Chris Betcher and Clay Burell joined Jeff and David.

|Essential Question|

How do we connect?

Jeff> The Shanghai American School blogging system is set up so that whenever anyone logs in, he/she sees a RSS feed with the latest posts from the other student and teacher SAS bloggers. We often focus in the blogosphere on connecting outside of our schools for learning. We also need to find ways to build internal learning communities and this is one way to do it.

David> Three ideas come to mind when thinking about how to connect. One is the way Kim Confino and Julie Lindsey build telecollaborative opportunities for students to connect to other learners around the world. When it comes to connect to this learning network, what hardware are we using to make the connection? Are we at the point of having a handheld device designed for the education market that allows for ubiquitous connectivity? And what about the thinking and learning that goes with students learning by making connections? See David’s blog post for more reflection on these questions.

Take Away from the Discussion:

• “Learning means risk taking.” How to apply this to the hiring process to look for new hires who take risks.
• How to work within the school day to build in the opportunities for making connections. We need to structure time in the day where students can pursue their passions and collaborate for learning.
• We need to demystify and translate the names and learning purposes for many of our Web 2.0 tools so that new users can understand and not see them as so daunting to try.

|Blog Posts of the Week|

Chris: Remote Access

Clay: Re(Musing)ings

David: Techne & The Far Side of Tech

Jeff: Drupaled & WordPress

|Sign Off|

• Next show is Thursday March 13. Catch it live at 7:00 PM Shanghai time.
• Our guest will be Justin Hardman from the Hong Kong International School. Check out his Blueprint: New World, New School blog.
• Essential Question for the show: How to expand the learning community to the parents?
• Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Del.icio.us bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.