ePals Webinars for Maine

Maine Connects at ePals



Come to a one-hour free webinar to learn how to join the ePals Global Community and find partners for your classroom or students. Also, learn how to sign up your students to use free, safe and protected ePals SchoolMail, featuring TRUSTe certification of child privacy.

Join the largest global community of K12 learners, with 600,000 classrooms in 200 countries, in true global collaboration and learning! Also learn about the newest web 2.0 projects in ePals, Team Earth (conservation and climate change) and Digital Storytelling.

All Maine schools share a subdomain: @maine.epals.com. This makes it easy for your students to collaborate with other students in Maine on state-specific activities.

Webinar times:

• 10-11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 13
• 4-5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 23
• 4:15-5:15 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2
• 3:15-4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 9

If you are interested in one of these webinars, please email Rita Oates, VP of education markets, at roates@corp.epals.com. She will provide the URL, password and toll-free number to anyone who is interested.

Simple Real-Time Document Collaboration

Can't imagine that I just discovered this tool existed! EtherPad allows for real-time editing in a simple, straightforward manner.

Add your comments to the "pad" I just started: http://etherpad.com/vH6sHf9lH8.

How about pairing this with Skype for collaboration needs?

Collaboration for grades 4 - 8

by Sharon Betts

"BRAIDS AROUND THE GLOBE"

Collaboration for the 9-14 year olds can be difficult to find. Last year, I mentored a project for this group to exchange cultures and ideas - we had members from around the world. We called the project Classroom Braids. Interlacing lives, culture and learning, Classroom Braids is a metaphor for weaving together lives and cultures.

This year, the collaboration is based on world travel - especially sailing and the Vendee Globe.

more information at SharonsShare

The Amazing Simplicity of Google Sites

I've used Google Page Creator for about a year now, and despite a few minor bugs, I was very happy with it. It happens that it is being phased out, and Google Sites is its replacement. Sites seems to be of the wiki persuasion and is ultra-easy to use and offers lots of possibilities for collaboration. Here is my new "Online Office" site. Slick.

Meroby 5th Grade Team

Lisa Belanger, Jessica Allen, and Greig Parr from the Meroby Elementary School added classroom websites into their bag of teaching tools during the collaboration session today. Jessica shared the skills she had learned at the Rapid Web Designer Workshop on Monday.

Jessica Allen's 5th Grade
Lisa Belanger's Class
EastSide108

With enthusiasm, they mapped out the coming school year in order to coordinate their efforts. I love to see this type of collaboration!

We also found a great online tool for creating CD covers for a back-to-school project. We will be testing it further when we have access to a printer.

Mary Gamble and Jeff Bailey Team Up . . .

. . . to create an integration of student-created podcasts with the Sagebrush InfoCentre Library Catalog. Check this out with Breathing Underwater. In the search field that pops up, write "breathing underwater" to find that book. Note the included podcast with the library records. Give it a try!

The beauty of this is that it makes some very important connections school-wide and gives some ownership to the podcasters in being part of a team in improving the library's digital presence.

Keep it up, Amazing Duo!

Collaborative Projects in the River Valley

After two days of relatively formal workshops looking at tools that can be integrated into classroom use, today and tomorrow is being devoted to teacher-initiated collaborative projects in the River Valley (Mt. Valley and Dirigo SADs . . . soon likely to become a single SAU). My job is to "roam" and be available to offer help when questions or needs arise. Quite relaxed. I'm learning from everyone around me.

In terms of creating web pages, Dreamweaver was the tool of choice until this year, but now FirstClass RWD, iWeb, blogs, wikis and podcasting have become the tools of choice for creating a web presence. This pleases me a great deal because these tools offer a small learning curve to get started and don't require as many administrative hoops to jump through in order to be used by busy teachers. Tools should not be so complex and/or clunky as to get in the way of learning and real-world utility.

