With the changes in Ning, Kigluait has begun the process of migrating from Ning to othe Social network capable sites that are available to teachers.

This means this also gives us a chance to model a new tool that teachers can use in their classrooms.

After much research we boiled it down to 2 alternatives to Ning. Now for those that are not aware, Ning is a social network environment that allows for the creation of groups, events, friends with members, blogs, resource sharing etc. In general, an environment where like minded people can join together, share and learn.

So what is out there that can replicate the same services, is free and provides safe features, Buddypress by Wordpress. Gro.ups also provides much of the same similar features, but has the added benefit of being hosted for you. No need for installations or plugins.

So which one to use? Well, we are going to take a year and test out both to see what you as teachers think and prefer.  Kigluait Adventures Social net is now located on gro.ups and Flash Kennels can be found on the Kigluait Buddypress installation.

So which one is best for you as a teacher, well have a look at the features and applications below:

Gro.ups: Membership Required, Groups, Events, Blogs, Forums, Member Profile, Widgets. Friends and rewards. May be blocked by districts. Very easy to use and setup. Just create an account. Applications: Setting up a classroom space for sharing assignments, blogs etc. is a great way to integrate technology into the classroom.

Buddypress: Groups, Events, Blogs, Forums, Member Profile, Widgets.Friends and awards. You must install and host the site on your own server. Applications: Setting up a safe protected space for sharing assignments, blogs, etc.

A close runner up however is Edu2.0.org. This full feature and safe environment is wonderful for housing classroom interactions, but limited at connecting in terms of social media.

All in all the KEA crew has had a pretty restful summer- just what the doctor ordered after a very busy winter and spring! (This past year was our busiest ever! Overwhelming really, which has spurred us to restructure some of the ways we structure our programing- but more on that below.)

A few events of note, however, did bring us out of our restful slumber. The most exciting of which is a new partnership with Whirlidurb that will allow us to offer more multi-point conferencing options in the upcoming year. We are really happy about this because last year we had many more conference requests than we could possibly fill.

We have worked with Shane and Roxanne, the masterminds behind Whirlidurb- for a number of years and couldn't imagine a more exciting, energetic, and knowledgeable pair to be partnering with. And, to kick it all off we helped to present “Novel in an Hour” at this year's ISTE conference. Great fun was had by all as we introduced the power of videoconferencing to a whole new crop of IVC educators!

Speaking of fun, did you catch the IVCplayground at ISTE? We were there in full pirate garb... yo ho ho and shy the bottle of rum! Which we appreciated as yet another great opportunity to help introduce videoconferencing to excited educators. Thanks go to ISTE, and especially all those who took up the task of organizing the playground, for inviting us to participate. Thank you.

And finally, as many of you who have been conferencing with us for the last few years may have noticed, our “junior musher” has been steadily growing up. Yep, Rich's little brother isn't so little anymore! In fact, he's off to college this Fall and all of us wish him the best of luck. We'll miss him. He's always been a huge help both in front of and behind the camera! Those cold and dark winter mornings are going to be just a bit lonely without him. On the other hand, Christina and Rich's son is revving up for his first year of junior racing, so perhaps there will be a new “junior musher” to visit with this year!

Last school year, 2009/2010, we experienced our busiest year of programing ever! And, while we are very excited about that, as many of you know, we are just a simple, family run business. There is just three of running the entire operation. We like it that way. It fits the vision by which we started KEA in the first place: to share our combined interests in sled dogs, the outdoors, and education with students around the country to motivate learning.

But we were very concerned that the volume of program request we were receiving was eventually going to effect the quality of our programing. Also, we were simply running out of time in the day to actually run the programs!

So we have done some restructuring to help us serve you better and maintain our own sanity and sustainability.

We have separated our programing into three categories:

1. On-Demand. This is essentially the same type of programing we have always done. You select the program you want, the date you want, and the time you want. Then we work closely with you to meet your needs and you meet with us one on one for the program. We have had to raise our prices a bit on these but they are still on the low end of most private content provides and for cheaper than any other provider who actually takes you outside into the environment that the program content is discussing! (For classrooms that these price increases may create a hardship for, please look into our Monthly Multi-Points.)

