MEGA: Collaboration in 21st Century Classrooms: Showcase

My favorite part of the school year is when we wind down and get to show-off all the projects we have accomplished over the year. The MEGA Showcase is the best place for this to take place! MEGA has evolved over the years and is one of the major outreach arms of the College of Ed. (I highly recommend signing up for their listserv). The showcase is starting to feel like a reunion of sorts, where people I know on Twitter get together to share what they are doing in person. Kelly Hines came all the way from Chocowinity Primary School to share how she "goes global" with her elementary students. Meredith Stewart brought her amazing students to showcase all of the collaborative writing projects (Have you seen her literary magazine!) Eric Cole from McDowell County schools shared their podcasting projects. Lucas Gillispie showcased his WoW in Schools project - edurealms. All of the students were crowed around his demo! I could go on and on about these amazing projects, check out the complete list on the event page. If you've never made it to a MEGA Showcase, I heartily encourage you to come and learn from others in the educational community. We really are doing some amazing things in North Carolina!

David Warlick @ MEGA

Davis is discussing current internet usage based on data from the PEW foundation.

PEW - Internet & American LifeResearch on how Americans are using the internet.
Parent & Teen Use in PEW

How do adults "social network?" vs. the way students social network via. MySpace & Facebook

Educators are using Tinkertoys - little tools to help us do our job.

As "adults" (or non-myspacers) we are putting together several tools to facilitate our learning. I embody this idea in my use of Blogger, Twitter, del.icio.us, Google Reader, etc. But I struggle with the idea of 1) Presenting all these tools to my teachers and 2)Should we be using Facebook - since that is where our students live - or will a separate social network work (like a nin). I also worry that throwing too many options - and not scaffolding correctly will bring everything down to the ground.

I really, REALLY want to get a College of Ed Social network of the ground, but how do you get people to come? MySpace in particular has the most horrid webdesign usage- it breaks every usability rule - yet people love it, because of the people. Can we design a great interface and get people to use it? I don't know...

Side Note:

David did mention a new book - that I think I need to read.
Small Things loosely Joined - book on Web 2.0

MEGA on Tuesday

Tomorrow - Tuesday - will be the MEGA meeting at the Friday Inst, on NC State's Centennial Campus. I helped design some of the technology in the building and "was there in the begining." I am very proud of the space and am always am excited to be apart of such events as American Education Week.

Now I used to help produce MEGA when I worked for Lisa Grable, and I still feel a strong bond to the project (besides the fact that I presented at it last month). Not only that but David Warlick himself will be speaking about "Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century" & "Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition". David is an excellent speaker and I am a huge admirer of his work. Linda Perlstein will also be speaking about the "Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers."

I'm so excited!