ITS Think Tank

2nd Crazy Week - Google Voice

2009-07-31T11:07:00.001-04:00

I just had my second crazy week as a CTO. The first week was when our email server went down. This time it was our phone system. On Monday, my office started the transition to a hosted VOIP phone system. We were expecting the phones to be unavailable for an hour or two. Turns out, it is more like a week.

While the phones were down, if you called the Technology or EC department you heard a message that the numbers had been disconnected. I didn’t like that, so I had the numbers forwarded to our Central Office. Our Central Office gets a ton of calls already, and our calls were slamming them. I had to figure out a different solution.

At this point I remembered I had a Google Voice account that I had never used. If anyone was with me when this happened, I think they would have been able to see a light bulb turn on above my head. I actually signed up for the service when it was called Grand Central. With a Google Voice account, you get a new local phone number, then you set that number to forward to a variety of numbers. For example, if I were to use Google Voice for my personal number when someone called it, Google Voice would ring my cell phone, home phone, and work phone. You can even customized what it will ring based on the caller id. If my mom called it would ring all of my numbers. If my mother in-law called it would go straight to voicemail.

Straight to voicemail is the feature I used this week. I had the EC and Technology numbers forwarded to my Google Voice account. I sent up a voicemail message explaining our phone situation and invited the caller to leave a message. Any they did. Every time a voicemail was left, I received an email with the option to listen to the message. I would listen to the message long enough to figure out who it was from and forward the email on. It worked perfectly.

My Summer Reading List

2009-06-11T21:49:00.000-04:00

I’ve been looking at a lot of lists out there and am working on getting my summer reading list going – the six below are the ones I want to read most!

Beyond Discipline by Alfie Kohn
Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton Christensen
The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson
Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson
Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Ken Robinson
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Here are two lists I found helpful:

What is on your summer reading list?

Technorati Tags: summer reading list education instructional technology reform creativity

Head Aches and Geek Things that Excite Me

2009-06-04T10:56:00.002-04:00

This has been a crazy week. It all started last Thursday afternoon. Our email system went offline because of a hard drive failure. I knew then it would not be up the next day. That is when my headache started. Saturday and Sunday, our email was sporadic, but I thought the worst was over. Monday morning rolls around, and our email is still down. My head ache returns.

By Tuesday, our email system has been moved to a new server but we were still having issues with outbound mail. Most of that was solved before the end of the day. Finally on Wednesday my headache subsided and I felt that I could show my face it public again.

By now it is quite obivous I have nothing to write about. So, I am just going to share some things that have excited me.

1. The Dell Latitude 2100 Education Netbook. I am not a big fan of netbooks for me personally, I prefer my laptop and iPod Touch. I see the benefits for education. Dell has released a special netbook for education. I want a set and it has been a long time since I have said “I want” and “dell” in the same sentence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvPb0nQEt_U

2. The Palm Pre. Our cell phones are on the Verizon network and I am not happy with the selection. BlackBerry is not an options. Saturday, June 5th, Palm is releasing their newest phone the Pre. It is only on Sprint, but Verizon already let the cat out of the bag and said they will be carrying the Pre in 6 months.

3. Apple’s WWDC. On June 8th, Apple will most likely be talking about the new iPhone. There have been rumors of it being available on Verizon, but I am not holding my breath. I am still excited to see what the updates are and when I can get them on my iPod Touch.

5. Twitter: I am a bipolar twitterer. Sometimes I love it and think it is great, other days it is just a distraction. Today I am liking it. I especially like this video out of UT Dallas. I would have loved a classroom like this growing up. I would never raise my hand or participate in a discussion in school, but I would have participated like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8

It is a good time to be a geek.

Reading on my iTouch

2009-06-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

I am really enjoying reading on my iTouch and I have to say that I was a “paperdork"(Aaron’s fabulous term) before I downloaded Stanza on my iTouch. Stanza is a free reader for your iTouch/iPhone. I’ve tried out many different free apps on my iTouch but Stanza for me is the best. The only thing I don’t love is that you can’t annotate text yet but I know many users have asked for that function.

I especially like that while in Stanza you can download ebooks right to your iTouch/iPhone with their Online Catalog. The Online Catalog links to many different online sites but by far my favorite has been Feedbooks.

Feedbooks is a universal e-reading platform compatible with all mobile devices where you can download thousands of free e-books, publish and share your own content, and create customized newspapers from RSS feeds and widgets.

One of the other great things (thanks Kim) to do with Stanza is to use ePub2Go to convert your PDFs. You simply go to the ePub2Go site and either upload or link to a PDF you want. Once you have uploaded your PDF and it has been converted you will get an option: “I'd like an e-mail sent to my iPhone so that I can download the book to Stanza.” Then you just open your email, click on the link, and the PDF is downloaded into Stanza.

