Serendipity35

It's getting to a point where I have to do a search on my own blog before I start writing. Sometimes I can't recall if I've written about a topic already.

It's easy if it's something brand new. Unfortunately, I have a folder with probably 50 sheets of scribbled notes and articles torn from places that are things I want to write about here. They are not all new.

Take the Apple Learning Exchange. It's a site that has been around for awhile. I believe it was originally intended for a K-12 teacher audience, but if you're new to a topic like podcasting, Creative Commons licenses and such, I don't see how these wouldn't apply to the 13+ of higher ed. Now there is a higher ed link too.

There are embedded podcasts (you can also subscribe to the series in iTunes) in the section called Conference Connections. These are podcasts of conference presentations from many different educational conferences. It's especially useful if you don't get to attend any or many EdTech events.

Sometimes I listen to one of these and realize that it's a lot better than what I would write about a topic, and has more words and links than I want to do in a blog post.

For example, Jamey Osborne did a conference presentation podcast on using Creative Commons in your teaching. It's full of good ideas, information, and lots of links to resources. It had me grabbing my pen & paper & wishing it was a vodcast instead of just audio.

In the higher ed section there's Blogging at Penn State. There's blogging going on at all grades, so I wouldn't pigeon-hole this in either place. Consider the categories more about the source than the destination.

Am I being overly sensitive here? Perhaps. I presented at EduComm last month and they placed me in the "higher ed" part of the program (and in the last session of the conference - ugh!) even though my presentation was about a partnership between NJIT and Science Park High School. I would have been just as comfortable (probably more) in the K-12 thread. Even better, no separation of the grades.