It is a delight to watch teacher Andrea York of the new Dirigo Elementary School work with other teachers in her building develop web pages using iWeb. She is young, enthusiastic, full-of-energy, knowledgeable, and has a knack for working with others. Nick Waugh, a legend in the River Valley as the answer man in integrating technology, is available for any assistance that might be needed. The link to Andrea's pages that are just two days old is here. Other teachers in her school are developing their own classroom sites today.

Collaborating with Google Docs

Teachers and Principals Talk about Google Docs

Being Part of the Solution

"Ultimately, your leadership in a culture of change will be judged effective or ineffective not by who you are as a leader but by what leadership you produce in others.

~Michael Fullan, Leadership in a Culture of Change

Catalyst: Episode 9 Podcast on Change at Wicked Decent Learning Blog

Related Links:

21st Century Collaborative
PLCs
Capacity Building and Michael Fullan

Web 2.0 Collaboration Tools @ Maine Adult Ed Pre-Conference

This morning at the Adult Ed Pre-Conference we'll be investigating many of the web 2.0 possibilities available to encourage communication and collaboration.

Olga's Wiki
Jim's Link Page

Maine Adult Education 2007 Conference

School Culture

Every Wednesday morning at Mountain Valley Middle School in Mexico, Maine, is "late-arrival" teacher workshop time. This is a valuable time when everyone is fresh to work on ways to improve the school. One session a month is devoted to a literacy initiative with the Western Maine Educational Collaborative, as previously posted. Today was focused on school culture. MVMS has an enthusiastic committee called the MVMS Improvement Committee (formerly the Student Climate and Culture group). Not only have they created some areas to focus on each month, but they provide hands-on training for staff during the professional development time. In other words, there are some strong capacity-building activities that promote implementation, not just words alone.

Today we worked on team-building, cooperative learning activities and conflict resolution skills in small groups that could be used with students during flex-time. Congratulations to the team for excellent leadership. :) Good stuff that I'm sure will make a difference! You see. . . there is a double function here . . . teachers working as a team in order to promote teamwork with students.

Lindsay MacMillan, teacher at MVMS, created a Noteshare notebook called Flex Time with many great ideas. Here is the Web Notebook version. MVMS Librarian, Amy Ryder, added the library resources available to teachers and students.

Process Skills Resources
Student Aspirations: Eight Conditions

Collaboration Model

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” ~Ryunosuke Satoro

I just completed four days at the SAD#43 and SAD#21 Technology in Curriculum Workshops and thoroughly enjoyed it. Evidence of collaboration was everywhere. It was a time when two districts combined their resources and allowed teachers to choose from a cafeteria menu of tools, but more importantly, allowed them to work on curriculum projects that might be enhanced with technology. There was plenty of technical support and expertise to provide the partipants with the help as they needed it. Kudos to Technology Director Wally Devoe, Curriculum Director Gloria Jenkins and others for making this a powerful event. The enthusiasm was evident.

These districts respect their teachers by allocating funding for staff development that builds capacity and encourages conversations on classroom practice.

Where else is this happening?

Walk Beside Me and Be My Friend

"Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."

Albert Camus

Is it too early to start seeing a payoff for the investment in the 1-to-1 MTLI? Perhaps. But I'm sensing that huge transformations are about to take place. Nope, I don't have a shred of scientific evidence, only an ear to the ground in the various schools I visit. I tell you, this old digital immigrant can feel the vibrations. A take-off point is about to occur!

The most significant indication is that we all now know that it ain't going away. I am hearing from even the most skeptical educators now that they're getting on board. There is no question in our minds that the train has left the station, is slowly picking up speed, is not going to reverse direction, and that we'd better run fast to catch up and jump aboard.

Many of us who have had many years in education have seen more than our share of bandwagons in which everyone gets swept up in the enthusiam, only to see a swing of the pendulum, with everyone then running in the opposite direction.

This is different. This is deep. This is revolutionary. This is a time to find our colleagues where they are and gently bring them along.

Our major issues now are ethical. How are we to treat one another? What is important?