SITE Blog

I would like to thank everyone who attended the SIG meeting on Thursday afternoon. For those of you who were not able to join us – I’m breaking the rule and letting what happened in Vegas out of Vegas. We had a wonderful conversation about the things we are doing with technology in our various educational lives. As a way to keep the conversation and sharing we started in Vegas going, those of us at the meeting planned to use the SITEBlog (www.siteblog.org) to post stories about our work. These posting can take form however you would like – as long or as short as you like – focused on any area of interest to you. We talked about individuals “signing” up for a post each month (thanks Sara McNeil for this idea!). I am going to get things started this month and I hoped that you all might respond to this post with a comment on a time that you will post to the blog. Of course, we can rearrange things, but it would be nice if we can at least get things started with some folks committing to the blog.

I want to say a couple of other things about blogging that I got from Troy Hicks who is a colleague in English Education. Troy is a quite prolific and insightful blogger (http://hickstro.org/) and I asked him, basically, how do you do it? (look at what Troy posted from SITE in Vegas!) He said that part of the process was simply unpacking his thoughts after meaningful experiences, without as much concern for form and shape. Troy said there seem to be several profiles for bloggers from the “white paper” posters to the folks like himself who just let it flow. It seems to me that one impediment to posting on blogs might be this expectation that what we write has to be a perfectly formed piece of prose – all academic. I am hoping that we can use this blog to just talk to each other. I know that is easier said that done, but for one I am going to “just let it flow” on this blog and see where it takes us.

One last thing – for those of you not familiar with blogging technology, you do not have to visit the website every day to find out what has been posted. SITEBlog allows you to set your preferences so that you can receive an email whenever something new has been posted. Another approach is to “feed” the blog to a reader or your favorite web-based portal space (My Yahoo, iGoogle, MSN Live, ect).

So, thanks again – look for a post on something from me to follow

And!! Tell your friends and colleagues in social studies about SITEBlog. You do have to be a member of SITE to post, but anyone can comment. I think we would all appreciate broadening the conversation, so the more the merry!

John

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If you are taking photos this year and posting them to Flickr or other photo sharing services, please be sure to tag your photos with “site2008″.

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There was a conducted bus tour on STEM at the SITE conference, it was fully subscribed and we visited schools of STEM interest in Clark County, Las Vegas. The school system helped us share STEM practices in the US.

STEM?

STEM has become a common acronym, particularly among policy advocates and government officials, for the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, an on STEM education and competitiveness is Rising Above the Gathering Storm from the National Academies Press. (Read the article)

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Dear SITE Friends,

We look forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas in the next few days.   Just a reminder that the Equity and Justice SIG is scheduled to meet on Wednesday (see your schedules for specific time and location!).

Members of this SIG engage in networking and activities for promoting equity and social justice broadly in multicultural, democratic teaching and learning and teacher education, working to address educational, opportunity and digital divides.    Issues of Digital Equity – such as empowering opportunities to create, produce, use and disseminate digital tools, strategies and resources for equity and justice purposes, and particularly to seek, identify and/or develop leadership within as well as to otherwise engage traditionally underserved or oppressed communities – are at the forefront of this SIG.   Traditionally underserved groups in the U.S. include those identified in federal ESEA-NCLB legislation, such as children, youth and families who are low-income, disproportionately of color, language minority, living with special needs, immigrant, migrant, disproportionately female and/or otherwise neglected.  Internationally these include those who are living in poverty, political turmoil, refugees and/or those otherwise struggling with inequitable access to opportunities for full personal, social, political and economic development.   Members of this SIG tend to examine and take action within their own work around real and perceived opportunities and/or threats of digital age transformations and current and emerging information and telecommunications technologies within an equity and justice context.

We welcome you to join us.   In the past SIG meetings have been opportunities to:

(1) Network and collaborate with like-minded colleagues.

(2) Raise our voices on these issues within the wider SITE Community and beyond.

(3) Participate in identifying a Digital Equity award-winner at each SITE Conference.

(4) Promoting and eliciting Equity and Justice papers and proceedings at each SITE Conference.

(5) Planning special events such as half-day or full-day Equity and Justice Symposia.

(6) Promoting and eliciting publication around Equity and Justice issues in SITE and relevant journals.

(7) Identifying and/or helping to develop so-called “minority” leadership – leaders from groups mentioned above and/or who work in solidarity with such groups (so-called, as we often work in majority “minority” communities).

(8) Identifying, attending and/or promoting Equity and Justice Issues in other relevant conferences and venues, as a way of developing strategic networks and alliances.

Current keen interests include an interest in promoting Supercomputing opportunities for traditionally underserved schools, teacher education programs and learners and tracking upcoming legislation such as the “Preparing Teachers for Digital Age Learners” Bill, for the potential of addressing Equity and Justice issues.

We look forward to posting and learning about additional opportunities, organizations, ideas and resources in the coming week.  Please look for our posts of relevant resources and feel free to add your own!

Thanks!

In Peace,
Kevin Rocap, SIG Chair – and on behalf of Co-Chairs Bonnie Bracey and Versonya DuPont

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