MMM Summer Sessions

If you haven't signed up yet for one of the ManACE-MindSet-Microsoft sessions, please have a look at all of the great sessions that we are offering this year for all educators in the province of Manitoba.

We have a wide variety of one and two day sessions to choose from, focussing on many different aspects of infusing technology into your classroom teaching and learning.

The MMM Summer Sessions are being held in many towns and cities across Southern Manitoba and, for only $25/session, these sessions are extremely affordable :-)

Check out the available dates and sessions...

Diggin' Deeper at the ManACE AGM

Adapted from: 'Hand' http://www.flickr.com/photos/75424716@N00/467231755

Thanks to everyone who participated in the ManACE Annual General Meeting this evening :-)

We had a fantastic AGM with good food, great presentations and some excellent conversations. The evening's presentations were broadcast live over uStream, which enabled us to archive them to share with those who weren't able to attend in person.

The first presenter of the evening was Kevin Hnatiuk from New Media Manitoba. Kevin shared tonnes of amazing resources, including:

Peacemaker - an educational game about conflict in the Middle East
Living Sasquatch - a cool Flash application to control a virtual sasquatch
DiamondTouch - a multi-touch and multi-user work surface
EyeTech - incredible eye-tracking software
EyeTronics - 3D scanning hardware

Check out Kevin's presentation to see all of these tools (and more...) in action:


You may also want to think about registering to attend 'Going From Beat to Tweet', an upcoming New Media Manitoba event being held in Winnipeg on June 25th, 2009...

The second presentation of the evening was 'Mining Our Resources', presented by John Evans and Andy McKiel, which included Skype conversations with Clarence Fisher (aka @glassbeed) and Jarrod Robinson (aka @mrrobbo):


One of the other highlights of the evening was being able to present Clarence Fisher with ManACE's Technology Educator of the Year award for his exemplary use of technology.

On behalf of the ManACE Board, I'd like to thank all of our members for your interest in participating in ongoing professional learning opportunities.

Please feel free to leave us a note,
Andy
BTW, don't forget to check out our list of Summer Sessions that will be offered in July & August - registration is now open :-)

The AGM - Please Join Us :-)

Image: 'Invitation' - http://www.flickr.com/photos/11121785@N00/140042679

The ManACE Annual General Meeting (AGM) is taking place next Thursday evening, May 21st. Everyone is welcome to attend this event, which will be held at 150 Moray Street in Winnipeg.
Please register to attend the ManACE AGM by e-mailing andy@mckiel.ca

We'd love to see many of our members there, and we've got lots of reasons why you should attend:
- free dinner and refreshments
- networking with other educators
- great professional learning opportunities
- presentation of ManACE awards
- election of officers & directors

Our AGM will follow the format of our Technology Information Nights (TIN's). We'll gather at 5:30 p.m. for dinner, then we'll have a couple of 20-30 minute presentations that highlight interesting and innovative technology use.

The first presentation will feature Kevin Hnatiuk, from New Media Manitoba, who has many exciting tools and toys to share. The second presentation will be a continuation of our recent 'Windows To The World' event, where we'll Skype in some leaders from the field, and uStream out this portion of the evening so that we can foster virtual participation from a global audience.

If you're not on the list yet to attend our AGM, please register as soon as possible so that we can plan the food and refreshments accordingly - just e-mail andy@mckiel.ca

We hope to see you next week at our AGM :-)
Andy

Another One For The Books... #wttw

Wow, we had a great time the other night! It was nice to have an opportunity to chat with others in the room, and it was exciting to be able to bring so many talented educators into the room virtually from around the world. some of our online participants came from as far away as the UK and Australia :-)

One of the first things that took place during this event was the creation of a wiki (thanks, @charbeck) to record the Twitter usernames of a few Manitoba educators - http://mbteacherswhotweet.wikispaces.com/ - if you're in Manitoba and on Twitter, please add yourself to the list :-)

You can catch many of the evening's festivities by watching our Windows To The World uStream recording here:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1388826

Many thanks go out to everyone who participated in this unique event...

We'd love your feedback about this event, so that we can continue to provide quality professional learning opportunities for educators around the province, and around the world :-)

Please feel free to leave us a note,
Andy

Opening up the Windows (to the World)

ManACE's next event, Windows To The World, is just around the corner. If you're not already signed up to attend this event in person, please register soon by e-mailing me: andy@mckiel.ca

If you're planning to attend Windows To The World, you're in for a treat! You'll have an opportunity to network with the people in the room, and then we'll be inviting guests in virtually so that we can connect with a few members of our professional learning networks, including Ryan Maksymchuk, Rodd Lucier, Liz Kolb and Ben Hazzard.

