These last couple months for many educators in International Schools has been the recruiting season. This process, be it done via Skype or in-person at the many fairs around the globe can be quite stressful, busy, overwhelming and exciting with all the options available. It is a unique luxury we have as International Educators to have this opportunity, to then engage with new professional opportunities and destinations pretty much anywhere on the globe. One thing from my own experience is the growing importance of our respective Professional Learning Networks and how through the use of social media we can all leverage connections, and learn from a rich diverse community of educators. With this mobile and global group of international educators, one can now tap into a rich array of blogs, tweets, wikis, social media and collaborative environments to support our own learning. Our community of International School Educators are creating and producing a rich tapestry of thoughtful resources reflections, comments and venues for a dialogue. With this growth and development more school administrators are looking at potential candidates through this rich resource to better understand the International School educators in our community.
Here are some articles and resource on this topic:
Engaging in Professional Learning Networks
A teacher guide to creating professional learning networks
The Personal Learning Network for Educators
5 Professional Learning Network for Educators
20 Tips for Creating a Professional Learning Network
ECIS ICT Committee News
I would like to welcome and thank Alan Preis, Director of Technology and 21st Century Learning at Atlanta International School,
and long standing ICT Committee member who is now co-authoring the blog and helping out with links and resource.
Digital Bytes
Google Glass
A number of members of the ECIS ICT community have had the opportunity to try out Google Glass at various events during the past year. Many of you may have seen them or read about them. While we are still in the very early days of wearable technology and it is not clear how devices like this will evolve–and how they might impact learning–it is interesting to think about how devices like this will impact schools, business, and day-to-day life over the next few years.
Here are a few resources that are helpful for learning more about Google Glass:
- Sergey Brin’s TED Talk: Why Google Glass?
- THE Journal: A first look at how educators are really using Google Glass
- Edutopia: The future of education as seen through Google Glass
- Google Glass: The experience, reaction, and possibilities
- Mashable Infographic: How Google Glass might be used in education
- Google Glass in Education Google+ Community
Professional Development
Join the Learning Technology Exchange Network May 2 and 3, 2014 with Jeff Utecht
- L-TEN is a full-day where teachers, educators, techies and others gather to hear, view, and partake in presentations and guided and free user-generated discussions.
- Participants go on a tour of the host school to witness learning and technology applications.
- The day is always a Friday to allow for travellers to experience non-educational locations in the surrounding area, if they so desire.
- The host school provides early morning snacks and drinks and lunch.
- The host school makes recommendations for hotels, lodging and transportation.
- The host school provides maps to arrive at the location.
- LTEN takes place 3 times near the beginning, the middle, and the end of the school year.
- Different schools offer to host each event. Host schools ultimately decide upon the exact date of each event.
- The host school can change the course and layout of the day to suit their needs and experimentations.
More about LTEN can be found here: http://lten.wikispaces.com/
Google Apps Events
Find out about a Google Apps for Education event in your area.
Upcoming Google in Education Summits produced in partnership with Google in Education:
Full schedule of events and locations
http://www.appsevents.com/
Three Events to consider: for Scratch enthusiast
Scratch Day: 18 May – go to day.scratch.mit.edu to see if there’s an event near you.
European Scratch Conference: 25-27 July – hosted by citilab in Barcelona. Go to scratch2013bcn.org to find out more.
European Robotics Week: 25 Nov – 1 Dec – go to www.eurobotics-project.eu/eurobotics-week/ to find out what’s happening near you.
Flat Connections Conference – Sydney, Australia June 18-20, 2014
The Flat Connections Conference is a unique event that includes students and educators to envision the future of education and of learning communities as they use leading technology tools such as wikis, blogs, social networking and digital storytelling. The conference is diverse in participation while allowing smaller groups to work with leading world-class presenters in a “flattened” environment where virtual participants from remote corners of the world also join in the conversation and action. The Flat Connections Conference is an alternative, challenge-based, global conference. Educators will leave the conference understanding how to collaborate globally and a better understanding of how educational technology supports this and with skills and contacts in hand to start projects. Students will leave the conference with leadership skills, technology skills, presentation skills, and a better understanding of diverse cultures and collaboration. Event facilitators include Michael Furdyk, Ann Michaelsen, Frank Guttler, Ann Mirtschin and Chris Betcher. Inquiries to Julie Lindsay, lindsay.julie@gmail.com
ISTE Conference – Atlanta, Georgia USA June 28 – July 1, 2014
The ISTE Conference will be held in Atlanta this year and will feature hundreds of sessions on the theme “Connected learning, connected world”. They are gathering input on keynote speakers for this year, feel free to submit your suggestions at https://www.isteconference.org/2014/program/keynote.php. Information about registering for the ISTE Conference is available here: https://www.isteconference.org/2014/attend/.
Your words, your input…..
Please remember your links, your thoughts, your resources, your conferences/events are important to this blog if you have something you wish to have featured drop me a note jmikton@isp.cz a week before the first day of the month
have a good month