Starting the Classroom 2.0 "Conversations" or Talk-casts

Howdy, Classroom 2.0 Members! This message duplicates an email I sent, but gives a chance for feedback and brainstorming here.

I was pretty busy this last month organizing our first live CR 2.0 workshop in San Francisco, but I have had a couple of days this week to finally pull together something I've wanted to do for a while: regular audio (and soon video) virtual "meet-ups" for Classroom 2.0 members.

The schedule for these talk-casts is on our wiki at http://www.classroom20wiki.com/LIVE+Conversations. I've scheduled sessions starting today (!), and you are also welcome to add and facilitate any events you would like that pertain to Classroom 2.0. Once we have a good grasp of the different audio/video/whiteboard/desktop-sharing programs available, we could even do some training sessions for those who want to moderate. (Elluminate has generously agreed to provide access to their web meeting software for these meetings, but until that's in place I've set up to use Talkshoe.com for our first sessions. I've also put in some notes on the best way to use Talkshoe, which you can see by clicking on the link in the "medium" column.)

Today's session will be just an introduction and for fun, especially since it's Valentine's Day here in the U.S. and we might get limited participation from the more romantic crowd! :) Friday's session will be on "Creative Commons, Open Content, and Copyright" in education. Then I've listed some others for next week that would start us on a series of discussions about different Web 2.0 programs in education. My thought is to create enough variety in topics that most of our members will find something they want to be a part of--or listen to later (we'll record the sessions so they are available afterwards). I've also scheduled one for next week that should accommodate non-North-American time zones--and could use some feedback on doing that regularly, or even having a separate organizing facilitator.

I'm particularly interested in encouraging folks who might want to start and facilitate their own series of Talk-casts--say, ""Web 2.0 in the History Classroom," or the like. If you think that might be you, email me separately or comment here and we can organize that on the wiki.

Thanks for being a part of Classroom 2.0! I'll look forward to talking to those who join the calls.

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Permalink Reply by Cary Harrod on February 14, 2008 at 4:43pm

You must have an incredible "To Do List" Steve...do you ever sleep? This is a not-to-miss opportunity which I will share with people in my district. Talk about bringing professional development right to your doorstep. I look forward to participating!

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on February 14, 2008 at 4:51pm

Well, good! I hope you will consider scheduling topics that are of particular interest to *you,* as the goal is to make this a self-sustaining network opportunity. And when we get Elluminate online, it should be particularly easy to share presentations and video. :)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on February 14, 2008 at 8:22pm

OK, had some great ideas come out of the first, experimental chat tonight! :)

1. Create a regular beginner chat event every week or two weeks, make sure people know they can go and learn about CR 2.0 and get help. Might be good to do an actual video recording of one of these about CR 2.0 and have it as a video on the site for beginners to watch as well!

2. Have teams of facilitators for these events and others, so no one feels overwhelmed.

3. Have good agendas for each session (there is a link to an agenda for each one--encourage people to fill in)

So, TalkShoe got a 5 out of 10 rating from me tonight. I didn't realize that the simpler web platform doesn't allow for the raising of hands for talking. Need to address that for tomorrow's event. Sound quality was good. I was able to copy and paste the whole chat, which was nice. Some had trouble navigating the login.