PATINS PROJECT -Rapid Fire-

Here are some upcoming FREE or low cost conferences on and in virtual worlds
about teaching and learning in the 21st Century.

1. Virtual Worlds Best Practices In Education 2009: This 3 day conference is entirely online in Second Life and is FREE.  March 27, 28, 29 “The Virtual World Best Practices in Education (VWBPE) conference originated from the 2007 Second Life Best Practices in Education Conference. This grassroots, community-based conference attracts faculty, instructors, trainers, administrators, instructional designers, technical specialists, and members of organizations from around the world. Those who create teaching/learning environments, resources, tools, support services and professional development opportunities internal and external to virtual world environments participate. During the conference, participants have opportunities to ask: What is education?, What is teaching?, What is learning? and How can we provide virtual world educational environments in which today’s learners can become all they can be.“ More HERE

2. IOC 2009: March 30, 31.  This conference is entirely online.  It’s not free, but costs about $99/person. “Each day of IOC 2009 features sessions that will provide the kind of insights and take-aways you can put to work immediately. The conference includes live online sessions at times suitable for working professionals in North American and Australian time zones, and places in between, 7th Annual Online Conference for Teaching and Learning.”   More HERE

3. Purdue University, Teaching and Learning With Technology Conference: This one takes place in  Real Life on the beautiful campus at Purdue in W.Lafayette.  It’s on using technology like Web 2.0 tools, Second Life, and other  Immersive Environments for teaching and learning.  Keynote presentation will be given by Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins, coauthor of Second Life for Dummies.  This conference is FREE.  April 21, 22  More HERE

4. FETC Virtual Conference and Expo 2009: “The award-winning producers of FETC and T.H.E. Journal invite you to participate in a FREE virtual conference for K-12 educators and technology staff exploring the most pressing issues related to 21st Century Skills. April 23.   More HERE

-Check into those conferences.  Of course, the online ones cost you nothing to travel to and all but one is entirely free to register for!  Consider attending one or more of these conferences as you start to form your own ideas about learning in immersive environments and about using 21st Century tools with your students and colleagues.  I’m registered to attend all but one of them and I hope to see you there!

Literacy? Something I, and many others have been interested in and talking about for several years is the concept of literacy today.  David Warlick is one person who certainly comes to my mind when I think about the definition (or redefining) of literacy today.  In fact, “Digital Literacy” is one of of the many areas David has much to teach many of us, myself included.   “A person in today’s world that is not literate in basic digital skills is as illiterate as someone that could not read in the past generation. Actually, they are likely even worse off than the illiterate of yesteryear.” -David Warlick. That’s a bold statement and one that I happen to agree whole heartedly with.  Of course, there are those who disagree with equal forward.  My eyes and ears are often drawn to stories involving traditional forms of literacy and written material and what’s happening to it.   This morning, this USA Today article certainly had my attention: “Newspaper Closings Raise Fears About Industry.” Some might blame this on the economy, which could be partially true, however I tend to think that the real “Fears About Industry” in this case are coming from the same crowd who would tell me that “literacy is literacy.”  I would assert that it’s not today’s students, kindergarteners or grad-students, (for the most part) who fear losing paper-based news.  They have already been getting their information from other sources for years and I fear that if we aren’t teaching them to appropriately access information digitally, link to it and from it, use tags, keywords, and RSS feeds, share and collaborate with their colleagues in real time, etc., then we aren’t preparing our students to be literate in the world they live, work and play in outside of the school building. By the way, I read the aforementioned USA Today article on my iPhone, while brushing my teeth and getting dressed for work this morning, which is part of my typical routine.     …and also something I would not have time to read if the article had only been offered in traditional paper format.

Some Spots Remain: …for the 2009 PATINS Tech Expo! This event is an opportunity to visit with vendors, experiment with the latest/greatest educational technology and attend selected vendor presentations on their products.  There will be an on-going hands-on lab for Read:OutLoud from Don Johnston and an introduction to using Second Life for professional development from PATINS!   Other presentations include topics from Cambium Learning, Vision Aids, Promethean, Spec-Tech, Text Help, Premier Assistive Technologies, Kurzweil, Lightspeed, Prentke Romich, KNFB, Alphasmart (Renaissance Learning), WYNN and more!  Please pass this information on to any of your colleagues or parents of your students you feel could benefit from this information.  Register Online:  www.patinsproject.com/training.html

Dragon Naturally Speaking: I’ve been getting a lot of questions about and requests to borrow Dragon NS lately and thought this webinar next week was worth mentioning.  It is not specifically geared toward those working with students, but it should still have some information that can be applied to the school setting.  It is next week on Thursday (3/26) from 2-3pm EDT.  More HERE.

Have a safe and relaxing Spring Break for those of you who will be out next week!