Thursday, April 23, 2009

International Collaborative Project on the Holocaust

We need high school teachers who are interested in involving their students in learning about the Holocaust as part of a European project initiative with Poland, Italy, Germany and Israel for the 2009 school year. The project will be online via ning social network,  Wikieducator, and  WiZiQ for live online conferences. Please add your information and/or pass on the form to others who may be interested.

Click on the URL address of the form.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Ludmila Smirnova is Associate Profess...

Integrating Technology into the Classroom Sessions

Juggling Blindfolded While Walking a Tight Rope: A Full-time Teacher's Transition to Teaching 2.0 While Mastering New Technologies, Tools and Leaning Management Systems




Ludmila Smirnova is Associate Professor of Education at Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh, N.Y., where she has taught for the past 9 years. At the Mount, she offers courses in Curricular Planning, Methods of Teaching and Teaching with Technology and serves as counselor to Kappa Delta Pi, the International Honor Society in Education. She has become increasingly recognized for her leadership in the application of emerging Internet technologies in education. She ran workshops on application of Smart Technologies (Smart Board) and of Web 2.0 tools to the American classroom for faculty and teachers from education programs across the northeast.



Prior to coming to the Mount, Dr, Smirnova was visiting professor at Ramapo College of N.J. for two years. In her native Russia, she was professor of education at Volgograd State Pedagogical University, where she also served as Dean of the School of Foreign Languages. During her 25-year Russian career, Dr. Smirnvoa was known for her work in innovative approaches to teaching. Dr. Smirnova was a Montessori trainer, and has run seminars and training programs for Montessori teachers in Russia and the U.S. She played a key role in creating a model Ecological Gymnasium and other experimental “charter schools". A number of her Ph.D. students and scores of Masters students worked with her to produce comparative studies of successful innovative efforts in education.



Beyond the seventy books and other articles and chapters she published in Russia and abroad, Dr. Smirnova has written for and presented to a growing list of professional audiences in the U.S. Her most recent achievements were co-editing of a volume on comparative approaches to environmental problems in which her work on the Ecological Gymnasium is featured and her presentation “Technology Enhanced teaching and Learning for Student (and Teacher) Success at Faculty Resource Network conference “Defining Student Success” in San Francisco in November 2008.


Drawing from her own experience, the presenter discusses the successful adoption of new technologies, tools and learning management systems to both face-to face and online classroom settings. For the full time teacher, these tasks require strategies for new learning and efficient integration into existing course structures. Teaching 2.0 approaches demand the right pedagogy, an open mind and a commitment to new learning. The author, who chairs the college’s Academic Technology Advancement Committee, was an advanced Web CT user. She had learned in her own teaching to overcome the LMS’ limitations by employing other multimedia tools, including WiZiQ, Tapped In, Google groups, Blogger, and Gtalk. Nevertheless, it was time to see if a more effective alternative LMS was available. For the person already working full time, high motivation and drive and a willingness to place learning before life are required.





Time: 6:00PM EST

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=5&day=1&year=2009&hour=18&min=0&sec=0&p1=179






WiZiQ Class Embed