K12 Online Conference - not long now!

Now the dates for this are Nov 30 – Dec 17, but don’t panic – on the 30th one keynote talk gets posted, and you’ve got a week to watch it. Then over the 2 subsequent weeks a series of other videocasts/podcasts/ presentations are posted – and you can pick and choose how you want to watch/listen.


The rough schedule for what is on and which weeks is here http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=389 and you can watch the stuff either on the site here http://k12onlineconference.org/ or on the ning site here http://k12online.ning.com// [If you are not a ning member, sign up. This social networking tool is used by vast numbers of educators and students world wide – it is like facebook or bebo, only seems to have found a niche with educators].

If you want, you can gain a teaser of previous years k12 conferences – another power of the web is that the 2006, 2007 and 2008 conferences are still available here http://k12onlineconference.org// - just use the navigation on the rhs

Note that many/most of these presentations are available as a download – I generally download the iPod version and watch them on either my Ipod or iTunes on my laptop.

You gotta love the web – so many options...

DimDim for Videoconferencing

Have been on the lookout for a desktop videoconferencing tool to use for groups of 10 - 15 teachers scattered around the country. I have known of DimDim for a few months now, and though I have recommended that some of my students check out it's feature set as part of their project on emerging technologies, to be honest I hadn't taken the time to check it out myself. Until last night, that is.

At first glance, DimDim looks just what I am looking for. It's free for up to 20 users, and has plenty of low cost alternatives if you need to go further than that. It is entirely web-based, so no downloads and the like. Last night I shared a 12 page PDF file with my test buddy, and even without using a headset and microphone, communication was OK - though I'll use them next time.

DimDim looks to have all of the usual features (whiteboard, chat, desktop, web and slide options), so at this stage I'm reasonably impressed. We'll give it another once over from school next week, but at this stage it looks like it could be a goer for our application. If you are on the lookout for a videoconferencing tool, check it out.