Online Professional Development Sessions

I want to bring to your attention two online professional development sessions on the horizon this semester. The first is one offered by the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education through their Wise & Witty Wednesday series. Once they get it online, the complete schedule will be online at http://www.cade-aced.ca/cade_event_ww.php?i_nMode . The schedule that I got in the e-mail has the titles and presenter names for their monthly sessions beginning on 20 September. The one I wanted to point out is from the November session, which is their only K-12 one.

21 November - 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm, Eastern time
Solvig Norman & Eleanor Liddy
Tales from the Trenches: Distributed Learning in the K-12 World: The BC Experience

These sessions are delivered using Elluminate Live. To register for this session, please contact Tim Howard of CNIE in Ottawa at cnie-rcie@cnie-rcie.ca, phone 613.241.0018 or fax 613.241.0019. You are welcome to collect your colleagues at your site. You will receive a password and toll free phone number or instructions before the event. Registrations rates are $25 per workshop per individual OR $100 per workshop per site. Please add the appropriate GST or HST.

I should also note one other one from their archives that deals with a K-12 audience. It was entitled "Millenial Learners : Are We Ready?" and the complete description and abstract can be found here - http://www.cade-aced.ca/cade_event_ww_past.php?i_nEventId=6 .

The other one that I wanted to point out to you is one that I will be delivering through the Canadian Institute for Distance Education Research (CIDER). The complete schedule for this season, which begins on 21 September can be found at http://cider.athabascau.ca/CIDERSessions/upcomingsessions . My own session is in early October and the information is below.

Lessons learned in researching virtual schools: The Newfoundland and Labrador experience
Facilitator: Dr. Michael Barbour
Institution: Wayne State University
Date and time: Oct 05, 2007 11:00 AM (MST)

In this session, Dr. Michael Barbour will focus upon the lessons learned from researching the development and delivery of virtual school opportunities to secondary school students in Newfoundland and Labrador. Through qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method studies, he captures the experiences of students, teachers, course developers, and administrators in the formative years of a new virtual high school. Issues such as effective course design for this population of students, the benefits and challenges of online learning for secondary students, achievement differences based upon delivery model and geographic location, and what students are actually doing when engaged in virtual schooling are explored.

These sessions are also delivered through Elluminate, but unlike the CNIE sessions the CIDER sessions are free of charge. Also, I wanted to point out that I have posted about the other K-12 sessions that CIDER has offered in previous posts (see CIDER Session Archive and Invitation to CIDER session - 8 June 2007).

Personally, I won't be at the CNIE (as I don't want to spend the $25 plus tax) but I hope to see you all at the CIDER one.

Tags: CIDER, CNIE, CDLI, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education