Welcome to Let's Talk Technology !

Let's Talk Technology is a friendly community of educators in southeast Michigan who meet monthly to share, explore and apply a variety of emerging and fascinating technologies for the K-12 classroom (and everyday life). Let's Talk was started in 1997 through a MACUL grant and has explored classroom use of geocaching, podcasting, digital cameras, Universal Design for Learning and lately, Web 2.0 in the broadest definition. 

One of the hazards of exploring emerging technologies is trying to use all of them. As a result, our web home has evolved from a standard web page to a blog, and then to this wiki as well as to a variety of web based experiments. At the moment this PeanutButter wiki serves us well as a platform for collaboration, allowing members to update the site as needed. We are also trying a Moodle site to support our activities. When in doubt, google us!

Now try this...LIKE us on Facebook!  our next online home - we're hoping it will be a more regular way to communicate with the group.   Jane has suggested some great thought provoking articles - check them out!

Or follow us on Twitter:  letstalkedtech 

Our next meeting will be Saturday, January 28, 2012  .

topic: Awesome free online resources and tutorials available at MI Learning on iTunes U.  Judy Paxton, MI Learning Manager, will join us online in an Adobe Connect Conference room to show us around and answer any questions about MI Learning http://www.macul.org/milearning/  

Location:

     Plan A: Meet at Academy of the Sacred Heart as usual (details & directions) where we can be together in the lab and online

     Plan B: If the weather is wintry and nasty we can meet in the Adobe Connect conference room from the comfort of our own homes or in small groups. We will decide by Friday morning if will not meet at ASH and post the notice here, so please check back on Friday to be sure!

     Plan C: if you live far away or can't spare the time for face to face meetings, feel free to join us on the 28th through the Adobe Connect conference!

If you plan to join us in the Adobe Connect romm please check out these instructions before Saturday! Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro Quick Start  [PDF]

Please let us know if you plan to attend with this quick Doodle poll

Come join us this year as we explore sites (or anything else) that support online learning or teaching.

Last year we explored online tools found in many of the popular "23 Things" online courses including:  

Video conferencing - We experimented with several video conferencing applications. In February we used Adobe Connect Pro and learned a lot of important things about using a conference room! 

We will continue to use our Let's Talk...Moodle site to share resources through forums, activities and meeting notes.  Please log in to poke around as a guest or create a free account to participate in the activities. The Moodle site contains the notes taken during our meetings.

More about the Let's Talk Technology group 

• Details Membership, meeting times and places

• Let's Talk HistoryProject This project was started at our February 2006 meeting as a way to document the activities of the group over the past 10 years. Please visit and consider adding some details if you know them. 

Meeting Notes (most recent first, click on link for a meeting notes page)

2011-2012 -  please see the Meeting Notes wiki at our Let's Talk...Moodle site for details

• Meeting May 5, 2012 at Academy of the Sacred Heart
            topic:
• Meeting March 24, 2012 (March / April meeting) at Academy of the Sacred Heart
            topic: MACUL  sharing of conference highlights
• March  - no meeting, MACUL Conference March 7 to 9, 2012 Grand Rapids, MI
• Meeting Jan 28, 2012 (January / February meetings)  at Academy of the Sacred Heart
            topic:  MI Learning on iTunesU
• Meeting December 3, 2011 at Academy of the Sacred Heart,
             topic: Michign Learnport  http://www.learnport.org/  and MeL
•  Meeting November 5, 2011 at Academy of the Sacred Heart, with MACUL's Online Learning Special Interest Group
           topic: Sources for online Professional Development
• Meeting October 1, 2011 at The Henry Ford see their Teacher Appreciation website for details and directions

2010-2011 -  please see the Meeting Notes wiki at our Let's Talk...Moodle site for details

• Meeting May 7, 2011 at Academy of the Sacred Heart, topic: Year end wrap up, suggestions for next year
• Meeting April 2, 2011 at Academy of the Sacred Heart, topic: share the best of the MACUL conference
• March - no meeting since many of us will attend the MACUL conference 
• Meeting February 5, 2011  met online using Adobe Connect Pro and learned a lot of important things about using a conference room!!
• Meeting January 8, 2011  at Academy of the Sacred Heart, topic: Video conferencing for online learning and virtual meetings 
• Meeting December 4, 2010  was held at Canton High School, Canton, topic was Favorite Google Apps
• Meeting November 6, 2010  was held at Academy of the Sacred Heart , topic was Online Productivity applications
• Meeting October 2, 2010  was held at Academy of the Sacred Heart, topic was a look at some of the many "23 Things" courses and choosing "things" to explore at our meetings this year. 

 2009-2010 - please see the Meeting Notes wiki at our Let's Talk...Moodle site for details

• Meeting May 1, 2010  will be held at Academy of the Sacred Heart, topic is year end wrap up and topics to consider for next year

• Meeting February 6, 2010 will be held at Jane's house. topic: preview of Jeff Crockett's MACUL presentation about grants that support all learners using UDL practices. 

