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This past weekend I made my 9th and final flight to Taipei where 25 educators from Taipei American School (TAS) wrapped up their final course, projects and presentations for the COETAIL program. 

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The COETAIL Program or Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy, is a 5 course 15 graduate credit program started by Kim Cofino and I in 2009. The program, only available to educators outside the U.S., continues to return positive results with 86% of educators who have taken the program saying that the coures and the learning have had a positive effect on their teaching practices 6 months after they finish the program. The fifth and final course asks educators to take everything they have learned in the first 4 courses and apply it to their teaching. We push the educators to try to use technology in a way that redefines the learning experience using the following definition:

Redefinition: The computer allows for the creation of new tasks, inconceivable without the computer.

As usual the TAS educators rose to the challenge and presented some fantastic learning examples as well as some failures….which in itself is a success. Here are a few highlights. 

Nancy and Kathy put together this fantastic video for their final project. You can read about their reflections on their blogs.

Allison Nave has done a great job of sharing and reflecting as she flips her middle school math class.

Nyoli had her Algebra students create a Google Site for review purposes. Students don’t want the site public but she outlines the learning and the process.

Barb outlines making book trailers with elementary students in the library and collaborating with Tara our librarian here at ISB.

Scott and Laura reflect on using iPads with 1st graders.

Steve talks about using Google Docs with 2nd Graders.

Jennifer teaches music through creating a sound track for a movie trailer.

It was great to see teachers stretch themselves on these projects as I encouraged them to push themselves and the technology so far beyond what they though capable that they failed…..and we had a few “successful failures” as Michael called it in his presentation. That’s a term I could get use to using.

If you are an educator outside of America and you are interested in the COETAIL program. Head over to the About page where you can read about the program and put your name on the list to get more information. Our plan is to start another cohort in September.

Here at ISB we get next week off for a well deserved fall break. Now most normal people here in Bangkok will head to one of the numerous amazing beaches and relax and recharge. To bad I’m not normal.

My next 10 days: BKK – TPE – NRT – MSP – DSM – MSP – NRT – TPE – BKI – KUL – BKK

(I’m sure there’s a game in there somewhere)

Yep…11 airport stops in 10 days, with a lot of presenting in between. Let me break it down for you.

TPE: Taipei

In about 2 hours I head to the airport and off to Taipei American School to wrap up the first course of the COETAIL program I’m teaching there. Tomorrow we’ll meet from 9 – 6 reflecting on the course, sharing projects, talking about PLNs and setting up Twitter accounts. The second half of the day we’re going to have a K12online LAN party so get ready for some new educators on Twitter and be looking for our podcast of the LAN party sometime next week (I’ll have plenty of time to edit on the planes).

DSM: Des Monies, Iowa

My next stop takes me to the middle of the good ole’ USA to work with administrators and Scott McLeod. I’m a bit worried as what I’ll be talking about includes an open web and students publishing openly in order for us to teach them to be safe. The idea of ‘open’ usually doesn’t go over to well in the State and people look at me like I’m a freak. The fear factor is so high around student’s publishing that is truly breaks my heart…and from someone on the outside looking in it looks really bad.

My work with Scott takes me to Minneapolis where I’ll fly out of.

BKI: Kota Kanabalu, Malayasia

Last stop takes me to the EARCOS Leadership Conference. By far the roughest part of the trip (NOT!). I’ll be talking with administrators in the South East Asia Region about technology and were do we go from here. International Schools here in Asia are rolling out 1:1 laptop programs quickly and by 2012 (a date I set 3 years ago) there will be a clear line of those that are and those that are not 1:1 schools.

So, if my blog posts come in waves over the next week it’s because I was able to do a lot of thinking while flying just short of 20,000 miles. 

Let the fun and travel begin!