2. Monthly Multi-Points. Thanks to our new partnership with Whirlidurb we are now able to offer a monthly multi-point conference of our most popular programs- Mushing Alaska and Meet a Musher. These conferences run on the first Thursday of each month at set times and are offered at a lower cost than the On-Demand programs. We will never meet with more than 3 classes at a time and they have been restructured to incorporate classroom to classroom interactivity, as well as interactivity with us and the sled dogs.

3. Special Events. Like the tittle suggests these are special events that cover unique topics that we only offer once a year. They occur on the third Thursday of each month and are run on the same price and time structure as our Monthly Multi-Points.

We hope this restructuring meets the many needs of all our participants and, as always, welcome and need your feedback to continue to improve our programming!

Coming soon! Be Green Micro-Grant Program

Okay, at KEA we have always been about respecting our environment- regardless of what that environment is- urban/rural, natural and pristine or man made. So as the summer unfolded and the BP oil well kept spilling our frustration and anger kept growing- like I am sure many of yours did.

Our frustration was/is because it seemed like there was nothing we could do, a sense of helplessness. Probably a lot of you experienced the same emotions but really there is a lot that we can do. Maybe not to actually stop the oil spilling or physically clean up the beaches but we can change how we approach our daily lives and make small commitments to actively create local environments that are respectful to all that share it- human, animal, and plant.

Now KEA is a small family business, and like a lot of people these days we are just barely scraping by, so we don't have the huge economic power to force or promote societal behaviors the way large corporations, with their huge marketing and PR budgets, do. No, instead, what we do have is a desire to do something- anything- and some minor skill in communicating and connecting people through digital media.

So, over the next few weeks we will be setting up a micro-grant program where people can send in proposals for small- community, school, classroom, family, individual- scaled project ideas that improve the living environments for all in the their area. Each proposal entry will have a small fee. We'll create a scoring rubric to judge the project proposals and then using that scoring guide we will all vote on which projects should be funded. Funding will come from the proposal entry fees so the amount will vary depending on how many projects are submitted. A true grassroots effort!

We are still working out the details. Please contact us with input!! At the moment we are thinking that we will have monthly (or more regular) themes and project categories. Perhaps structured so that only after “X” number of proposals are submitted will we vote, etc... Again, please contact us with your ideas on how to do this!

We are also thinking that we will create a fairly specific proposal format. All proposals will be publicly viewable so that even ideas that aren't funded will be up on the web for others to see and use if they want. In that way, every idea can be taken up and implemented by any who want. The types of projects we will promote are the kind that can be done by individuals, small groups, a class, a school, etc... even without outside funding. Our grants will just be a little bonus to get things going- a kick in the butt to get us motivated!

Our hope is that as we travel around on our bikes this August we can collect a series of examples to use as idea starters. But again, we are still working out the details and want any and all input we can get!

The “A” in KEA stands for Adventures! For the most part, that refers to adventures in learning, but at KEA we have always felt life is learning. And this summer we're stretching our wings a bit. We are traveling away from our comfort zone (i.e. a small cabin in the woods) and venturing into the big city!

Yep, we're coming out of the backwoods of Alaska to take a grand tour down the Atlantic coast from New York city to Washington DC by bicycle. Yikes!

To say this is WAY out of our comfort zone is just a slight (wink, wink, snicker) understatement! But life is learning and experiencing new things! So away we go.

The really fun part is going to be actually seeing many of the places (or general regions, at least) that we conference with throughout the year. Our plan is to start out in New York city then head down through New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia before looping back up to DC.

We'll be posting trip updates and thoughts, along with route information, as we go. We are completely excited about this opportunity to explore different lifestyles first hand and would love to visit any interested schools along the way! You can follow our progress on the Teaching Wow blog and KEA Facebook page, as well as both Christina and Rich's Twitter feeds. Feel free to contact us if your school is along the way and would like to visit.

This year, Kigluait Adventures is going to focus on a monthly theme that will be integrated into our Special Event Program and our Monthly program. This month's theme is all about helping the teacher's to kick off their school year with a fun and educational activity involving videoconferencing and distance learning. 

