Chapter Meeting and Program

Fall 2007

During the meeting...

Meeting Links...

• Opening Message
  and Updates
  from the President
• Officer Reports
  and Chapter Business
  DISCUSSION

Program Links

• Fall 2007
  Discussion Program
  "Share the Learning"

Note from webmaster, Sunday October 21: All officers' reports have now been posted. I also have fixed the discussion board so that posts should appear promptly after you click the "Submit" button. Thanks for your patience everyone, and sorry for the problems! I hope they're solved now, but if you have any problems posting, please email me.

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Officers' Reports

Jump to the DISCUSSION

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Report from the Vice President of Membership

Dear esteemed board of directors and honored members,

I have been pondering what information would be relevant for a report to the membership for the fall, 2007 meeting. Number of new members came to mind first and I asked myself the question, so what? What would that mean to our Walden University cyberspace PDK chapter members? I determined that my role as VP of Membership is not only to solicit and help you enroll into our chapter but once you are in our chapter to engage with you in dialogue to inform you of the opportunities we have where you can serve Walden University Cyberspace chapter in meeting our mission.

PHI DELTA KAPPA is an international organization of professional educators. Our mission is to promote quality education, with particular emphasis on publicly supported education, as essential to the development and maintenance of a democratic way of life.

Since the theme for the discussion of our fall, 2007 meeting is to “Share your Learning” I would like to extend that theme to ask you to take what you learned and apply it as a member to further the mission of PDK International and our chapter. How do you do that? First send me your ideas, experience and what you would like to see as a program that would move quality education forward. Second learn how your expertise and knowledge can contribute as a board member, serving on a committee, or looking for collaborators in a educational program you are part of. The act of giving is also the act of receiving and as we share our learning our chapter as a collective whole can offer you a lot in return.

The cliché is that we can make a difference together. The reality is that is the only way we can make a difference is by working together. The start of our fall meeting has a special significance for me as it marks the beginning of the second year of my doctoral program. My work is PDK’s mission and therefore each and everyone of you has value with the knowledge you have gathered over many years you have worked in education or related sectors. My message as VP of membership for Fall, 2007 is a hopeful one; we are a strong and diverse group of professionals, financially sound as a chapter, with strong and engaged leadership that is looking for 2007-2008 to be a year where our members “steer” the chapter into new avenues and unexplored educational theories, research and programs that will take our shared learning to new heights.

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Report from the Programs Director

PDK members, let us help out this school our Literacy Project winner! There is still time to donate, if you haven't already done so, please do; and if you have and you feel you can do more, please do. Here are the instructions:

• Go to Amazon.com  and select icon on top right entitled "Your Lists"
• Select icon "Wish List"
• On the next screen on bottom right click on "Find Someone's Wish List"
• Type in "Manuel L. Real School" and hit Go
  
  Easier yet (we really want to FLOOD this school with books) take this
  direct link to the Wish List, and do it right now! When you put a book from this Wish List in your shopping cart, and go through the checkout process, you'll find that you can select the school's mailing address as the shipping address, which makes it really easy. You just need to enter your payment details. You can include a short message with your gift free of charge.

Thanks!

Theran Mugleston

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Report from the Treasurer

Sincerely,

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Report from our PDK Foundation Representative

Dear Friends,

I hope the fall has brought in many positive and joyful changes with seasonal colors. There has not been a lot of activity in my section of the fundraising world because we have been awaiting our updated financial information. Once that has been given to Melaleuca we will be able to continue our fundraisers with the baskets and the memberships at our residencies. I am also collaboratively working on a grant with fellow officer colleagues to enhance our online journal and website capabilities. This is all that I have to report on at this time, have a fulfilling and safe upcoming holiday all of you.

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Report from the Communications Director/Newsletter Editor

I am pleased and excited to be the new Communications Director for the Walden chapter of PDK. Communications Director is a new title from International which combines the jobs of the newsletter editor and secretary. I would be delighted to receive information of any newsworthy event that members have been involved in.

I have just recently received the template from the past newsletter editor and can begin working on the Fall issue. In addition, as secretary I am working with Marion Carpenter on a project to be announced in the newsletter.

I look forward to working with and getting to know everyone!

Candace Stine

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.
Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business."
~Michael J. Fox

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Report from the Webmaster

I continue to do my best to keep up with the chapter website, but I don't have time to do everything that I'd like to see happen on the site and the chapter deserves better. I continue to hope that someone with web skills will step forward to help. I'll be able to assist, and mentor someone who has at least basic HTML skills, who is willing to learn, and who has more time during meeting periods than I do. Here is a link to more about the position as posted in my report at our Spring 07 meeting, for anyone who might be interested.

