Moving+Technology+from+Integrated+to+Integral

This 2-day workshop is designed to help participants understand the implications of social media & technology in respect to the future of teaching and learning. Participants will acquire the skills and understanding that will enable them to participate more fully with emerging tools & practice. Additionally, participants will be empowered with the knowledge and skill necessary to continue their personal learning through the acquisition of a personal learning network.

What is community and why does it matter?** We will consider what makes up community and how we can move our own classrooms in that direction. Students in our classrooms can build tight learning communities, and then extend them outside the boundaries of our classrooms. Our research suggests that the characteristics of formal and informal communities are quite different, so it begs the question of how you build mashups of formal and informal, inside and outside, private and public communities. If we believe that a good classroom will include all of these, what can we do to make them happen. We will examine tools and their affordances for building/supporting different types of communities. Participants will also share their own stories of communities, and we will begin the process of turning the workshop group into a learning community.
 * Topics include:

Education has changed significantly as teaching and learning practice shifts online. Web based communication has greatly increased, thanks in no small part to the emergence and increased popularity of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. What are the implications for social networks in education? How are educators using social networks to not only engage their students, but also connect with each other? And, perhaps most importantly, how can we view these changes as an opportunity to inspire new, meaningful, and innovative approaches to teaching & learning?
 * Open & Collaborative Learning: How Social Networks are Transforming Education**

Social Networks services often get the bad rap of 'time-wasters' or tools that kids use inappropriately. Yet in reality, there are many social networks built upon passion, kindness, transparency, sharing, and collaboration. This session will explore these positive human networks as they apply to educators. You will learn how distributed teacher networks are transforming practice in many classrooms. You will experience the most commonly used tools to build and communicate within these networks. You will engage in important first steps for building your own personal learning network. And, most importantly, you will see how the future of professional development will be anytime, anywhere and always at your fingertips.
 * Building a Passionate Network of Peers for Teaching & Learning Transformation**

Once you understand the importance of social networks and then see the abundance of tools available, it becomes incredibly important to be able to choose, gain skill & understanding, and utilize all of the new possibilities for teaching & learning. Throughout this two-day workshop you will be exposed to various schools with the necessary context of they each can be used to satisfy the needs of learners. Participants will witness graphic examples of how teachers across the globe are utilizing free & open tools to transform their classrooms for their students and for their own personal learning.
 * Putting IT All Together (a.k.a. The Power of Loose Connections)**

1. How to leverage social networks for personal & professional learning. 2. A variety of tools and how and why to use them. 3. How to make your classrooms porous, your students self-directed, and how to build learning communities.
 * You will learn**

Presenter Bios: Dr. Alec Couros, Dr. Richard Schwier, Dean Shareksi, Rob Wall, Saskatchewan, Canada
Dr. Alec Couros is a professor of educational technology and media and the Coordinator of Information and Communications Technology at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. Alec is a scholar and advocate of openness in distributed learning environments. He has given hundreds of workshops and presentations, nationally and internationally, on topics such as openness in education, social/networked learning, digital citizenship, and critical media literacy. His graduate and undergraduate courses help current and future educators understand how to use and take advantage of the educational potential offered by the tools of connectivity.

Richard has been with the University of Saskatchewan since 1978, and he is a Professor of Educational Technology and Design, and the principal investigator in the Virtual Learning Communities Research Laboratory. He has written a bunch in the field of educational technology and design, and gives presentations whenever and wherever he can find a group. Richard is conducting research examining international differences in the practice of instructional design, and leading a program of research on how people form learning communities in non-formal and informal online environments (it's not as boring as it sounds). As far as he knows, none of Rick's children are doing time, although one of the family cats is truly deviant. Rick is a big sports fan, especially of all Saskatchewan teams, but grew up in Indianapolis, so the Colts and Indiana University Hoosiers occupy a big chunk of real estate in his heart.

Dean Shareski is a Digital Learning Consultant for Prairie South School Division in Saskatchewan, Canada. Dean works with teachers and students in understanding the power of the Read/Write Web. Dean is strong advocate of design and storytelling and has led many workshops locally, nationally and internationally. He's been modeling much of this on his own blog ([|ideasandthoughts.org]) for almost 5 years. This is one space, among many, where he connects to the world and teaches and learns in ways not possible only a few years ago. Understanding what this means for education, keeps him up at night. He also is a sessional lecturer at the University of Regina where he's developed innovative instructional practices for pre-service teachers. Dean lives in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan with his wife, three children and two annoying dogs where he dreams of summer when he can spend much of his days on the golf course.

Rob is teacher at North Battleford Comprehensive High School in Saskatchewan, Canada. Throughout his teaching career, Rob has worked with teaching colleagues to show them new tools for enriching student learning. He has presented provincially and nationally on educational technology topics, ranging from how to use innovative and effective tools to creating personal learning networks using web-based tools. He has also worked at the post-secondary level (with Alec) as a course co-designer and assistant instructor for an innovative graduate course in educational technology. There are also rumours that he may instruct an instructional technology course for senior education students at the University of Saskatchewan.

Rob lives in North Battleford, Saskatchewan with his wife, two children and several diabolical goldfish.