In keeping with the tradition of Past President Ian Gibson (SITE as an interlocking hub for the world), this morning I presented via OOVOO to the 7th annual conference of the MOFET Institute in Israel.
“The MOFET Institute … is the consortium of Israels 43 colleges of education and is dedicated to serving each college and faculty member, as well as to advancing education at home and abroad.”
The conference theme was: Technology in Education - The essence or simply a shell? The topic I was invited to address was: Can We Train Future Teachers Online?
The interesting questions and discussion made me wonder what the SITE membership as a whole thinks?
I wonder if we all agree? Comments are welcome!
Gerald Knezek, President, SITE
When we think about securing the participation of all students in the use of high performance computing (HPC) and encouraging their informed use of the Teragrid,and other emerging technologies, we must think of the hurdles that students have to vault to achieve any kind of proficiency in the use of technology and to be involved in just science, math and engineering. (Read the article)
I would like to thank everyone who attended the SIG meeting on Thursday afternoon. For those of you who were not able to join us – I’m breaking the rule and letting what happened in Vegas out of Vegas. We had a wonderful conversation about the things we are doing with technology in our various educational lives. As a way to keep the conversation and sharing we started in Vegas going, those of us at the meeting planned to use the SITEBlog (www.siteblog.org) to post stories about our work. These posting can take form however you would like – as long or as short as you like - focused on any area of interest to you. We talked about individuals “signing” up for a post each month (thanks Sara McNeil for this idea!). I am going to get things started this month and I hoped that you all might respond to this post with a comment on a time that you will post to the blog. Of course, we can rearrange things, but it would be nice if we can at least get things started with some folks committing to the blog.
I want to say a couple of other things about blogging that I got from Troy Hicks who is a colleague in English Education. Troy is a quite prolific and insightful blogger (http://hickstro.org/) and I asked him, basically, how do you do it? (look at what Troy posted from SITE in Vegas!) He said that part of the process was simply unpacking his thoughts after meaningful experiences, without as much concern for form and shape. Troy said there seem to be several profiles for bloggers from the “white paper” posters to the folks like himself who just let it flow. It seems to me that one impediment to posting on blogs might be this expectation that what we write has to be a perfectly formed piece of prose – all academic. I am hoping that we can use this blog to just talk to each other. I know that is easier said that done, but for one I am going to “just let it flow” on this blog and see where it takes us.
One last thing – for those of you not familiar with blogging technology, you do not have to visit the website every day to find out what has been posted. SITEBlog allows you to set your preferences so that you can receive an email whenever something new has been posted. Another approach is to “feed” the blog to a reader or your favorite web-based portal space (My Yahoo, iGoogle, MSN Live, ect).
So, thanks again – look for a post on something from me to follow
And!! Tell your friends and colleagues in social studies about SITEBlog. You do have to be a member of SITE to post, but anyone can comment. I think we would all appreciate broadening the conversation, so the more the merry!
John
If you are taking photos this year and posting them to Flickr or other photo sharing services, please be sure to tag your photos with “site2008″.
There was a conducted bus tour on STEM at the SITE conference, it was fully subscribed and we visited schools of STEM interest in Clark County, Las Vegas. The school system helped us share STEM practices in the US.
STEM?
STEM has become a common acronym, particularly among policy advocates and government officials, for the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, an on STEM education and competitiveness is Rising Above the Gathering Storm from the National Academies Press. (Read the article)
Dear SITE Friends,
We look forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas in the next few days. Just a reminder that the Equity and Justice SIG is scheduled to meet on Wednesday (see your schedules for specific time and location!).
Members of this SIG engage in networking and activities for promoting equity and social justice broadly in multicultural, democratic teaching and learning and teacher education, working to address educational, opportunity and digital divides. Issues of Digital Equity - such as empowering opportunities to create, produce, use and disseminate digital tools, strategies and resources for equity and justice purposes, and particularly to seek, identify and/or develop leadership within as well as to otherwise engage traditionally underserved or oppressed communities - are at the forefront of this SIG. Traditionally underserved groups in the U.S. include those identified in federal ESEA-NCLB legislation, such as children, youth and families who are low-income, disproportionately of color, language minority, living with special needs, immigrant, migrant, disproportionately female and/or otherwise neglected. Internationally these include those who are living in poverty, political turmoil, refugees and/or those otherwise struggling with inequitable access to opportunities for full personal, social, political and economic development. Members of this SIG tend to examine and take action within their own work around real and perceived opportunities and/or threats of digital age transformations and current and emerging information and telecommunications technologies within an equity and justice context.
We welcome you to join us. In the past SIG meetings have been opportunities to:
(1) Network and collaborate with like-minded colleagues.
(2) Raise our voices on these issues within the wider SITE Community and beyond.
(3) Participate in identifying a Digital Equity award-winner at each SITE Conference.
(4) Promoting and eliciting Equity and Justice papers and proceedings at each SITE Conference.
(5) Planning special events such as half-day or full-day Equity and Justice Symposia.
(6) Promoting and eliciting publication around Equity and Justice issues in SITE and relevant journals.
(7) Identifying and/or helping to develop so-called “minority” leadership - leaders from groups mentioned above and/or who work in solidarity with such groups (so-called, as we often work in majority “minority” communities).
(8) Identifying, attending and/or promoting Equity and Justice Issues in other relevant conferences and venues, as a way of developing strategic networks and alliances.
Current keen interests include an interest in promoting Supercomputing opportunities for traditionally underserved schools, teacher education programs and learners and tracking upcoming legislation such as the “Preparing Teachers for Digital Age Learners” Bill, for the potential of addressing Equity and Justice issues.
We look forward to posting and learning about additional opportunities, organizations, ideas and resources in the coming week. Please look for our posts of relevant resources and feel free to add your own!
Thanks!
In Peace,
Kevin Rocap, SIG Chair - and on behalf of Co-Chairs Bonnie Bracey and Versonya DuPont
Greetings! My name is Carl Young, and I am Chair of the English Education Special Interest Group (SIG) here at SITE. I am an assistant professor of English and Middle Grades Education at North Carolina State University, and I also serve as coeditor for the English section of Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, otherwise known as the CITE Journal.
While I have been involved with the SITE Conference and the CITE Journal for about eight years now, I began serving as Chair for the English Education SIG at the 2006 Conference.
If you are an English Educator with an interest in technology applications, I encourage you to join our SIG!
At the 2006 Conference, one of our goals as a SIG group was to compose and publish a position paper in which we, as leaders in technology and English Education, would consider how literacy should be (re)defined for current times in light of new and emerging technologies and their impact on language, literacy, and culture. While we have taken some initial steps with this initiative, there is still work to be completed, and I invite you to join us in Las Vegas and contribute to our efforts. I look forward to meeting you and collaborating soon!
Our meeting is Thursday, March 6th, 12:15 - 1:15 pm. The location is still yet to be determined, but I’ll post again with that information when it becomes available.
Congratulations to Nancy Trautmann and James MaKinster for winning the NTLI Fellowship at the ASTE conference in St. Louis. Nancy and Jim presented a paper entitled “Flexibly Adaptive Professional Development in Support of Teacher-Designed Geospatial Technology Curriculum Projects.” (Read the article)
Leveling the Playing Field for Youth Using Technology in a Flat World
Youth and ICT as Agents of Change
There was an extraordinary conference held in Geneva, Switzerland. (Read the article)
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