Gay Wiseman

((((DO SOMETHING!) SMALL) USEFUL) NOW!)
~an email tag line of Bob Bemer, computer coder and activist

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Archived discussion

Below are the posts made during the meeting.

October 15-20 posts:

Name	Comment
David Kenneth Waldman	Hello from Germany, As I write this I am looking out of my office window and I see that the colours of fall have started to take over from the sea of green of the summer months. Change comes each season here in Germany and sometimes change occurs more slowly or is not recognized such as Indian summer days in fall. I start my comment not talking about the seasons or weather but about change and what we learn from change. The same is true when we attend a conference and change our perspective to note the differences of fellow colleagues thinking and research. What do we learn from changing our perspective and starting learning to see from another's point of view. In this meeting we will be discussing lessons learned from conferences and other perspectives. I suggest that everytime you step out of yourself and view the change from the same awe of wonder when you see the seasons change you will notice more what is going on and appreciate it with a new found passion. Such is my thinking. Welcome to the new members and our ongoing members. You are Walden Cyberspace Chapter, not the board not our new esteemed President. Each of you make up what our chapter's potential will become. Let us hear about your insights, and lessons learned so we become a chapter that not only talks about social change in education but leads PDK in showing what a small committed group of professionals are capable of. Let me hear your voice. David, Vice President Walden Cyberspace Chapter, PDK. (davidkennethwaldman@tolovechildren.org if you want to be in touch after the meeting.)
Gay Wiseman	Thanks for your opening post David. I am certainly in a time of change in my life this year, stepping up to a new level of activism (or, rather, returning to the level of activism of my early adulthood) probably due partly to a middle-age increasing sense of "no time to waste!". And, my kids leaving home allows me more time and energy to expand my scope of personal responsibility. I'm seeking and finding more ways to take ACTION, to "DO IT". I've initiated a project (that I'm seeking help to develop) for distributing American abundance more equitably in the world ( http://freefortheshipping.com). I'm working with a friend to develop a website that aims to connect individuals to reach "critical mass" for all kinds of causes, using sociocratic principles (view a very rough first draft of content at "http://nextsteptogether.net". (Constructive critical comments welcome, gwiseman@mindspring.com) FYI, everyone, today (October 17) is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty; more here. I challenge each of my chapter colleagues to find something to DO TODAY, big or small, just do SOMETHING, to help with that crucial effort. THANKS, friends, for being such a great DO group in my life. We CAN change the world. Greetings, love, hugs to all, Gay
Andre Elliott	Gay, I am very interested in doing something to help eradicate poverty. There is strength in unity. Therefore, I propose that any members of our chapter, who have interest, should contact you, if acceptable, to join forces with you. I am reading a book about the Tao, ancient wisdom from the east that was written long before the Bible. It says, the Tao begot one, one begot two, and two begot three. Three begot the 10,000 things in the world. I believe we can give birth to 10,000 educators, whose collective support, will be a force to reduce poverty in the world. I am one.
Doris	I will take this opportunity to welcome everyone to the fall meeting and to offer best wishes in any new and continuing endeavors. Change is always the constant that we can rely on regardless of our position. It is fluidic. One of our other projects which I hope will be discussed later, is the BookShare project. When you visit the webpage http://www.bookshare.org you will be able to discover another wonderful way to offer print via voice to those that have vision or print difficulties to be able to enjoy the printed word. Let's keep it going!
Jenny	Happy Fall to All! And congratulations again on this fine meeting site to all the competent and creative new Officers! I will be actively contributing to the Eradication of Poverty collaboration today via some local projects in our city for our underprivileged students and their families. Great work, Gay!
Jenny	Third attempt at posting! Please forgive any repetitive messages! I have been trying to congratulate our new officers on the wonderful job they are doing, as well as greet EVERYONE in our fabulous community! Today I will contribute locally to the important work Gay has notified us about.
Marion Carpenter	That's a great step forward, Gay! Our church contributes monthly to a food pantry in town for the poor, and yearly we hold a Renaissance Fair to give away children's books, as one part of it. We are also forming teams to help teach people how to grow a community garden & are providing land space & tools; providing activities for teens, & helping elders with Social Security & Medicare problems. Today I have contributed on my own, to add to our group force. It's a wonderful feeling to do so, & I congratulate all for being so willing to take part. Congratulations to all new officers who are doing so well already!
Andre Elliott	Doris, I visited the web site regarding the bookshare. Can our PDK chapter register and or benefit to enjoy the online books and other services? To all in our PDK family, I returned home tonight after enjoying the PDK global conference on education in Vancouver, Canada. I understand that beginning tomorrow, there will be a podcast at the PDK website featuring an interview with Alfie Kohn. If any of you have time, visit http://www.pdkintl.org to enjoy this podcast tomorrow.
Karine	Hello Everyone, I am happy to finally to be part of this meeting I hope all is well with everyone. I want to greet all all our members and officers. I'd like to say that I am working hard to restart our fund raising activities at my current school district in Henry County, updating our non profit information with Melaleuca and continuing our visibility at the up coming Residencies. I have just gotten the approval from the Henry county district office for this 2007-2008 school year so I can now begin the raffles of the baskets again this year. Mary will be sending me the updated information I have requested this week and I am making plans to be in Dallas for the next Residency to help Barb with all of the PDK functions we have planned. Please if you have any questions until I'm up and running do not hesitate to email me.