• Meeting January 9, 2010 was held at Academy of the Sacred Heart. the topic was Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)

• Meeting December 5, 2009 was held at the Canton High School Library and the topic was Diigo, http://diigo.com a cool (free) social bookmarking service  with Laura Cummings (this time in person), Director of MACUL’s  Special Interest Group-TeleLearning (SIGTele).

• Meeting November 7, 2009 our meeting was held at Jane's home, since Larua had the flu we postponed our Diigo exploration until next month. We talked about a variety of sites and James gave a preview of the Mahara site he has set up for us to try.
• Meeting October 3, 2009 due to last minute cancellation, our meeting was held online using DimDim and in our Moodle site. Laura tried to demonstrate Diigo with James' help in spite of a number of "technical difficulties" Meeting notes are the chat transcript in our Moodle site.

   

2008-2009

• Meeting Notes March 28, 2009 MACUL wrap up - see the Moodle course for meeting notes and individual MACUL notes (in Topic 1).
• Meeting Notes February 7, 2009 "Podcasting 102 - Recording using Audacity" 
• Meeting Notes January 10, 2009 due to bad weather, we enjoyed our first virtual meeting in our Moodle site - please see the site for chat log and notes
• Meeting Notes December 6, 2008  Podcasting 101 - Where do we start? - Notes and resources also available at Let's Talk... Moodle
• Meeting Notes November 8, 2008  Moodle!  Notes are also available on our Moodle site Let's Talk...  Moodle http://m-dc.org/itt/course/view.php?id=2
• Meeting Notes October 4, 2008 What we did on our summer vacations - reports from conferences (MITS, NECC) - more cool web 2.0 sites

2007-2008

• Meeting Notes May 2008  - MACUL Highlights part 2 - still more wealth! Please bring suggestions for topics to explore next year, what is hot, what are you curious about?
• Meeting Notes April 2008 - MACUL Highlights part 1 - All who were able to attend the conference will "share the wealth" of what they learned 
• March 2008 - no meeting -see you at the MACUL conference!
• February 2, 2008 - “Creating and Sustaining a UDL Learning Community: One District’s Journey” -  Jeff Crockett, preview of his MACUL session
• January 12, 2008 - continued discussion and demonstration of Web 2.0 resources - all members (so many sites, so little time)
• December 2007 - favorite Web 2.0 resources - all members
• November 2007 - Photo Story and Picasa - Angie
• September/October 2007 - "What I did on my summer vacation" and  planning meeting for the year 

2006-2007

• May 2007 - Curriculum Mapping with Angie Saylor
• April 2007 - MACUL reports - copy of meeting notes from Protopage as a backup
• http://www.protopage.com/tech4teachers#Let's_Talk_Technology_April_07_Meeting_notes/Conference_comments
• Carol I thinks that a wiki page might be a better place to create and store "just in time" meeting notes.
• October 2006 - Feb 2007 notes are located on a page at our Visit My Class blog - we might migrate them here some day (any volunteers?)
• May 2005 - Digital Photography with Michael Smith
• Laura and Carol assembled these after the meeting. Note that you can click the Changes button to see previous versions

Pages of Collected Knowledge (new feature) 

• Web 2.0 Recommended Resources to explore

• Tips to help cope with Information Overload  (please add suggestions! )

• Shift Happens (Interesting links to the future including Web 3.0)

• Cloud Computing (with new free/cheap web applications/suites)

Additional Home sites for Let's Talk Technology

• Let's Talk...  Moodle http://m-dc.org/itt/course/view.php?id=2  You may log in as a guest or get the enrollment key from a member to participate in the activities.
• Let's Talk Technology blog at VisitMyClass http://visitmyclass.com/blogs/lets_talk_technology/    Meeting summaries and pictures from 2005 to 2006 (this site was discontinued in 2009)
• Let's Talk Technology graphical interface at Protopage http://www.protopage.com/letstalk    Collected resources from a meeting that explored Protopage
• Let's Talk Technology original web pages at EDCEN http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~eheasley/talk-home.html Meeting summaries and pictures from 1997 to 2005
• Let's Talk Technology BlackBoard course http://bb.misd.net/ (login id required)

Note to editors:  The editing may be a little intimidating at first - try the "Wiki Style" guide at the top or bottom of the page, it explains everything. (Feel free to correct Carol's spelling.) If someone else is editing the page, PB Wiki will ask you to wait until the page is available so there is no chance of writing over someone elses work. If you have questions check with Carol, Jane or Laura or take your best shot, we can always go back to a previous version!

Request - when you write and edit this wiki, please refer to yourself by name (rather than "I suggest" I would write "Carol I. suggests"- if you are Carol).

If you have sites or handouts to share, try to bring them on a USB drive or CD so we can pop them into the wiki quickly.