November Learning: Expanding the Boundaries of Learning

Jeff Utecht

About Jeff Utecht
Elementary Technology and Learning Coordinator for the International School, Bangkok, Thailand

Jeff Utecht is an international educator and educational technology consultant. Currently he is working as a Technology and Learning Coordinator for International School Bangkok in Bangkok, Thailand. Jeff has consulted with and presented at international schools around the world. He has been teaching online graduate classes for different American Universities since 2007 and regularly shares his thoughts on education and technology on his blog, thethinkingstick.com. Jeff has recently been mentioned in the books Reinventing Project-Based Learning and Web 2.0, New Tools, New Schools, and recently wrote a chapter for the book Wired For Learning: An Educator’s Guide to Web 2.0.

To learn more about him, visit jeffutecht.com.

Main Session Workshops

Beyond E-mail: Communication with your Web Community

From Friday Folders to Friday e-mails, the way we communicate with our school community is changing. But where do we go now from e-mail and how can we utilize the power of social Web tools, such as Facebook, blogs, Twitter and Google Buzz, to create communities that engage and support our schools? This session will share ways to harness these Web tools to reach out to your school community and create authentic and open communications within them.

Building Student-Centered Blended Learning Environments

The latest statistics out of the U.S. show that 80% of college freshmen will take at least one online course. Most of these classes will be in the form of a “blended classroom” meaning that time will be spent both in a traditional classroom and online. This workshop will focus on creating a blended classroom for learning. We will discuss tools such as Moodle, blogs, wikis, podcasts and videos. We will also discuss how pedagogy changes within a blended classroom environment and how true student-centered learning is created with technology. As part of this workshop, we will look at ways to manage your virtual classroom and create a plan on how you can incorporate it into your everyday teaching and make it just what you do. Teaching in a blended classroom is not about knowing technology, it is about having a mind set of allowing students to take control of the content and helping them to make meaning and create knowledge from it in multiple forms, styles and media.