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KDE’s Marty Park, presenting during the Kentucky Lync-delivered online TeachMeet event of February 28, 2013, as seen from Jeff Gray’s KET office pc, Lexington.

Folks at the KATE (Kentucky Academy of Technology Education), located at Murray State University, made education technology history yesterday from an idea by Director Ron Milliner by producing a special day-long online professional development “TeachMeet” event for Kentucky educators.

Using the Lync web conferencing feature of the Microsoft Office 365 software and online service suite, recently rolled-out for use by all Kentucky schools, educators from KATE, the KDE (KY Dept. of Ed., who helped schools implement the new resources), and several Kentucky school districts shared valuable tips and methods for using a variety of software and online instructional resource tools.

Presenters from several remote locations were given temporary control of the web conferencing output from their pcs in turn, all coordinated during the day by KATE staff at Murray State. Participation reached almost 100 and averaged around 80 during the event, which ran from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm ET. Some of the session materials have been posted online. Recorded sessions from the event should be posted soon to the KATEMSU YouTube channel.

Here’s a list of the scheduled 10-minute sessions, which, as seen by participant viewers, included live PowerPoint presentations, video displays of the presenters, shared desktop program and web page demonstrations, and a chat sidebar for messaging by all with live web links inserted during the event…

• Skydrive Fetch – Patti Oakley
• PD 360 – Cami Knapp
• Using Office 365 and Lync Online in Your Flipped Classroom – Marty Park
• Flipping the Classroom Using Edmodo – Tina Barrett
• Socrative – Felicia White
• Using a Digital Corkboard to Promote Student Collaboration – Amy Johns
• Literacy in a Digital World – Amanda Klare
• The Digital Driver’s License (DDL) for Citizenship Skills – Marty Park
• Kentucky iTunesU – Marty Park
• Technology Tools for Project Based Learning – Allen Martin
• iOS Beyond the Basics: Tips and Hidden Features for iPad and iPod – Nathan Seaton
• The KYSTE Mission – Jeff Jones
• Technology Standards by Grade Level – Cami Knapp
• Formal Assessments Using iPads – Whitney York
• Introduction to Evernote – Patti Oakley
• Community Clips – Cami Knapp
• Excel Survey – Patti Oakley

KDE’s Marty Park, presenting remotely from KET during the Lync-streamed TeachMeet of 2/28/13.

Ms. Oakley also posted a helpful overview of how to use the Lync system, which is part of the new Microsoft Office 365 suite of software and resources Kentucky public school educators should soon have access to from their school pcs. Lync can be used to web conference with one to many colleagues, and setting up a group conference is easily done through a website scheduler. Kentucky teachers should contact their school or district instructional technology folks for more information on how to use Lync and the new Office 365 tools.

For more information about the February 28, 2013 Kentucky Lync TeachMeet, contact KATE Director, Ron Milliner; Eric Rich, KATE Data Systems Administrator; or Instructional Development Specialist, Patti Oakley.

We look forward to more Lync-streamed educational resources and events from KATE, the KDE, schools, and other sources. We at KET also hope to offer some useful Lync-streamed events, so stay tuned! It’s an impressive new resource that should really boost sharing and creativity in the Kentucky educator community. Thanks to the Kentucky Department of Education and to everyone in our Kentucky school districts who helped set it up for educators to use and enjoy, and thanks to the folks who organized and presented the first Lync-delivered TeachMeet on February 28, 2013, produced by KATE at Murray State University!