Karen-
How are you? I haven't seen you in awhile. Hope all is going well. It is nice to get a friend request from someone I actually know, it seems like people just want to see how many "friends" they can get. Interesting movement happening here. I just got accepted to my doctoral program so life will be getting even busier! I am very excited for this new journey!
Great to hear from you!

Karen, try ClueTrain Manifesto...free, online, and a great read. Another one is The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida.

hi Karen, non google web 2.0 classes, yes....maybe yahoo..there are plenty of tools out there...that's for sure..have to put a class together, but too busy doing other projects...
later..

so, Karen, call me...or, collaborate with me...hehe

Hi Karen,

Happy to find you here!

Karen,
To save you time maybe, the episodes called Kids speak out.. seem to resonate with educators. It was great fun to meet you and put a living face to the work! : )

Karen, thanks for finding me here... It was good to reconnect with you. I found myself really wishing I had more of a presence in these online communities, so... Here I am! I'm playing with a new blog that is more about playing, discovering and learning... an experiment of sorts for me to prove a concept to area teachers (and myself). I'll share it with you when I have it up and going. In the meantime I'm still at http://www.mobilemind-ed.com.

Karen,

I don't remember if you were going to Salisbury, but I'm thinking of you guys down there. As I've mentioned, our districts don't have a strong interest in handhelds and such. I guess I have a lot more work to do! Hope things are going well with you.

Hey, I enjoyed your post on the "powerpoint" forum. I was wondering, do you make your students work on these large projects public? As in can anyone view them?

On Google Docs i couldn't really find public work on it. I don't know too much about Zoho.

But, I am interested in seeing some of these class presentations.

Thanks

Karen, when kids become the producers of content copyright and intellectual property issues become personal and real. The power of authorship for an audience beyond the teacher can be THE DRIVER.

When I was teaching Middle School writing we'd create books which gave kids a sense of purpose and audience. Still a print publication didn't have the punch of putting words online. It's the real audience and the chance to express yourself that could really motivate make school real for so many.

If we can tie the essential concepts of copy (right & left) to this urge for self expression we'd get a lot of heat and light in the classroom.

Thanks for showing the way... 8-)

Dennis

Gee, I found you on my delicious bookmarks from last April. We've covered a lot today at HSTI. Thanks!

I want to learn more about what I've learned today and would like to write to both of you if that is ok. I know I will have problems I can't figure out. The class was great. I couldn't have asked for more. Both of you were very helpful. Some instructors know the material but don't have the patience for people that aren't computer nerds. Thanks again.

Gary Johnston

Thanks for the comment back! I loved your workshop today!! I cant wait to try it with my students. I even bought a book about it today. One question though, I am trying to reach you or Becky about getting some continuing education credits for the workshop today. I forgot to ask about them today at the workshop and was directed to e-mail you or Becky about getting the document signed. I will also e-mail you and Becky as well. Thanks for the wonderful workshop. This is my first time at NECC and what a way to start!!

Hi again, Karen...
Well, they said it was not too late to do the Texas Foreign Language Association!! Hurray! So I will be presenting a short session that is an overview of many things that can be done with Web 2.0 and then a longer workshop where we will actually "make and take" our own blog, wiki, and at least a Voki if not a podcast.

Thanks for the inspiration and the push to something! Now if we will ALL accept the challenge... (those who are comfortable in what they are doing =))...

Hi Karen,

We are know as SITACT Incorporated and we operate out of Chicago. You can
find more about us at www.sitact.ent. We are into developing virtual
learning environments and course settings so that it becomes easy to set up
an online course for a teacher. A sample of what we do can be seen at
www.lms.sitact.net . This is also accessible from all leading mobile access devices like Iphone and Blackberry. Please use the guest login
and use "frankieuncle" as the guest access code. What you will see in here
is a simple course that describes the software, but this course can be
designed to teach diverse subject matter to students. If you feel the kind
of work we are doing will be useful for you, we will be glad to work with
you setting up such virtual courses for collaborative dissemination and consumption of knowledge. Even if you didn't like the work we do, please let us know if we can do anything else for you.

Regards,
Sanjib

sanjib@sitact.net

Karen,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Summer vacation delays my ability to return e-mails promptly. To answer your question, yes, you did sign the paperwork. Again, I thank you for that!

Yes, that was me ... send me your email and I'll connect you with the information and people I have! :)

Hi Karen!
Yes, almost neighbors. In fact, I'm originally from LB. Thanks a TON for all of the valuable information. I may be contacting you about doing a partnership on a grant. That sounds really cool.
Thanks again!

