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21st May 2008

Thank you Vicki Davis!

posted in distributed-learning, web 2.0 |

I want to publicly thank the world-famous Vicki Davis for taking some time out of her busy schedule the last day of school today to videoconference with about 15 teachers in Asher Public School in Asher, Oklahoma. Vicki and Julie Lindsay won numerous awards (ISTE SIGTel Online Learning Award 2007, Edublog Best Wiki Award 2006, Taking IT Global Collaborative Project Award 2007) for their 2006 Flat Classroom Project, and are continuing their innovative uses of technology with students via The Horizon Project and most recently the Digi Teen “digital citizenship for teens” project.

Vicki discussed her own learning journey with web 2.0 tools with the Asher teachers and answered questions about getting started. Like many, Vicki encourages teachers to use tools like VoiceThread in personally meaningful ways first before jumping into classroom applications and integration ideas with students. With respect to educational technologies, Vicki advised teachers to:

Play before you produce.

I share a similar message with teachers in my workshops and presentations, but I hadn’t heard it expressed in this way. I love this succinctly phrased advice! :-)
Vicki and Julie are leading a two-day workshop in St. Louis on July 8 and 9 following NECC, which sounds like a great learning opportunity. (I’ll be in Missouri during that time, but will be attending and presenting at MODLA.)

For today’s workshop in Asher, we used my wiki curriculum “A Summer Of Professional Learning Choices for Educators! Where Should I Start?” We spent the entire morning exploring VoiceThread and creating a VoiceThread together. The afternoon session kicked off with a great videoconference with Vicki over Skype. Bringing in other people “live” into a workshop like this over video is one of the best things I think we can do and model for teachers during professional development sessions, particularly when we are fortunate to have internationally recognized educators like Vicki share a bit of their perspectives and experiences!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 11:01 pm and is filed under distributed-learning, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 3 responses to “Thank you Vicki Davis!”

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  1. 1 On May 22nd, 2008, Pat said:

    This was a great post! I have added your wiki to the list of things I will use in my summer univ. course for teachers. I hope you don’t mind. (By the way, I’m in Oklahoma City for the day and I’m enjoying your state! We will go to the memorial and some antique shops and then head towards Arkansas)

  2. 2 On May 22nd, 2008, Vicki Davis said:

    Hi, Wes. I was happy to spend time with the teachers, it sounded like they were learning a lot and just so excited. They are so fortunate to have you there. I think that skyping into places is one of the most fun things that we all get to do as a part of our newly interconnected world. It was great to meet Stephanie, Barbara, and Whitney and I hope that the other teachers also learned something as well. Best wishes and thanks for thinking of me! (I needed the break from post planning anyway!)

  3. 3 On May 22nd, 2008, Julie Lindsay said:

    Hi Wes

    Thanks for giving our July workshop a mention! We are busy winding up the last 2 weeks of the Horizon Project 2008 (http://horizonproject2008.wikispaces.com) and then looking forward to the joys of NECC in San Antonio. Will see you there!