Case Study 4- Peggy George & Wesley Fryer: The K12 Online Conferences

Case Study 4 Peggy George & Wesley Fryer: The K12 Online Conferences 

K12 Online Conference
Peggy George and Wesley Fryer are two of the founders of The K12 Online Conference. The K12 Online Conference was a “free online conference open to anyone, organized by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice”. Though the K12 Online Conferences officially ended in 2017, the videos are archived for anyone to access on their website and Youtube channel.

The most prevalent attribute of global educators that the K12 Online Conference demonstrates is the “use of online technologies”. One of the main goals of the conference is to allow educators to share ideas and best practices related to web 2.0 tools. It is the perfect opportunity for a global educator to learn about new technologies to use in order to bring learners together, publish global experiences, and encourage student interaction and collaboration that leads to action. The K12 Online Conference also demonstrates that global educators are willing to “collaborate anywhere, anytime”. The entire point of the conference is to allow educators to learn from each other and build global communities. Educators could view a presentation live or watch the archived presentations, allowing for synchronous or asynchronous learning. The K12 Online Conference used tools such as Youtube, iTunesU, Twitter, and Voxer to facilitate collaboration. Videos were watched on Youtube and iTunesU, and live panel discussions were also facilitated via Youtube Live. The synchronous collaboration was also achieved through Twitter chats and Voxer, which allows audience members to leave audio and text comments in real-time.

Though free, technology-based professional development opportunities are abundant now, K12 Online Conference was one of the first to provide that service for educators. It was created at a time when there was high interest and curiosity, but a low amount of opportunities to learn about integrating technology in the classroom. Though they officially announced the end of the K12 Online Conference, it paved a path for many other virtual conferences that we use now. I look forward to watching some of the archived presentations focused on global collaboration, especially the keynote and panel discussion with Julie Lindsay, the author of our class text, The Global Educator.

Comments

  1. Dr. Diana DellApril 13, 2020 at 6:52 PM

    Lily,

    RE: "Though the K12 Online Conferences officially ended in 2017, the videos are archived for anyone to access on their website and Youtube channel."

    Yes, unfortunately, the organizers of the K-12 Online Conference decided to continue archiving all presentations and content from past conferences but not hold the conference again. They cited the growth in other online professional development opportunities as the reason for shutting down the conference. The archive is still a wonderful resource for teachers! I was sad to see the conference canceled.

    Dr. Dell

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