Also don’t forget to check out some free manuals to add to your iTouch/iPhone using ePub2Go from http://the-manuals.com/.

Links:
Stanza - http://www.lexcycle.com/
Feedbooks - http://www.feedbooks.com/
ePub2Go - http://www.epub2go.com/
The Manuals - http://the-manuals.com/

Technorati Tags: ebooks,stanza,feedbooks,epub2go,itouch,iphone,ereader,instructional,technology

<-- Cross posted from http://katiechristo.edublogs.org -->

Videos to get them thinking and talking…

2009-05-25T21:59:00.000-04:00

Two great lists of videos were put out this past week and I just had to blog about them. Showing a variety of videos this year has been one way I’ve really gotten my teachers, administrators, and students to think and talk about new ideas in technology and education. The two lists below are great resources and I’m so thankful to Scott McLeod and Alec Couros for putting them out there!

Top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators

80+ Videos for Tech. and Media Literacy

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: videos,media,literacy,technology,education,tedtalks,instructional

Are you a “Green Educator”?

2009-05-22T23:20:00.000-04:00

There are some very interesting posts going on over at ISTEConnects. The first is a post by Wes Fryer Handouts at Educator PD Workshops. This post is near and dear to my heart as I’ve been trying for the last couple of years to move away from printing whenever possible!

The second post I wanted to mention was by Joe Corbett - Share your Tips on How to be a Green Educator. This post evolved from the responses to the one above and is collecting data on a Google Doc. If you have a second please go over and add your thoughts!

Image Attribution
Image: 'Soy distinto Â¿y quÃ©? / I'm different,+so+what?'
www.flickr.com/photos/8991878@N08/1592903964

Technorati Tags: green,education,workshops,handouts,tips,ideas

NECC 2009 and DC Capitol Hill Visits

2009-05-10T23:14:00.000-04:00

If you are going to NECC this year I strongly suggest going onto the NECC 2009 site and registering for any of the activities you want to go to. I went on this weekend and things are filling up fast! I really want to do the DC Capitol Hill Visits (only $25) but have a SIGILT meeting at the same time – going to see if I can do both. The DC Capitol Hill Visits sound awesome and I would encourage everyone to think strongly about doing them! Here is the blurb:

Join your NECC colleagues and Make Your Voice Heard on Capitol Hill! ISTE is taking advantage of NECC being in the nation's capital by providing you with the opportunity to go to the Hill and share your ideas and success stories with your Senators and Congressional Members.

A "Hill Visit" package includes:

Scheduled appointments to meet with congressional staff from your state. ISTE will arrange scheduled meetings for you to meet with staff for your congressional representative and senators. The number of appointments will depend on staff and space availability—a minimum of one and maximum of three appointments will be made for you.

"Boot Camp"—on-site NECC sessions that will prepare you for your congressional meetings to ensure that you are armed with talking points and are confident for your meetings.

Bus transportation to and from Capitol Hill (some walking will be required from the capitol bus stop to the congressional offices).

A ticket to the VIP Congressional Reception to be held the same evening at the Library of Congress.
FUN and a T-Shirt! Hill Visits are a lot of fun and a great way to meet colleagues. Each registrant will receive a T-Shirt to wear to their meetings to show ISTE's strength on the hill.

Hill Visit coordinators will contact you just prior to NECC with specific information about the exact time and location of your meetings.

Anyone else out there considering doing this?

Image Attribution
Image: 'United States Capitol'
www.flickr.com/photos/69567805@N00/3018986888

Technorati Tags: NECC,Capitol,Hill,DC,planning,education,technology

<-- Cross posted from http://katiechristo.edublogs.org -->

21st Century Schools

2009-05-07T13:36:00.001-04:00

If you read anything about education and technology, you will hear the term 21st century skills. 21st century schools are being built. Classrooms are being fitted with 21st century tools. But what does it really mean?

I recently found a great site by Apple called Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow-Today, or ACOT2. The site outlines what they believe to be the 6 design principals of the 21st century high schools and the answer is not just technology.

1. Understanding of 21st Century Skills and Outcomes. A survey of business leaders came up with a list of most desirable skills; including, work ethic, collaboration, social responsibility, and critical thinking. There is nothing ground breaking about this list. These traits are timeless. The survey also cited creativity and innovation as being increasingly important. Again, these are timeless and I am confused by using the word increasingly. Innovation, or yankee ingenuity, is as american as baseball and apple pie. Apple doesn't paint the picture of 21st century skills until you click the button to show more about 21st century skills. A link to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills breaks the skills down to Core Subjects; Learning and Innovation Skills; Information, Media and Technology Skills; and Life and Career Skills.

Nailing 21st century skills down is tough. Here is my best attempt at a definition that I could post on twitter.

