Learning, Teaching & Technology

The focus of this session is introducing possible participants to the purpose and possibilities of their Women of the Web 2.0 (WOW2.0) webcast on edtechtalk.com. Through Cheryl Oakes I had the opportunity to met Jen Wagner, Vicki Davis and Sharon Peters at NECC07. It was interesting to hear from the hosts how it all started and to view the making of a show at NECC07. They and their successors on the show have since become well known as innovators who host noted guests and topics of interest.

This session gave me a lot of information about how the hosts came up with the idea of webcasting and what they actually do during the production of the show. Although I have listened to the show some Tuesday nights I learned more from the presentation about the archives and delicious links available online.

I know that when Cheryl Oakes first participated in the Webcast Academy she found the access to international educators and the broadened conversations revolutionized her professional practices. Since then she has assisted many others who have been interns in the academy as well as supporting the development of new shows and encouraging listeners to shows. One of my goals is to find the time to enroll in a Webcast Academy which is usually offered in the summer and the winter of each year. I would like to become comfortable with webcasting so that I could assist students and teachers who want to collaborate with others across geographic distances in this format.

As I consider learning to webcast I am fortunate to have local access to my colleagues Alice Barr, Cheryl Oakes and Bob Sprankle who have just begun sharing their “Seedlings Podcast at Bit by Bit” on EdTechtalk on a regular schedule. This has evolved from a regular podcast they have done for over a year. As the presenters say in their title, it’s about “expanding the conversation.”

I started this session last October when it was first posted. Working daily with Alice and having access to Cheryl and Bob as southern Maine colleagues and participants in my personal learning network I was excited to see what they had prepared for us. At the time it was my introduction to podcasting and an early use of voicethread, gizmo project (now http://gizmo5.com/pc/) and a group ning. One thing that was striking about this session is that there were several tasks to be completed with great instructional resources on how to setup and use each tool. This presentation is full of examples I can share with teachers of expanding the conversations about learning using recording tools that are clearly presented in their tutorials.

As I listened this time to the podcast they created for this session it was interesting to reflect on the conversation that is now almost a year old. Bob talks some about our roles of supporting teachers and how the beginning of the year it seems to be all about supporting equipment and not even the tools the equipment can provide. Jeff Utecht references this flurry at the beginning of the year recently on his blog, “As we continue to support teachers using technology tools in their classrooms we need to realize that teachers’ use of technology is not the same as supporting teachers teaching with technology…Although it’s important to support teachers in the use of technology it’s much different then supporting teachers teaching with technology.” Our role as technology support educators is meant to be based on curricular knowledge and staff development skills to increase the learning of our students. The great thing is that we are not alone in this discussion about keeping the learning at the forefront of our work as we can create podcast shows, blogs and ways to keep each other fueled in our professional goals.