Keynote

We created a Keynote using an Apple laptop, exported as a PDF file, uploaded to slide share and embedded here for your enjoyment.

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Welcome

The world, the students, the teachers, and learners of all kinds are all changing. Brains are being re-wired right now. We've seen the difference that audience and purpose have made for our students and ourselves. We invite you to sample some of what we've seen, some of what we've learned, and some of what we've found in the last couple of years. We're throwing the kitchen sink at you on the pages of this website. It's not to drive you insane, and it's not to overwhelm you. The purpose of this blog is to provide a place for you to explore. To find new things, to remember some old things, and to share everything. We're trying to start conversations and ask questions. We're trying to create a workshop with a "take what works and leave the rest" feel. We hope you enjoy. Please share this website with everyone you know.

This home page is where we'll put bits and pieces from each section of the presentation. This way, everyone can comment on them, and add their own connections, thinking, and learning to the mix. If you're interested in creating an audience and purpose for your students' work, you'll need to get used to commenting on the work of others. If you haven't started already, now is a good time to start!

This blog has links all over the place.  It's our way of leading you out into the world of web 2.0 (the read/write web) and sharing lots of great things with you. Take a look and click all over the place. Many of the links will lead you to our Delicious (we also use Diigo) bookmarks. This way, you can see multiple items from one hyperlink. If you're not familiar with social bookmarking, it's definitely something you'll want to learn more about.

We're so excited for this workshop. If you have questions, please stop us at anytime! This presentation is all about the audience - not us! Let us know what you need, what is working, and how we can improve your experience here at the session.

Thank you for your time!

Chris and Nicolette

Read Aloud

Using Cover it Live

We love using Cover it Live, but we generally have the advantage of being together. It would be a challenge to use this service alone, since we moderate every comment and provide immediate feedback to almost every single response that we do not post. You can definitely check out some of our cover it live sessions on our 5th grade blog. We're going to just try to open up a sample CiL session today, so please check it out below.

Generally when we do this, we advertise on Twitter with a link to our blog, where the session is held. Some Twitter clients will automatically shorten the long link, or you can use services like bitly or tinyurl.

Make sure to mention the topic of the session as well as the time (and time zone) so that teachers can plan ahead a bit.

Purpose and Drive

What do you think?

Favorites...

We have had a great time using our 5th grade blogs and wikis. We use them in almost every content area, and we currently manage almost 20 blogs for different things during the school year. Some examples include reading groups, after school clubs, and our human development unit.

As a comment for this post, please share some of your favorite blogs to read - for yourself, your students, etc.

Don't have any favorites yet? Take some time to check out some of ours! You'll also find links to others all throughout this entire blog. Please come back to this post to share your thoughts!

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

http://mrcsclassblog.blogspot.com/

http://edublogawards.com/

http://edublogawards.com/2009/best-educational-wiki-2009/

http://teaching21c.blogspot.com/2008/01/wikis-in-classroom.html

A Vision of Students Today...

If you've already seen this video, or others like it, please add some additional suggestions for viewing in the comment section for this post. If not, please take a moment to check out this video.