Amazed by the power of asynchronous learning

Wow. I glanced at the statistics podPress is keeping for my most recently published podcasts this evening:

17 days ago, Dr. Renee Hobbs from the Media Education Lab at Temple University presented “Media Literacy as Literacy for the Information Age” here in the Oklahoma City metro area as a keynote at the OTEP reading conference. I was not able to attend the conference because of a family commitment, but I was able to arrange for conference organizers to record her keynote with an Olympus WS-110 audio recorder I loaned them.

10 days ago, I published Dr. Hobbs’ keynote here as an audio podcast. As of this evening, this audio recording of her presentation has been downloaded 3655 times.

I am not sure how many people attended the OTEP conference in person, but I do not think it was over 500 people. I will work on finding out the attendance/participant number tomorrow.

My thought tonight is, it’s AMAZING that already just TEN DAYS after that audio podcast was published, already more than 7 times the number of people who likely attended the conference face-to-face have downloaded that presentation. Of course I have no way of knowing how many of these downloads have been listened to entirely. I also can’t tell if someone downloaded the file (or started the file download in their browser using the podPress-provided Flash player) more than once.

What I CAN say with certainly, however, is that this potential to access and share ideas via asychronous publication often exceeds my own expectations. This blended learning potential is leveraged powerfully by the free K-12 Online Conference, which begins next Monday on October 13th with a pre-conference keynote.

Learning opportunities like these were simply not possible when I was in school in the way they are today in the early 21st century.

Please share the K-12 Online Conference flyer (PDF) with other educators you know. Forward the file itself or the flyer’s blog post to other teachers you know and on email listservs to which you belong. Print out the flyer and put it in teacher mailboxes at school. Organize a K12Online LAN party at your home for teachers you work with and know. Jonathan Chambers is keeping the LAN party tradition going in Shanghai since Jeff Utecht moved to Bangkok. I’m inspired!

How will you be using content from the K-12 Online Conference to inspire and engage educators in your local community in the next three weeks? Helping teachers personally experience the power of blended, asynchronous learning is essential to tangibly advance “the learning revolution” in our schools and communities.

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On this day..

• EdCamp, eBooks & STEM (OTA – EncycloMedia 2014) – 2014
• Sunset over Doha – 2011
• Unusual and Tasty Breakfast Buffet Items in Qatar – 2011
• Emotional Intelligence by Phyllis Van Hemert – 2010
• Self-discipline critical in our tablet and smartphone filled world – 2010
• Immersion in other cultures enhances creativity – 2009
• UStream recording of tonight’s K12Online08 conversation on EdTechTalk – 2008
• Join the K12Online08 conversation on It’s Elementary tonight! – 2008
• Wiki, Blog or Moodle? – 2006
• Universal (Intel Mac) version of Ecto available – 2006