Hi, Karen - I answered you about the Voki on MY page! Oops - I don't know the etiquette for these things! Here's the link, let me know if it doesn't work!

Hi Karen,
My kiddos are using 21classes.com. I did not have to enter email addresses and I could set it up so that I approve everything that gets published. I DID end up going with the PAID subscription, because they kids really wanted to be able to add pictures, and with the free version, there's just not enough memory to add more than a handful for the entire site. So far I am pleased with the site. It's been down only once late at night when I wanted to review entries from home. You can view our class blog front page by going to www.mrstg.com and clicking in "student blogs" right in the middle.
Good luck!

I agree there are a number of inappropriate widgets available for a starter page. I've mentioned this in some of the feedback I've given on Google Apps for Ed. but nothing has changed yet. The administrator can turn the feature off pretty easily - so I think it's best to just not have an iGoogle starter page.

Regarding the policy issues:

I have come to the conclusion that there needs to be a formal school board approved policy on this matter that has been drafted and approved by the technology committee.

Without going into details, for political reasons--really nothing to do with technology, some of what I have been done was called into question-- even though it was well known what I was doing and had the approval of our superintendent.

While there were no real problems as a consequence, it led me to come to the position that I would not leave myself vulnerable in the future. Nor should anyone else in my opinion.

We are in the middle of drafting a policy in a subcommittee. It's tough because there really isn't much out there. I plan on blogging more about that real soon as I need to present something to discuss next Wednesday.

I agree that teaching responsibility is important. What is your school and community willing to accepts? How do the parents feel?

I plan on offering a range of options to parents, but I'm not sure that I could get the school to accepts unmoderated posts and replies.

Regarding Administration and moderation:

Yes, it can get to be a load. I think it best to start small with a few teachers who are highly motivated, and they in turn, start with one class. In our school, teachers who wanted their students to blog were responsible for moderation.

Make sure you have good spam mechanisms in place because if you don't, you will have a lot more to deal with.

Let me know if I can help. Perhaps I should set up an Elgg community so we have a place to toss these ideas around. It something that I'd like to see more collaboration on and I have been frustrated by lack of resources.

Yes, this is difficult for me too as I am absolutely passionate about this. I am so passionate, that my biological children 9 and 12 year old have had their own domain names and web presence without my moderation for a couple years. They ask before they do something anyway, but they have the ability to put up whatever the want. They can install any software that they like.

This is what I am lobbying for my fifth grade:

Everything moderated
Parent choice on access to content
Use of pseudonyms

And I will lobby my parents passionately to consent to "open to the world." I did it last year and it went great. Not one problem.

I like the website and wonder how it is that I have not run into it sooner!

Wow--thanks! I really think that point gets lost in the Web 2.0 education world.

Steve

I appreciate the conversation you started and enjoy your thinking very much!

Thanks for the Web 2.0 workshop. I feel ready to start.
Enjoy,
Faye

thanks, i enjoyed your class today i learned some things that i can further explore

Hi Karen,

With your work to integrate technology into schools I recommend you take a look at Wiziq's virtual classroom and authorstream's power point presentation platform. Both are web based, have a bunch of features and free basic service.

Hi Karen. I was wondering if your students would be interested in participating in a nationwide SAT Vocab Video Contest @ MIT university. If not, perhaps you have some educator contacts you could direct me to. You can view contest details at BrainyFlix.com Please let me know. Thanks!

Good to hear from you, Karen! Perhaps you can offer your insight into the matter of using copyrighted material. Per our research, we believe that the videos fall under Fair Use because 1) this is a charity event being sponsored by a non-profit and 2) it is for free public education.

We are definitely open to collaborations! Did you have something specific in mind?

If you can email me directly at admin@brainyflix.com, that'd be great. It's just an easier interface than these Ning comments.

Hi Karen,

I think there might be an opportunity for our two organizations...

Our Brainyflix video contest just ended. We got 800 submissions from across the country! MIT was really happy with the results and will let us run another contest, so we're going for it! But this time, we're gonna have kids create Brainypics flashcards - which are images and sentences paired up with a one of our SAT/ACT words. The contest ends May 22nd, and there'll be iTunes and a cash prize like last time. To boot, we'll double the payout if the kids can hit a certain goal. More details at brainyflix.com/main/contest_rules.

Maybe we can cross-promote a little bit. We have a blog where we can post about your website and maybe you can have a link to our website somewhere...

Let me know!
Jack

Hi Karen,

I noticed your interest in handheld technologies and would love to be in contact. I have worked for 16 years in school in England (13) and North Carolina (3) and currently am studying for my PhD in education with a focus on handheld technology.

Regards

Helen Crompton