While we'd like to get as many people participating face-to-face as we can, we're also encouraging the participation of our online audience at this event. The backchannel will be coming to the forefront for this unique event.

Windows To The World will be broadcast out to virtual participants through uStream at the following URL:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/windows-to-the-world

In addition, Twitter users are asked to tag their tweets with #wttw so that we can monitor backchannel conversations.

Please join ManACE for Windows To The World :-)
April 15th
7-9pm CST

Windows To The World - An open invitation...

Adapted from: 'BCE Toronto' - http://www.flickr.com/photos/7578081@N07/2409088184

Over the last couple of years, ManACE has organized a variety of forward thinking events. You may have participated in 2007's Manitoba Edubloggercon. Or you may have heard about the innovative approach that we took with presenting 2008's Awakening Possibilities. These events were all about bringing together educators from around the province of Manitoba (and around the world) to showcase some of the many talents that exist in the vast region of Canada where we are situated.

Enter 'Windows To The World'. This event aims to throw the windows open a little wider in an effort to connect with more people in even more meaningful ways. Windows To The World will provide a greater opportunity for face to face networking with educators from around the province. For participants in the room, there will be opportunities to connect and collaborate with the other like-minded educators who are in attendance.

In addition to bringing people together, we'll turn our own walls into windows by sharing what we're doing with other educators from around the world. Using a variety of video conferencing tools and techniques, many distinguished guests will join us throughout the evening. We will have an opportunity to ask questions, highlight successful collaborative projects and connect with our own circle of experts by showcasing the benefits of being a connected learner. We will also broadcast the live video feed from this event out to our global audience, to facilitate increased virtual participation.
If you plan to be in or around Manitoba the evening of April 15th, we hope that you'll consider joining us in person for 'Windows To The World'. If you'll be in another province, country or continent, we hope that you'll join us online for this event to help us demonstrate the power of networked learning.

There is no cost to participate in Windows To The World. Everyone is welcome to attend, and refreshments will be provided for participants in this event. Virtual participants --> BYOB :-)

Register to attend this event in person by emailing: andy@mckiel.ca

Please help ManACE spread the word about Windows To The World by posting, printing and sharing this open invitation:

WindowsToTheWorld.pdf

We look forward to having you join us for Windows To The World :-)

As always, please feel free to leave us a note,
Andy

Another Page in The Book

Thank you to everyone who came out last week for another very successful ManACE TIN!
And a special thanks to all of our presenters!

Phil Taylor demonstrated the many ways that he's been using Diigo to further develop his own personal learning network. Not only does he love Diigo's ability to share bookmarks with other educators, he regularly annotates websites to share information with his students and he subscribes to many different groups within Diigo to ensure that relevent web content is dropped off in his mailbox on a daily basis :-)

Shawn Kleebaum demonstrated Google Apps, and showcased how his school has been using many of the applications that Google offers free for educators. Not only did he share some great content about Google Apps, but his presentation was delivered using Prezi, a new online presentation tool that is currently accepting beta testers. If you haven't yet had the opportunity to experience Prezi, you should check out their site and consider subscribing for your own account.

The final presenter of the evening was Steve Dudar, who shared MARVIN. Steve demonstrated some of the many ways that MARVIN avatars can be programmed to add a variety of media to any desktop application. MARVIN utilizes a simple scripting language, so that users of all ages can easily adapt their avatars' voices and languages. If you're interested in finding out more about getting started with MARVIN, stay tuned to this blog to find out more upcoming training events...

To cap off the evening, Andy McKiel offered a quick demonstration of GE's Smart Grid. If you haven't yet seen the Smart Grid in action, you should check it out :-)

We're almost ready to release the details of our next event, 'Windows To The World'. This event will be a follow-up to the 2007 Manitoba Edubloggercon and 2008's Awakening Possibilities. Mark your calendar for the evening of April 15th, as this is one event you won't want to miss. Also, if you're not already subscribed to the ManACE blog, simply click the link below the ClustrMap on the right to make sure that you get updates about future ManACE events :-)

Please feel free to leave us a note,
Andy