We’ll be sharing the handouts for our sessions on this blog. If things go to plan we might even have some video to share–if you haven’t already done so, take a minute to subscribe to Hello and be the first to find out when they’re available!
(Don’t worry, we’ll have paper copies on-hand as well.)
Are you on your way to Kansas City for this week’s 30th Anniversary International SIM Conference? Or maybe you’re already there, taking part in a pre-conference workshop? Either way, be sure to circle these times on your conference schedule:
Stop by and check out Amber’s poster Thinking Outside the Online Course Topic Box”–if you’re familiar with the Learning Labs you may get the reference. Either way, stop by and say hello!
There will be candy! You’ll also learn how Depot is a great way to engage your teachers with online examples and dialogue around Content Enhancement. Did I mention the candy?
Sure, you know how to interact in threaded discussions, but the Learning Labs can do much, much more to help your group interact when not face-to-face. From knowledge sharing to collaborative document creation to web-based video conferencing (you heard me right!) learn about new ways to use the Learning Labs.
Stop by the Auditorium for some last-minute one-on-one time with the Stratepedia gang. Any leftover candy will be on-hand as well!
I’ve had some changes ready to apply to Depot sitting on the back burner for awhile–in the interest of getting them in place in plenty of time for the conference I’m planning to push them out to the server over the holiday weekend. Downtime should be very minimal, since the changes are mostly cosmetic.
Gail Cheever had an awesome idea–instead of lugging along stacks of paper as handouts for Neatest Things: Content Enhancement, she’s posting them to the Models for Professional Development group in Depot. You can too!
If you’re a Depot user and have CE examples to share at the conference, contact Gail or me for information on accessing the group. It takes a minute or less to get started, but after that you can easily share your CE files with other attendees at the conference, not to mention those who couldn’t make it.
Don’t forget to attend our session Using Stratepedia Depot for Content Enhancement Support to learn everything there is to know about using Depot for professional development! I think we’re scheduled for sometime Thursday morning. Come say hello!
Thanks to Gail for the great idea!
Heads up! I’m about to start a little reorganization project with the categories in the Hello sidebar. Things should work in the meantime, but may look a little weird. When I’m done, though, the categories should be much easier to browse.
The updates to the Learning Labs I mentioned earlier are now complete. Upgrading Moodle to new versions is never as easy as it should be, so let me know if something looks odd. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused!
Heads up, all you Learning Labs fans: Sometime this evening (probably around 10:00 central time) I’m going to take the Learning Labs offline for a bit so I can upgrade to the latest version of Moodle. This will take anywhere from five minutes to an hour, but I’m guessing it’ll be on the shorter end of that spectrum.
Moodle 1.9 has a ton of new features, but nothing that’s going to make the site look out of the ordinary the next time you sign in. Let me know, though, if you see something odd.
There was a major power outage in Lawrence early this morning, and some of the servers didn’t come back up right away. Everything should now be back to normal.
In case you haven’t heard, the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, of which Stratepedia is part, has received funds from the Wal-Mart Foundation to start a project promoting literacy in out-of-school environments. We’ll be partnering with Boys and Girls Clubs of America to extend the scalability and reach of interventions like Strategic Tutoring, Possible Selves, and Fusion Reading.
The Stratepedia team will all be working on this project alongside Mike Hock, Don Deshler, Irma Brasseur, and Josh Saunders. For our part, we’re taking a close look at how volunteer mentors and tutors can be brought up to speed on the aforementioned interventions, in a reasonable amount of time, without degrading the models. We’re looking toward technology to help accomplish this, as a support for our usual professional development models, data tracking, and communication. Look for some of these new tools to roll out this summer.
The Wal-Mart Foundation sponsored a media event in Lawrence last Wednesday. About 100 people and most of the local media outlets attended, as did Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Don, and representatives of the Wal-Mart Foundation and Boys and Girls Clubs. You can read more about it on the CRL’s website (and see a photo of Don and Governor Sebelius holding the giant check!), then head over to the brand new site we’re developing for the project. It’s a bit sparse right now, but will become the news hub of this project in particular and things we find pertaining to out-of-school literacy opportunities.
After School Literacy Project at the Center for Research on Learning
The following Stratepedia services will be briefly unavailable:
These sites will also be unavailable:
