connected educator month information for organizations

Connected Educator Month

Information for Potential Participating Organizations

One page overview 2 Starter Ideas for Special Events & Activities 3 Final Forum Topics 6 Broader Set of Topics 8 Programming Outline 11

Connected(Educators(is(funded(by(the(U.S.(Department(of(Education(Office(of(Educational(Technology(and(led(by(American(

Institutes(for(Research(in(partnership(with(the(Consortium(on(School(Networking,(Forum(One(Communications,(the(Friday(Institute(

for(Educational(Innovation(at(North(Carolina(State(University,(Grunwald(Associates(LLC,(and(the(State(Educational(Technology(

Directors(Association.(

Connected Educator Month!

Network!to!Learn,!Collaborate!to!Innovate!

!Online(communities(and(learning(networks(are(helping(hundreds(of(thousands(of(educators(learn,(reducing(

isolation(and(providing(“justJinJtime”(access(to(knowledge(and(opportunities(for(collaboration.(However,(

many(educators(are(not(yet(participating,(and(others(aren’t(realizing(the(full(benefit.(In(many(cases,(schools,(

districts,(and(states(also(are(not(recognizing(and(rewarding(this(essential(professional(learning.(

For(these(reasons,(the(U.S.(Department(of(Education’s(Connected(Educators(initiative(is(launching(

Connected(Educator(Month(in(August(2012.(Throughout(August,(there(will(be(coordinated(opportunities(to(

participate(in(events(and(activities(in(dozens(of(online(locations(to(develop(skills(and(enhance(one’s(

personal(learning(network.((

Getting'Started(

An(intensive,(twoJday,(online(conference(on(transforming(teaching(and(learning—featuring(U.S.(

Department(of(Education(senior(officials(and(education(thought(leaders—will(kick(off(the(month.(Plans(are(

underway(for(opportunities(such(as(the(following:(

• MonthJlong(forums(regarding(key(topics,(such(as(personalizing(learning(and(the(future(of(the(

teaching(profession,(which(will(be(moderated(by(noted(education(leaders(and(include(online(

discussions,(interviews,(webinars,(chats(and(more!

• Guided(tours(and(realJtime(community(open(houses,(which(will(connect(educators(with(

communities,(answering(questions(such(as:(Who(can(help(me(solve(challenges(I’m(facing(in(my(

classroom,(and(how(do(I(best(connect(with(them?(How(can(I(work(to(advance(my(profession?(

• Contests(for(addressing(community(challenges,(developing(innovative(ideas,(and(creating(

compelling(video(demonstrations(

• Inauguration(of(a(new(series(of(open(badges(for(connected(educators(as(well(as(online(communities(

All(events(and(activities(will(be(archived(and(synthesized(into(multimedia(“proceedings”(that(will(serve(as(a(

permanent(resource(to(educators(and(community(sponsors.((

Invitation'to'Participate(

We(welcome(any(organization(that(supports(educators(learning(online(through(communities(of(practice(

and(social(networks(to(develop,(host,(and(run(events(and(activities;(to(publish(content;(and(to(help(promote(

the(month.(Participating(is(as(simple(as(publishing(the(details(of(your(event(on(the(Connected(Educators(

Month(calendar.(We(will(provide(a(starter(kit(to(help(you(plan,(and(we(will(provide(you(with(a(badge(to(put(

on(your(site.(We(also(will(be(available(to(assist(you(in(finding(other(participating(organizations(with(which(

to(collaborate(or(that(might(provide(resources(you(need,(and(we(will(actively(promote(new(participating(

organization(events(and(activities(every(day.(We(welcome(your(ideas(about(additional(ways(you(might(

participate(and(about(the(month(as(a(whole.'For$more$information,$visit$http://connectededucators.org/cem/[email protected]$or$+1>202>270>5224.'

1 CEM – Starter Ideas for Participating Organization Special Events & Activities


Starter Ideas for Participating Organization Special Events & Activities

Event Types/Formats

• Webinars

• Forums (asynchronous, bulletin-‐board based discussions, ideally including other elements like those below as well—a diversity of elements provides more opportunities for participation, keeps things lively; private groups can run forums privately and then publicly report out the results)

• Blog serials or series

• Twitter hashtag chats (of varying lengths, all CEM-‐related hashtags starting with #cem12))

• Guided tours (self-‐directed & annotated, using Mighty Bell [our choice for the event for guided tours] or another platform; a tour of your own community, or across communities)

• Open houses (an open exploration of your community with a chat-‐based backchannel so explorers can ask questions, make comments, and get responses in real time from you or community members as they explore—we’ll be providing platforms for this; private groups can do this in demo mode using a platform like WebEx)

• Exhibits (collections of [or links to] content or objects around a topic or theme, ideally with options for others to participate, e.g. by adding content/objects to the collection or participating in related discussions associated with the exhibit)

• Launches (a great time to launch a new community, redesign or add features to an existing one; let us know what you’re launching in August, and we’ll promote it)

• Online classes or courses (related to online communities or networks)

• Wikis, databases or directories (these generally need to be well-‐seeded to be effective, with a strong group of core contributors)

• Collaborative projects (international projects could be particularly compelling)

• (Social) games about or related to education or communities/networks (if you already have them; if not, there are a number of platforms now for creating simple games, e.g. YoYo Games Gamemaker, Review Game Zone [education-‐specific], Scratch [education-‐oriented], Game Salad [Mac & mobile], Corona [mobile], etc.)


• Contests (we plan to be running three, but there’s always room for more; we’re also interested in [and will provide appropriate recognition to] prize providers for the contests we’re running)

• Polls & surveys, other research (with results that are publicly reported out)

• Regional and local face-‐to-‐face events (reporting the results back out online; we’re working on a starter kit for these that we’ll be distributing soon)

• Blended events (including those that leverage mobile/geo-‐networking technologies)

• Badges (we’ll be providing a basic level “Connected Educator” badge, but welcome others [existing, created for, or launched during the event], which we’ll be including in a badge exhibit.

• Videos (we may develop a video for the event, and there will be a video-‐based contest about personal learning networks, but we welcome others, especially videos that show the impact of communities and networks through the stories of front-‐line educators)

• Viral objects & interactives (small, simple games, quizzes, puzzles, community/network humor, animations, serials, maps, visualizations, infographics, etc.)

• Others?

Consider collaborating with other organizations—it should reduce the creation/development burden on you, help insure a wider audience, and make your event easier for us to promote. Since one of the goals of the month is to help facilitate a more connected community of communities, we’re going to be inclined to give collaborations particularly heavy promotion, and we stand ready to help any group find collaborators. At the same time, we understand collaborations have unique pitfalls, especially on short timelines, so we don’t want to force this on anyone for its own sake, and will give plenty of promotion to solo events as well.


Event Topics/Content

Some ideas for content coverage in any of the formats above…

• General education topics in a community or network context (providing online, informal means for educators to learn and create knowledge about topics such as these):

o Accountability o Assessment o College and Career

Readiness o Common Core State

Standards o Data o Digital Divide(s) o Digital Transformation o Dissemination, Fidelity o Dropout Prevention and

Recovery o Facilities o Flipped Classroom o Funding o Games o Higher Order Skills and

Learning o Home to School (e.g. BYOD,

parental involvement) o International

o Leadership o Learning Analytics o Mobile o Online Education o Open Educational

Resources o Personalization o Professional Development o School to Work o Special Needs o Teacher Evaluation

(especially in relationship to professional development and teacher leadership)

o Teacher Leadership o Teacher Retention &

Support o Twenty-‐first Century Skills o Universal Design for

Learning

Note: some of these topics are potentially going to be covered in CEM’s broader forums—that’s OK. We’re not going to do all the potential forum topics, and even in the case of the forum topics that get chosen, we certainly hope that others will host related events focused on specific sub-‐topics (the forums are broad in coverage), promotion of which we’ll do both from within the forums and at large. We particularly want to encourage events focused on these topics from the perspective of a specific education groups—e.g. history teachers, school counselors, district professional development directors—since one of the programmatic goals of CEM is to be able to say to every group of educators “we have something for


educators just like you,” to help facilitate their connection to online communities and networks.

• Community/network-‐specific topics in an educational context

o Architecture &Building (e.g. steps to create a new community)

o Communities for educators with a particular specialization (e.g. “Online Communities for/and History Educators/Education”)

o Communities vs./and Networks

o Consumer vs./and Education-‐Specific

o Collaboration & Curation o Constellations vs./and Sites o Dissemination & Diversity

(Connected Communities) o Educator Differences

(communities for educators vs. other groups)

o Efficiency & Organization (keeping communities usable as they grow)

o Features (key features, order to add, etc.)

o Getting Started o Geo-‐Networking o Harmony vs./and Debate o Horizontal vs./and Vertical

o Innovation(s) o International o Management &Moderation

(e.g. top-‐down vs. bottom up)

o Metrics & Evaluation o Mobile (some overlap with

geo-‐networking) o Online vs./and Face-‐to-‐Face o New vs./and Experienced

Users o Participation o Personal vs./and

Professional o Public vs./and Private o Recruitment o Recognition and support

for participants (e.g., providing time during the school day, offering CEUs)

o Roles o Scalability o Social Games o Social Objects o Social Media Strategy o Sustainability o Technologies (which ones

to use) o Time o Trust

A key to success for these types of events will be to position them so that their content is of interest to both education/community leaders AND front-‐line practitioners, who may not be as invested in communities or networks. See “Possible Forum Topics” for examples of this.


Final Forum Topics

Forums will be primarily asynchronous and discussion board-‐based, but will also open and close with real-‐time events as well as have other elements determined by the forum moderators, who include Sheryl Nussbaum-‐Beach, Steve Hargadon, and Darren Cambridge.

• Professional Learning in the Learning Profession

Right Now: What and where are the best (social) opportunities for educators to work on and learn for their practice in the coming year? What steps should every educator consider taking to become more connected, and what are the key resources that can help?

The Big Picture: In what kinds of learning do teachers (and other educators) need to be engaged in the 21st century, and how will technology help? What are the key methodological and content trends in the classroom (e.g., flipped classrooms, core standards) with which technology (in general) and communities or networks (specifically) can impact and help?

• It’s Personal

Right Now: What practical steps can educators take to personalize learning for their students in 2012–13, and how can technology facilitate this?

The Big Picture: How close are we to being able to realize the dream of personalized, differentiated, passion-‐based learning for educators and students, and what still has to happen to make this fully real?

• Beyond Top-‐Down Right Now: What are the ways educators can use networks and online communities to effect change in their school, their district, and their profession in the coming school year and beyond?

The Big Picture: How can grassroots networks and distributed leadership shape the future of education? How can decision makers at all levels be informed by and be responsive to expertise these networks enact?

• Knocking On the Door

Right Now: How can educators best take advantage of big technological trends such as mobile and gaming in their classrooms this year?

The Big Picture: What innovations and technologies being explored and leveraged outside education today have the greatest potential to be repurposed or extended to create educational value?

• The First Six Weeks Right Now: What are the key to-‐dos to get 2012–13 off to a great start in the classroom, and how can educators stay on top of and successfully manage all the competing demands involved? How can teachers use online communities and networks to help with this most critical period of the new school year we’re all planning for?

The Big Picture: What should communities and networks themselves be doing during this period? How can communities and networks best adapt to changing needs of educators throughout the year?


Broader Set of Topics

• Professional Learning in the Learning Profession

Right Now: What and where are the best (social) opportunities for educators to work on and learn for their practice in the coming year?

The Big Picture: In what kinds of learning do teachers (and other educators) need to be engaged in the 21st century, and how will technology help? What are the key methodological and content trends in the classroom (e.g., flipped classrooms, core standards) with which technology (in general) and communities or networks (specifically) can impact and help?

• It’s Personal Right Now: What practical steps can educators take to personalize learning for their students in 2012–13, and how can technology facilitate this?

The Big Picture: How close are we to being able to realize the dream of personalized, differentiated, passion-‐based learning for educators and students, and what still has to happen to make this fully real?

• Online Education Right Now: What are the key trends in online education, and what can educators look to do now, regardless of their school’s infrastructure or the installed base of the communities they serve? How can teachers better overcome the technology limitations they still face—their own, their schools’, and their communities’—to better realize the promise of online education?

The Big Picture: How much—and what aspects—of students’ education can and should be taking place online today instead of or in addition to taking place in the classroom? How can we make decisions about online education grounded in evidence of impact?

• Beyond Top-‐Down Right Now: What are the ways educators can use networks and online communities to effect change in their school, their district, and their profession in the coming school year and beyond?

The Big Picture: How can grassroots networks and distributed leadership shape the future of education? How can decision makers at all levels be informed by and be responsive to expertise these networks enact?

• Ships In the Night

Right Now: What can educators do as individuals and groups to help create a more thoroughly connected profession?

The Big Picture: How can technology help break down silos in education and better ensure information gets where it needs to go and exchanges that need to take place actually happen? What groups in education need to be talking more to each other than they do today?

• Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due Right Now: What can educators do themselves to get more support and recognition?

The Big Picture: How should educators’ investment in learning to improve their performance and enrich the profession be supported, incentivized, documented, and recognized? What schools and districts are providing model levels of support, and how can their approaches be better disseminated and applied? What does the future hold for current informal recognition systems like badges?

• Harnessing the Data Right Now: How can educators take better advantage of the vast volumes of student data being generated today and share what they are learning? How can educators better find what they need and find what is really working?

The Big Picture: What can we learn about professional learning and practice from the volume of online learning activities in which students and educators are engaged? How will the Big Data movement play out in education, and what does the future of data analytics hold?

• Open for Learning

Right Now: How can teachers find and evaluate the quality of open education resources appropriate to their students? What are the top open resources every teacher should know about and consider using?

The Big Picture: How are open education resources being used today, and what does the future hold? How can and should educators be participating in this movement? How can the profession best deal with copyright and other intellectual property issues regarding what gets created and used?

• By All Means Necessary Right Now: Where can teachers find the best examples of blended learning, and how can these examples be adapted for reuse this year?

The Big Picture: What is the right mix of online and face-‐to-‐face social learning approaches to help educators improve their performance and enhance their profession? How can educators better get the best of both worlds?

• The Sun Never Goes Down

Right Now: What does it mean to have an international practice here at home, in the day-‐to-‐day teaching and learning in U.S. classrooms?

The Big Picture: How are educators beyond the United States learning online? How can we learn from their examples, and what opportunities for collaboration exist?

• Knocking On the Door

Right Now: How can educators best take advantage of big technological trends such as mobile and gaming in their classrooms this year?

The Big Picture: What innovations and technologies being explored and leveraged outside education today have the greatest potential to be repurposed or extended to create educational value?

• Getting More Connected Right Now: What steps should every educator consider taking to become more connected, and what are the key resources that can help?

The Big Picture: What does it mean to be a connected educator today? What’s it going to take for all educators to become connected? What are the barriers, and how can we knock them down?

• The First Six Weeks

Right Now: What are the key to-‐dos to get 2012–13 off to a great start in the classroom, and how can educators stay on top of and successfully manage all the competing demands involved? How can teachers use online communities and networks to help with this most critical period of the new school year we’re all planning for?

The Big Picture: What should communities and networks themselves be doing during this period? How can communities and networks best adapt to changing needs of educators throughout the year?

1 Connected Educator Month – Programming Outline


Programming Outline

Because of the online, often experimental, and community-‐based nature of this event (i.e., one in which the broader community will have significant input into event activities), planned programming will evolve before and even during the event itself. A 48 Hour Kick-‐Off Event

• To be held August 1–2

• Primarily, but not exclusively, synchronous subevents in time slots that are U.S.timezonefriendly

Thematically,a microcosm of the month as a whole, though some activities will occur only during the kick-‐off, and some will occur only at other timesduring the month

• Featuring senior U.S. Department of Education officials and 20–25 guest speakers and panelists from around the world

• Broad topic:“Connected Education: Transforming Teaching and Learning”

• Moderated by Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0, loosely affiliated with the Learning 2.0 conference taking place later in the month

Five Month-‐Long Forums

• Each forum kicks off with a synchronous event.

A variety of platforms will be used (WebEx, Adobe Connect, Blackboard Collaborate, Google+ Hangouts, Twitter). The choices for each forum will depend on the topics and moderators.Forum length also may depend on these factors.

• An asynchronous discussion follows for the course of the month.

The discussion is supported and stimulated by a community-‐generated collection of links and readings; interviews; polls; content cocreation and remixing applications; and other materials and activities, as determined by topic andmoderator(s).

Each forum also will have its own hashtag for use throughout the month, both within the forum and withparticipating organizations hosting activities on the same themes.

2 Connected Educator Month—Programming Outline

• Each forum ends with a synchronous event to generate takeaways, lessons, and action items.

• Each forum’s discussion and activities will be seeded by a prerecruited core group or panel consisting of education celebrities and front-‐line practitioners, with the support of a paid, experienced online community moderator, though discussion will be open to all.

• Forum topics will be chosen in June and July via a combination of the following:

Discussions with proposed moderators Discussions in planning calls and webinars with event participating

organizations Online polling of the broader community on the Connected Educator Month

pageor via discussion thread on the Connected Educator Month page or Education Community Manager’s Network

• We will present a list of potential topic choices to all moderators, participating organizations, and the broader community to kick off and help guide this decision-‐making process; but we will be clearly open to other suggestions.

At least one additional topic may be chosen as an outgrowth of the online conference kick-‐off event for the month.

• Forum topics are available in a separate document.

