact, next week, or most weeks you can join Tracy and her students as they go live for their radio show. You will find the links for Tracy below.