Learning sometimes comes unexpectedly

Last night was one of those unpredictable amazing events that came from one idea and ended up in the most amazing evening. It started as it so often does these days from a Twitter tweet which alerted me to a session called The Flat classrooms workshop that was being streamed live on UStream in St Louis in the US. The session was being run by Vicki Davis, coolcatteacher and Julie Lindsay, 123learning and I and about 30 others just happened to log in as they were about to begin their first morning session. Being able to watch and listen to their introductions and their plans for the two day workshop was fantastic. At one stage they skyped in Darren Kuropatwa a renowned maths teacher in Canada who does some amazing work with his students and blogging. But what was even more powerful was the back channel chat that was going on at the same time on Chatzy. Julie and Vicki used this chat to add to and discuss issues and ideas with the real life group and they also continued to chat and share with us online. Two hours later I finally dragged myself off to bed at 1.00am having spent two great hours watching and listening and most importantly learning. Here are a couple of cool links that came out of the chat that I will certainly be returning to.
The Education vodcasting site is a site run by two science teachers who create vodcast lectures for their students. This means that effectively they turn their classes on its head by sending the students away with the lectures to listen to and when in class the students spend time with the teachers on more practical experiments and ideas.

Susan Morgan shared her school website which lists fabulous examples of teachers using Web2 in the classroom http://www.fredericksburgacademy.org/page.cfm?p=1212

smadlliinger shared a polling site that can be used with mobile phones to create and complete polls online http://www.polleverywhere.com

Martha Bogart shared her site on Videoconferencing http://www2.csd.org/newlinks/newlinks.htm
and there were so many more but I lost track.

Sometimes it takes no more than an internet connection, a few hours spare time, a comfy chair in a cosy lounge room to experience some pretty powerful professional development.