An Event Calendar, Hashtag, and Heat Map of Activity

• A Connected Educator Month calendar will be launched when the event is announced. Anyone can submit events for inclusion now using the form on the Connected Educator Month webpage.

All prospective participating organizations and communities in the directory will be contacted directly about adding to the calendar.

Bimonthly planning calls or webinars (open to all participating organizations), a participating organization support kit, and direct support for high-‐intensity participating organizations also will help drive calendar content.

• We will categorize events in several facets, enabling educators to find events most relevant to them.

• The calendar will be used to select events to promote through Connected Educators; daily editions of its newsletter; and its LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter satellites and outposts.

• The calendar uses the SCHED service, embedded within ConnectedEducators.org. Participants also will be able to access the calendar via the free SCHED mobile app.


• A #ce12 hashtag for discussion of Connected Educator Month will be promoted throughout the run-‐up to the event, beginning with the event announcement (other hashtags related to Connected Educator Month also will start with #cem12).

• For the month itself, the calendar will be complemented by a map that helps participants see where the action is and find events particularly well suited to their needs.

Robust Promotion Through Connected Educators and Other Means

• Pre-‐event promotion at selected real-‐world events (International Society for Technology in Education, National Education Association, Learning Forward)

• Pre-‐event and in-‐event promotion via general and educational press

With the assistance of a public relations firm, which will also help with real-‐world event promotion

• High-‐frequency promotion through Connected Educators A dedicated Connected Educator Month page, launched in conjunction with

the May event announcement; dedicated regions of Connected Educators home page to follow

Additional issues of the site newsletter each week during the event

Daily in-‐event promotion changes on the site (including a Community of the Day and selected day’s events)

Significant increases in frequency of promotion in LinkedIn group, Facebook group, and #edcocp

• Increased promotion through broader social media

Promotional video posted to YouTube Expansion of LinkedIn outposts

Significantly more frequent promotions to outposts

Substantial increase in tweets to hashtags not specific to the project Cultivation of 10–20 key educational bloggers; concerted efforts to place

multiple stories with each Promotion via Connected Educator Month participating organizations,

including efforts to get Connected Educator Month participating organizations to promote each others’ events, in addition to their own and Connected Educator Month generally

o Modeling connected communities in the process

Placement of Facebook and/or Google ads

• Special efforts to gain promotion at the state and district levels

State-‐level promotion via State Educational Technology Directors Association


District-‐level promotion via Consortium for School Networking

Kit to be developed to support and encourage regional and local face-‐to-‐face events as part of the month

Connected Educator and Connected Community Badges, Starter Kit and Help Desk, Book Club

• Connected Educator Badges Criteria to be determined in consultation with forum moderators and

relevant members of the MacArthur/Mozilla Open Badge community

Visual design by American Institutes for Research, published to Open Badges Infrastructure via P2PU and other means

Complemented by the following:

o A badge collection—a side-‐by-‐side list and description of other badges available to educators that can be used to further demonstrate that one is a connected educator (e.g., via National Science Teachers Association, edWeb, Powerful Learning Practice, P2PU) with associated links;any participating organizationor community can submit a badge for inclusion

o A seeded and open discussion of potential additional connected educator badges and levels, which could lead to the creation of additional badges and levels, either by the project or by participating organizations

• Connected Community Badge Awarded by the Connected Educators project

Criteria will be determined in collaboration with Connected Educators Technical Working Group members, community leaders, and relevant members of the MacArthur/Mozilla Open Badge community

Criteria may include some of the following: o Substantial, robust public communities

o Programs to move private community learnings into the public sphere o Robust sharing functionality, incentives for sharing, use of sharing

metrics

o Robust social media strategy o Permanent home page links to other communities (e.g., blogrolls)

o Frequent promotion of events or content on other communities via the home page and/or newsletters

o Frequent referencing (and linking out) to content in other communities through site’s own content


o Including other communities’ content in site search results

o Syndicating content and/or services to other communities o Integrating participating organizations content and/or services

seamlessly on an ongoing basis o Cultivating and supporting influencers who carry content from

community to community, motivating and incentivizing them to do so

o Joint or collaborative events across communities o Joint ventures with other communities

o Participation in community aggregations and portals (the more integrated, the better)

o Participation (at various levels) in Connected Educator Month

o Bringing groups together (that typically are in silos) o Sharing functional elements (e.g., profiles, badges, e-‐mail sign-‐ups)

across and with other communities

o Strong dissemination metrics o Sharing of best practices and evidence of value creation for members

• Additional basic support for educators will be provided by the following: A connected educator starter kit developed in collaboration with Sheryl

Nussbaum-‐Beach, likely to take a “31 days” approach, in which educators are provided with a simple step or activity to get more connected every day.

