Today's the Last Day

You have a little less than 2 hours to get your comments made in the book group. If you would like to be eligible to win a trip to the Summer of eLearning Regional Conference of your choice, be sure you have posted a comment to each of the blog posts in the book group blog. Winners will be notified later this morning.

Chapter 9 -- What the Future Holds

I need to start this post with a correction. Last week I posted that there were 2 weeks left and 2 chapters left in the book. I'm not sure where my brain had gone because this is the last week of the book group and chapter in the book. Apparently I just wasn't ready for the book to end. I think it's more likely that I couldn't believe it was already May!! So this is the last week of the book group. Please have all of your comments online by Monday, May 13th at 10am Eastern. I will e-mail the winners Monday afternoon. I apologize for the confusion.

So this is the last week and Sheryl and Lani leave us to think about how we are going to change. How are you going to change your teaching and/or your classroom because of what you read in this book and the connections you made? Are you planning on spending some time this summer building your connected learning community?

Only 2 Weeks Left

It's hard to believe that we only have 2 weeks/chapters left in our spring book group! If you have fallen behind in your posts, please work to catch up on the reading and collaborating with this wonderful group of educators. If you are interested in being eligible for a trip to a summer eLearning conference, you must have made a meaningful contribution to each week's blog post. Those entries must be made on or before Friday, May 17th. Winners will be notified on Monday, May 20th.

Chapter 8 -- Transforming Leadership for a Connected World

In your school, have you been invited to take a leadership role or have you put yourself in a leadership role? If you are a school leader, have you encouraged "distributed leadership" in your school? It would also be interesting to hear if any of your schools have empowered students to become leaders.

Chapter 7 -- Sustaining the Momentum

So you've determined that you are a connected educator or you are working your way toward that goal. What strategies are you using to keep the momentum going in your learning community/ies? Or maybe you just want to consider the momentum in staying connected to your communities rather than the momentum of the community as a whole, especially if you are a newbie.

Do you have a blog? If not, work through the challenge presented at the end of the chapter and create your own blog in Edublog. If you are not sure how to begin, whether the actual act of creating the blog is a roadblock or the you're stuck on a topic, utilize this network of learners/educators. You might also want to check out the "Publishing a new post" blog post.

Chapter 6 -- Building Your Connected Learning Community

Hopefully by now you all have created a Twitter account and you've spent some time thinking about the struggles and challenges of building your learning community. Share the biggest challenge you've faced or are facing in building your community and how you've worked or are working through it. Read other posts and see if you can help each other with your challenges. If you have not created a Twitter account take this opportunity to create one, be sure you're following INeLearn and the authors, lanihall and snbeach, and be sure to check out the hashtag for the book, #connectedlearner. Also tell us if you've chosen to use a Web 2.0 tool other than Twitter to build your learning community and why you chose that tool.

Chapter 5 -- Using Tools to Support Connected Learning

We are so lucky to have a variety of ways to connect online and that's what this chapter is all about. Have you had a chance to try any (or maybe even all) of the tools mentioned in this chapter? What are some of your favorites? Were there any new ones that you tried that you are going to start using? Are there tools that you are using to connect online that were not mentioned in this chapter? Some of the ways our office stays connected are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, blogs (this blog and Web 2.0 Challenge), and 21st Century Learning Lab podcasts.