NECC 2009 proposals are in!
My proposals are in at last for NECC 2009!
Last year I think I submitted seven proposals and had two accepted. In addition to those shown in the picture above, Karen Montgomery is submitting one on district social networking policies and Lance Ford is submitting a workshop called “Kids in Control: Top Tools for Empowering Student Directed Learning” in which I hope to co-present.
I certainly don’t expect all these to be accepted but hopefully a few will be. The most out-of-the-box proposal I submitted this year was definitely “The Power of our Family Learning Blog.” The short description is:
The best assessments provide sustained and differentiated windows into student understanding and performance. Our family learning blog meets these criteria well. Come learn how.
The longer description is:
Blogs are misunderstood by many educators, parents, and administrators as simply personal diaries. This undervaluation is unfortunate. Blogs permit students and teachers to maintain (with relatively few “clicks” and effort) a running record of student learning. Our family learning blog provides a mechanism for our children to “show what they know” with interactive digital stories (using VoiceThread as well as GarageBand-produced podcasts), text posts about books they are reading and topics they are studying, and hyperlinked references to other online resources of interest to them. In this session we will demonstrate and show how a family learning blog can be created to complement assigned homework and in- class assignments at school, and provide a rich digital portfolio of student learning with extends beyond a single school year. Our family learning blog is active on http://learningsigns.speedofcreativity.org.
Outline: This session will be presented primarily by my two children, 11 year old Alexander (5th grade) and 8 year old Sarah (3rd grade). They will explain how they use our family learning blog to post text, create hyperlinks, and embed interactive media files including VoiceThread digital stories to demonstrate to their teachers, their grandparents, and other interested parties the things they are learning and exploring inside and outside of school.
Of all the proposals I submitted I hope this one is approved most of all, since it would be a blast and thrill to present in D.C. this summer with my two oldest kids. Now it’s time to sit back and cross my fingers! 
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Source: Wesley Fryer