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Project Update

Three of the strands of the E=d3L project are completed and are ready for viewership. Several others have moved into authorship and are being further developed for a possible release in mid-June. It is all coming together through a collaborative effort and that in and of itself is exciting.

The conversations that we have had and hope to generate are going to begin to change the way we deliver and receive professional development. The blog, wiki and podcast pieces have come together nicely and we will be sharing those with our ITRT peers in the coming weeks. The format in which they have been developed will then serve as a template for collaborative contribution in building additional offerings.

The hope is that the cumulative effort can be opened up to the division so that teachers can choose from the topics and depth of study that best meets their needs with a easy understand and achievable set of expectations for earning license renewal points in the process. It is also our hope that contributions for future offerings will come from that same target audience. Tapping into an existing knowledge base will both recognize and reward the many talented educators that we are so fortunate to work with on a regular basis.

So this is going to be not only about opportunities for professional growth in the areas of integrating instructional technology, but also an experiment in expanding the ways and means by which professional development is chosen, created, developed, and delivered. Check back to see how things progress!

Embracing Web 2.0

After struggling to get the page and it's contents -just so- we (Liz, Lynel, and I) decided to ditch the fee for service web hosting tool and embrace wikispaces. It was a good decision. Create in word processor, copy and paste into the edit tool for wikispaces and done. Links, images, even videos were so much easier to post there than in the fee for service tool.
I am only slightly embarassed to admit the web 2.0 tool was not my first choice. I mean I knew that the tools on the web were easy to use and that connecting one web resource to another was fairly easy to accomplish. Many of the tools also include the ability to share the management of the sites and make portions public or private.
For our purposes, these will work just fine and the price is right. We just need to live there a little longer to get used to the neighborhood. I also need to brush up on some code in case I want to move to the next level in page appearance or offerings, but one wouldn't have to if they didn't want to...
Blogs, Podcasts and Wiki for E=d3L have a visit and see what you think.

rod

scheduled post

This post was scheduled to appear on 4/20 at 7:00

Did it work?!?!?

Classroom Learning and Web 2.0 the E=D3L Project

It began with with an e-mail...'check out this link...' and so I did and read about 23 things and Classroom Learning 2.0. Of course that lead to a meeting and a discussion and a short term action plan. We need to get back together to discuss how we can define, discover, and develop a way to entice teachers in our school division to do 23 things.

Liz didn't like putting a number that would limit the project to engage teachers to a 'check list'. Lynel wanted it to be about learning...teachers learning to use tools to promote 21st century learning for students. Engaging teachers to define, discover and develop web 2.0 tools for learning and thus was born the e=d3l project.

So, I am creating this blog as a starting point in this endeavour to increase my own skills and understanding so that I/we can pass this on to teachers who in turn will use it for their own learning as well as move toward engaging students in the content with the tools.

Blogging is one of the first of three 'things' we want to pass on to other teachers. Wikis and podcast will also be included as we launch this project to promote 21st century skills and literacy in educational settings. E=d3l project is being developed by the instructional technology staff of Frederick County Public Schools, VA. We encourage you to participate knowing that this is not just about the coolest sites or the neatest gadgets, but is more about integrating the tools available in ways that engage learners and promote creativity and collaboration. We want to define the tools to create a common understanding so that we can discover ways to use the tools in developing dynamic learning environments.