The ability to find, evaluate, organize, and share information and apply information to collaboratively solve problems.

2. Relevant and Applied Curriculum. Curriculum is becoming less of WHAT content is taught and more of HOW the content is taught. Apple gives six key characteristics of curriculum for 21st Century Learning
1. Involves collaboration and community
2. Based on authenticity and relevance
3. Leverages real-world tools, resources, and methodologies
4. Incorporates a rich continuum of teacher and learning strategies
5. Grounded in rich content with a 21st century context
6. Creates linkages to the outside world

3. Informative Assessment. Taking a chapter test and getting a percentage grade was normal for me in school and even while I taught. It always signified the end of learning that particular topic. Informative assessment moves to make frequent assessments in order to ensure quality learning is taking place and the desired outcome is met. Similar to using a GPS in a car. Informative assessment can be made by students, teams of students, teachers, and the entire world.

4. Culture of Innovation and Creativity. You can't teach innovation and creativity. Schools must create a culture that embraces creativity for students and teachers.

5. Social and Emotion Connections with Students. Textbooks don't motivate students. Meaningful relationships with other students, teachers, and adults have a great impact on learning. Schools have to be a community and care about each student and believe every student has something to contribute.

6. Ubiquitous Access to Technology. Schools must allow students to use the tools needed to get the job done. Once a year I get annoyed at the North Carolina Writing Test. They now allow the students to use a computer, but forbids the use of spell check, a dictionary, or a thesaurus. All tools that writers, professional and amateur, use everyday.

Also posted on NC DEN.

YouTube Playlists

2009-05-06T23:44:00.000-04:00

I’ve found recently that one of the greatest tools for me is the YouTube Playlists. I’ve started making playlists of all the videos I use for different projects, trainings, and ones I just find fun! The playlists are a great way for me to keep everything organized and quickly find my “favorite” videos for any particular situation.

Here are some of my YouTube Playlists:

Advisory Videos http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5C6F8F69036B0356

Digital Storytelling http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=60469B44B5339F7C

Public Service Announcements http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2099C40BB5F641A3

Stop Motion Animation http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E80B3D6E5E96908E

Trainings – General http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3BC479598A375B43

Technorati Tags: instructional,technology,video,youtube,playlist,organization,education

Presentations now on Slideshare.net

2009-05-06T02:51:00.000-04:00

I finally had time this past weekend to work on getting some of my recent presentations up on http://slideshare.net! I’ve put all of my presentations under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License feel free to edit and use! I’ve also updated my When the Best is Free: Images presentation.

Teaching and Learning in the Conceptual Age 2008

View more presentations from Katie Christo.

Digital Storytelling 2009 (with YouTube videos) next next

Digital Storytelling 2009

View more presentations from Katie Christo.

Blogging 101

View more presentations from Katie Christo.

When the Best is Free: Images

View more presentations from Katie Christo.

Hope these are helpful!

Technorati Tags: presentation,instructional,technology,education,images,free,digital,storytelling,blogging,teaching,learning,conceptual,age,slideshare,download

Middle School Instructional Technology Handbook

2009-05-01T07:17:00.001-04:00

We are doubling the staff at our Middle School next year and my principal and I thought it would be a good idea to create a handbook we could give to new and returning teachers explaining how Instructional Technology works. I’ve been working on the handbook for the last couple of months and it is finally ready to go! I’ve found it a great exercise in really laying out what we are doing and where we are going next.

I’ve included the handbook as an attachment to this post (I’ve taken out the How-To section and any references to passwords). Feel free to use and adapt – hope this helps some of you out there!

MS Handbook

Technorati Tags: handbook,instructional,technology,middle,school,aup,standards

<---Cross posted from http://katiechristo.edublogs.org --->

I got elected!

2009-04-24T23:07:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to send a big thank you out to everyone who voted for me! I’m so excited to be elected to the ISTE SIGILT Board as a Member At-Large Officer. I can’t wait to get started at NECC this summer. Thank you again everyone!

Image Attribution

ISTE Logo – http://www.iste.org

Technorati Tags: sigilt,iste,elections,board,change

The Tipping Point

2009-04-20T23:24:00.000-04:00

I’ve been on break and then getting back in the swing of things last week. One of the great things about school breaks is the ability to get a lot of reading done! I just finished The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and it was wonderful. If you haven’t read it yet I seriously suggest it, especially if you are going to NECC this year as he is the Keynote speaker! I’m going to try and read Blink and Outliers before NECC. I can’t wait to hear him speak at NECC!

Technorati Tags: Malcolm,Gladwell,Tipping,Point,NECC

Whiteboard Stop Motion Animation

2009-04-18T23:08:00.000-04:00

I’ve been working with the 7th grade science class on their Evolution Movie project. Essentially the students had to pick an animal and show how it evolved. I introduced the project by showing students lots of examples of different movie styles they might want to use and by far the biggest hit was whiteboard stop motion animation.