September's theme is all about conflict resolution, decision making and building our characters. So it makes sense to highlight our Meet a Musher Program this month, as it focuses on looking at the strong character traits that makes a musher a musher, or a sled dog a sled dog for that matter. During our Monthly Highlighted Mutli-Point program this month, students will get a chance to videoconference with other students to learn about the life of a musher from a 13 year old musher and an adult musher while touring Flash Kennels and meeting several very special sled dogs. 

We invite teachers to join our Social Networks, Flash Kennels and Kigluait Ning to discuss ways they build conflict resolution skills in their classroom communities and how character plays in helping have a positive classroom community.  Students also get a chance to practice their conflict resolution skills through several simulations. 

Gold Fever is a great way to kick off your school year. Often at the beginning of the year, teachers are setting up their classrooms and getting students comfortable in their new community. Well that is exactly what this program is all about! How to set-up a community so everyone gets along and works together to accomplish a goal.

Gold Fever sets students in the time period of the Yukon/ Klondike Goldrush, in which people from all over the world traveled to Alaska to find their fortune in Gold. As a result, diverse communities began to form and they had to have some way to work out disagreements. Thus arise the Miner's Meeting. Miner's Meetings were usually called by a miner that had a disagreement or issue with another person in the community. During the meeting both miners were given a chance to make statements and the rest of the persons in the meeting were able to ask questions and then pass a judgement. 

During Gold Fever, students will travel with a miner and his pack dogs to a mining camp in order to  simulate a Miner's Meeting to determine if the miner has legally jumped a claim or illegally jumped a claim based on facts provided.

Students will use basic logic and algebra skills to examine the gold claim and provide a judging, only after they have worked together with other classes to agree on "rules" or a "code" to judge by. Following the program, students and teachers are encouraged to create their own classroom community codes and share them in our online Social network, as well as processes for resolving conflicts in the classroom.

Students will get a nice math refresher, as well as a fun way to help set-up their classroom community. 

Teachers are really doers.. Check out chat across the USA. This teacher has used Skype and Google Chat to connect with folks everywhere. What a great experience for a third grade class.

I have always recommended the use of Back Channels in IVC becuase it allows for an increase in interactivity, especially for those students that are shy or do not wish to interact verbally.

The use of back channels allows students to interact on a level that provides more information for the instructor on the "otherside."

But Teachers4schools posted a great article about how and when backchannels can go wrong. It is worth taking a minute to read, think about and consider prevention methods. He also shared some great resources.

Much like being a classroom teacher, it is worth the time to think about the types of learners you interact with when creating content for IVC.

Take a moment to watch this great Ted Talks by Temple Grandin:

 There has been a rash of free online course sites popping up on the Web lately. 

I say it in this manner only because as a distance educator, this really gives us a chance to not only extend our learning but to consider best teaching practices in online environments and how we can apply this to our own teaching. 

With this in mind you may want to check out the following: 

Einztein: Just beginning, but it looks like they will be hosting courses from Universities or individuals. Interesting. 

Free Video Lectures: Checkout these great courses provided by Harvard and Stanford Profs. I have already jumped into CS50... 

Looking for ways to integrate technology into your classroom this year, have a look at these two ezines with lots of  great ideas. But I might recommend first listing out your class goals or project ideas for the year and then checking these tool resources. Do not worry if you have no clue how to use them, just google the tool name and tutorial and you will more than likely find a plethora of tutorials for each tool. 

• Tools for the 21st Century Teacher
• Web Tools Applied to Teaching

 We all know how much kids are invested in time with their social media networks, so if you can't stop them from using them, well, why not join them. (See the previous blog entry showing data of types of users on the web.) 

Onlineuniversity posted a wonderful blog about 100 ways to use social media in the classroom. If you have thought about how to use social media or have been a bit uncertain or you need to think about how best to encourage your administration to allow social media, check out the many possibilities. 

My favorites are: 

1. Create a facebook page for a Fictional Character.

2. Use Twitter for current events, probability and fact checking. 

3. Use skype for a field trip. 

Business week posted a very cool graphic image about what people are doing on the web. One of the most interesting aspect of the image is the categories that they have broken activities into and where my generations sits. 

The majority of my generation falls into spectators, but youth fall more into Joiners. interesting enough, they all represent low numbers in collectors.  Your thoughts?