A help desk (built into the Connected Educators website using UserVoice, operation modeled on homework help services)

A set of Connected Educator Book Club sessions (on The Connected Educator) that will be timed to start at the beginning of the month

Cross-‐Community Guided Tours and Community Open Houses

• We will create four initial cross-‐community guided tours users can explore at their own pace; the tours will be based on the proven benefits of online communities identified in Connect and Inspire.

• Specifically, we’ll assemble tours that showcase online communities and networks that achieve the following:

Help Me Solve Challenges I’m Facing in My Classroom Today (Tour 1) Help Me Share and Create Materials With Others(Tour 2)

Help Me Connect With Experts and Other Educators Like Me (Tour 3)

Help Me Shape What My Profession Looks Like in the Future (Tour 4)


• In consultation with Technical Working Group members, we will select communities to feature as tour stops and invite the community managers to contribute the featured content.

• Users also may submit additional tour stops for consideration.

• We will also invite community leaders and other users to suggest additional themes they are willing to help us build out.

And we’ll allow the users to send us links to tours they create for potential inclusion on the list (including single-‐community tours).

We will encourage communities or networks to host their own synchronous guided tours led by members who share how the community or network is valuable to them, and we will promote these as well.

• During the event, promoted communities of the day will be aggregated into weekly tours as well, using material submitted by the featured communities’ managers.

• Community open houses will be promoted opportunities for users to explore specific communities on their own and to get back-‐channel answers in realtime about what they are seeing from leaders of the community.

We will host the open houses, supplying a simple real-‐time (chat) frame that will reside side by side with the community as it is being explored.

At any time while exploring, users will be able to type comments and questions into the chat window, which leaders of the community can read and respond to; users also will be able to see what comments and questions other users are asking.

Connected Educator Month Contests

• Contests are designed to create excitement, demonstrate that we value user-‐created content, support specific project goals, and help build out specific project offerings in support of those goals.

• Rules and judging criteria will be similar across contests, though some elements of judging rubrics will be contestspecific.

It is expected that there will be both juried and people’s choice winners. The origin and nature of prizes areto be determined.

Participating organizations will run and judge the contests.

• Community Idea/Innovation of the Year

Supports the project’s commitment to innovation, build out of IdeaScale-‐based innovation exchange that broadens the base of participation in innovations by making participation simpler and easier

o Allows participation by posting short ideas and voting on them, rather than by only creating blog posts and writing comments


Contest is simple—users post brief (one to two paragraphs) ideas for innovations, and other users vote on the ideas; brevity of ideas keeps judging manageable

Innovation Exchange infrastructure, using IdeaScale, already integrated into ConnectedEducators.org.

Whatever the prizes are, we commit to make efforts to advance winning ideas in some fashionto be determined

• Community Cookbook Bake-‐Off

Supports the project’s commitment to identifying and sharing best practices in an accessible form and to involving the community in this determination,in addition to supporting the build-‐out of the Community Cookbook

Contest is simple in many of the same ways as the Community Idea contest—users post brief recipes to the cookbook, and other users vote on the recipes; recipe brevity keeps judging manageable

Cookbook is expected to launch before Connected Educator Month, with all the functionality needed for the contest baked in as part of its normal operation

• Personal Learning Network Video Contest

Supports our commitment to the value of personal learning networks and the need to better understand informal educator online professional learning from an individual perspective; helps us build out the YouTube/video component of our social media strategy

Users submit videos of or about their personal learning networks and how they are using the networks

Contest administration and judging will be led by Sheryl Nussbaum-‐Beach, a professional learning networkexpert

Archiving, Proceedings, and Evaluation

• We will work with Connected Educator Month participating organizations and other participants to identify and collect relevant materials generated during Connected Educator Month.

• Items will be categories using a predetermined nomenclature, adapted as necessary.

• It will be easy for users to browse or search the archives on ConnectedEducators.org.

• We will select a subset of artifacts from the archives to generate multimedia proceedings for the event.

• We will develop a narrative arc and sequence for the artifacts, along with associated annotations.

• The proceedings will be built using a platform such as VoiceThread or Storify.


• After the event, we will evaluate event success according to the metrics established in the goals and objectives section of the Connected Educator Month Work Plan, and we will invite participants to complete a brief online evaluation form.