The eduFire Blog » eduConference

A Couple of RockStars Teach us how to ROCK

Koichi — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:29:03 +0000

Earlier today was our second virtual eduConference (read about our first one, here), on the subject of “Turning Teachers into Rockstars.” We had two great presenters this time around, one by Kirsten Winkler titled “It’s a Long Way to the Top if you Wanna Rock’n Roll” (going over how to become a Rockstar Teacher), and one by Joseph Sunga of TeachStreet, titled “Empowering Teachers.” Very good presentations all around, and it was great to see people in the comments talking about how inspired they were after it was all over! You can’t ask for more than that from a presentation.

Joseph Sunga showing us how teachers can empower themselves

Kirsten Winkler telling us how to be the next U2

Thank you everyone who attended and participated in the discussion. We really look forward to the next eduConference, probably a month or two away, on a completely different subject. Feel free to send in your ideas for the next one in the comments below! See you next time, and thank you again!

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eduConference 2: Turning Teachers Into Rock Stars

Koichi — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:30:50 +0000

A lot of you may remember our first eduConference, on “The Future of Education.” That was a lot of fun, we got to meet a ton of interesting people in the education business, and I think everybody learned a thing or two. Now, a couple months later, we’re holding another one (we did promise to hold these semi-regularly), and this one’s theme is “Turning Teachers into Rockstars.” Definitely rockin’ topic (har har), and we’re really looking forward to seeing what people come up with.

Of course, absolutely everyone and their dog is invited (as long as the dog is very passionate about education), but we did go outside the borders of eduFire to invite a good number of education / language bloggers to the event as well. It will be exciting to meet and learn from all these experts of education.

If you’d like to sign up for our second eduConference, please sign up for an eduFire account if you haven’t, and then make your way over here. Please tell your friends, family, colleagues, and anyone you know that has any interest in education. The more the merrier, and the more we end up learning!

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“The Future of Education” – eduConference #1 Complete!

Koichi — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:09:22 +0000

Jon Bischke doing a presentation on “Why Web2.0 Missed Education”

Our first “eduConference” has drawn to a close, and we just wanted to thank everyone who made it out! We got to hear about what education on the web is doing, meet education experts, watch a couple presentations, and just get to know each other a little better. Of course, there were people from eduFire in attendance, but we were also lucky to have representatives from TeachStreet, iTalki, Cramster, and more! Also, thank you to education experts Peggy, Jared and Milton for coming as well! (please forgive me or let me know if I forgot somebody!)

After introductions, Jon and Koichi gave their edu-related presentations. Koichi talked about “5 Free Online Collaborative Tools” and Jon, of course, talked about “Why Web2.0 Missed Education.” Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear the third presentation by teacher Alan Cohen due to technical difficulties, but hopefully next time we can try again. His presentation was on Youtube as a learning tool.

I thought the end was the best part, though, where we got into a really great discussion about matching teachers up with students, and figuring out good ways to do it. Jared, one of the attendees, had some great ideas on this, about how teachers and students can be paired based on teaching style / learning style. One of the great things about online education, I think, is that it’s giving students more opportunity to choose teachers, rather than being forced into classes. Teachers are getting the opportunity to become “rockstars,” and when there’s choice, there’s usually a little more quality involved (and a little more interest from the student’s perspective).

After this (since we were talking about the best ways to match up teachers and students) we started comparing eduFire to e-harmony and acting out the commercials. It was getting late – eduFire lessons always tend to go late, but I think that’s a good thing. It’s a fun place to be! :)

Video will be up soon!

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What Will the Future of Education Hold? Let’s Find Out!

Koichi — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:31:17 +0000

eduFire will be hosting a little get-together for those who are in the education industry (or, for anyone who is just plain old interested in education). We’d like to provide this opportunity for people to network, present on education-related topics, and hopefully learn something in the process. It’s all live via the power of the Internet, and will take place on Wednesday, December 10, 6:00pm (PST). If you sign up with an eduFire account, you can see what it will be in your own, local time zone. If you already have a user name, you can sign up for the e-conference here.

Although we are still in the process of inviting people, here is the list of curent invitees. Please feel free to pass this information on to anyone and everyone, as it definitely is open to the public. If you haven’t received an invite yet (and are on the list), it just means we haven’t quite gotten to sending it, yet, or we couldn’t find your contact information on your website (so, please take the ping that notified you about this blog post as an invite instead).

I’m sure a few more will be added to the list over the next week, but that’s what we have so far.

We’re looking to have a few people do 10-minute PowerPoint presentations as well, so if you are interested, please contact me. You don’t have to be on the list to do a presentation either, so if you have something you want to talk about that has something to do with the future of education, please share it with all of us! You are the expert, and we are all here to learn something :)

Once again, I look forward to seeing you all soon.

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