October 21 through the end of the meeting:

Name	Comment
Theran	Thanks to the officers for their dedication and commitment to our chapter. I would encourage our members to go to the meeting program, and engage the members in discussing training, development, and/or other topics that would help us do our "jobs" better. Let us learn from each other. There is a week left, let us open up and support each other in this great endeavor to be the best we can be, at what we do.
Theran	The discussions I was talking about is the "Share the Learning". To enter those discussions click on the Share the Learning Icon on the left navigation bar.
David Kenneth Waldman	The acknowledgement to the officers is well noted and appreciated but this message is to our members. An organization is the sum of our members involvement. The officers of this chapter of which I am one proudly serve you the member. Without your involvment and input our chapter is dimenished. As VP of Membership I get to see the intitial query for information to become a member. I am overwhelmed by the talent, intelligence and diversity of our members. Then there is silence and so many members do not tell us what they would want to see THEIR chapter do to make a difference in education. Think of our chapter as your conduit to making a difference. You have resources, international outreach and the ability with limited funding to contribute to making an increased education quality in the US and the developing world. You already paid your dues and this benefit of engage dozens and dozens of colleagues in a educational program or support of educational excellence is left open to you. What do you want to do. In this meeting we would love to hear your learning lessons and that sharing of knowledge is the first step in making a difference. I for one will move mountains to support your passion and get you ideas, and volunteerism in front of our chapter. Welcome to your chapter.
Julie Macker	Just wanted to take a minute and say hello to everyone. Hope everyone is enjoying the online format as much as I am. Kind of makes the whole online education experience more exciting and meaningful! Talk about initiating change!
Jarek	It is my pleasure to announce the latest edition of the Journal of Educational Practice for Social Change (JEPSC). I cannot thank enough all editors: Dr. Pease, Dr. Pullman, Dr. Simon and Dr. Sweeney for their hard work and dedication to make this project a success. Please take a look at the Current Issue: http://jepsc.org/
Doris	Hi Andre and everyone, The site is open for all to participate and certainly you/we can tell them we're members of PDK. You'll need to read the fine print as there are qualifiers to be able to download the books for use, but you can certainly volunteer to scan. Just think of the joy that would come from being able to "read" The New York Times, Harry Potter, or any other "current" piece of literature! Most often it takes months and even years for "current" items to be available on CD or cassette (old format).
Cassandra	I am interested in addressing some issues around proverty ad the educational system in urban areas. I believe these extra challenged student can be helped if we as educator know our audience and develop more professionally.
Dr. Arthur G. Ogden	Gay, you never disappoint. Your energy is contagious and I will support any of your efforts. It would certainly seem that with the resources with which God has blessed our Country we could help many others -- starting, I might add with the poor in our Country. Giving someone who is poor something to eat helps for the moment; but the real impetus, in my humble opinion, is to EDUCATE those on the poverty level. It will be, and always has been, EDUCATION which has broken the shackles of poverty. I remember Dr. Martin Luther King addressing a group of us as undergraduates (YES, I AM that old!) in this regard. We, as educators, and as Walden has always challenged us to be, must be agents of change. Keep up the GREAT work, Gay, and let us know how we can help you. Our technology and our natural resources MUST be made available to those who should also participate in the wealth that is America.