Exciting was the word of the day as 200 teachers, administrators, and other educational leaders gathered in Birmingham, Alabama for the second year kick-off of the ABPC 21st Century Teaching and Learning Project.
The purpose of the 21st Century OctoberFest was to gear up for a busy second year of this incredible professional development program that encourages powerful conversations and practice around 21st Century teaching and learning.
Last year, with support from the Microsoft Partners in Learning grants program, ABPC recruited small teams from 20 forward-thinking schools across Alabama to participate in a professional development program we call “Keeping Up with the Net Generation.” A second cadre of schools have been selected for Year Two of the project. Click here to read what participants said about the project from last year's involvement.
The program began with an overview of project given by Cathy Gassenheimer, President of the ABPC and John Norton my co-lead on this porject. Next, I gave a presentation with the intent of introducing the foundational ideas of
21st Century Teaching & Learning. A virtual handout was made available via a wiki
From 12:30 – 2:30
We split up into two strands, one for Beginning Schools and one for our returning schools which we are calling Advanced.
Four rotations – 25 minutes each with 5 minutes of transition time – (25 -30 participants in each session)
Topic 1: Blogs (hands-on session
with computers)
Beginning Schools: Charlotte Wilson and Suzanne Culbreth
Advanced Schools: Schools: Darren Kuropatwa (facilitated by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach (me))
Topic 2: Wikis (presentation style w/ handout)
Beginning Schools: Felicia Myers and Jeanne Simpson
Advanced Schools: April Chamberlain
Topic 3: Social Networking (presentation
style w/ handout)
Beginning Schools (Social Networking): Brandi Caldwell
Advanced Schools (Podcasts): Randy Fullington
Topic 4: Tapped In (hands-on session with computers)
Beginning Schools: Scarlett Gaddy and Jackie Thornton
Advanced Schools: Aimee Smith and Juliana Coleman
The sessions were great because they only lasted 25 minutes-- designed to give participants a taste and access to resources for further exploration on their own with lots of follow-up in our Virtual Learning Community on Tapped In. Some folks compared the experience to speed dating-- get in there, meet each other, and move on.
Flickr - Click here to see pics from the day's events!
We ended the day meeting in the Beginning and Advanced Cohorts.
Cathy Gassenheimer and John Norton meet with Beginning School Teams.
If you would like to know more about our plans for year two of our Powerful Conversations work please check these two FAQ docs out.
FAQ about Beginning Schools in the ABPC 21st Century Teaching and Learning Project
FAQ about Advanced Schools in the ABPC 21st Century Teaching and Learning Project
There is quite a bit written about Year One of the project in this publication.
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