Here are two examples I showed:

I wasn’t sure exactly how we were going to do it but through some trial and error we figured it out. Here is what we found works:

Students first created a storyboard of what their completed animation would look like.
Students then setup a camera on a tripod focused on the big whiteboard in the center of the room. Some students decided to use a smaller whiteboard that was the size of a laptop. This enabled those groups to rotate the entire board if needed – especially useful when the mammoth was hit by a boulder and did a 360.
Students drew on the whiteboard a box showing the areas the camera was picking up.
Students then drew within that area their animation. A lot of problem solving went into when to erase an area, how to move the camera to make the scene move, and what to add and when.
Students then added their pictures to WMM changing the duration of the pictures to .125 or .25 seconds. To do this go to Tools – Options – Advanced tab – Picture duration. Make sure to do this before adding your pictures to the storyboard.
Students then narrated their animation to explain how their animal evolved.

Students were so creative with this project. Groups had brown bears changing to white in the snow, people riding elephants, giraffes necks getting longer, etc. It was a great project and the tools and supplies you need are minimal. Really you just need cameras, tripods, whiteboards (some groups used the little whiteboards), and whiteboard pens.

I’ve done a lot of claymation projects in the past and I have to say that this whiteboard animation was a million times easier. The project also took a lot less time then claymation as there is hardly any prep that goes into getting ready to create the animation.

Technorati Tags: animation,whiteboard,stop motion,project,7th grade,evolution,movie

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

Sir Ken Robinson and Creativity

2009-03-26T00:15:00.000-04:00

I am part of a book club at my school and we are reading Mel Levine’s book A Mind at a Time. In one of our meeting the conversation evolved to discussing how we can best highlight student’s individual strengths. It was a great discussion.

Afterwards I was talking to one of the participants and we were discussing creativity. I mentioned to her the wonderful presentation Do School’s Kill Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson and suggested she watch it. As I was searching for the video to send to her I also found this great interview from the Guardian with Sir Ken Robinson from February of this year: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/feb/10/teaching-sats

The entire interview is a great read. In particular I found the following two quotes compelling:

Our approaches to education are "stifling some of the most important capacities that young people now need to make their way in the increasingly demanding world of the 21st century - the powers of creative thinking", he says.

He goes on to talk about the “element” (also the title of his new book The Element – which I can’t wait to read)

All of this prevents the next generation finding its "element". This is "the place where the things you love to do and the things you are good at come together". The "element" is essential to our wellbeing, our ultimate success and the effectiveness of our education system, he says.

I can only imagine what a school would be like where creativity and the ability for each student to find their “element” would be like… what a fabulous place. This is where education needs to go – this is what we should be striving for.

(Just in case you haven’t seen Do School’s Kill Creativity I’ve embedded the video below)

Technorati Tags: Sir Ken Robinson,Mel Levine,creativity,schools,reform,element

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

Middle School Library in Google SketchUp

2009-03-24T11:24:00.000-04:00

I made myself a promise that at some point I would take the time to learn Google SketchUp. Our Middle School is getting a new library next year and we needed to make a model to show teachers. It is not drawn to scale or any of the thousand other things I’m sure it needs to have – but I’m proud of it. Using the libraries of pre-created models was huge. Google SketchUp feels much easier to use than I was expecting, although there is a definite learning curve (make sure to give yourself time to learn it). I really like the ability to change the style of the sketch and to save different scenes and create an avi animation of your sketch – that way you don’t have to worry about messing up your zooming in a presentation!

--- Cross posted from http://katiechristo.edublogs.org ---

Technorati Tags: sketchup,google,library,diagram

3rd Grade ESL Students and Scratch

2009-03-17T23:13:00.000-04:00

I work in the Middle School now but I started as an Elementary teacher and getting the chance to work with Elementary students is always such fun for me. We recently did a project with the 3rd grade ESL students at our school that was fabulous. The students were working on a thematic project of Following Directions. This is especially difficult for ESL students as not only are they learning a concept but also a new language (we had ESL beginners and intermediates). I got the opportunity to work with the students for an hour and a half block in one of our computer labs.

I introduced Scratch to them (on a carpeted area in the middle of the computer lab) and asked them - How do you give computers directions? We had a great quick discussion and a couple of the students had even used Scratch before. Programming and directions all came out in the conversation and game designers and how they worked! I then asked the students – How do you learn how to do something new on a computer? Students talked about how they played with something to learn it. I think this is so huge. We don’t take advantage enough of our students ability to just jump in and try something.

I showed students how to do some basics and then sent them to their computers. Students were encouraged to play with the program for the next 15 minutes or so. I then brought students back to the carpeted area and we talked about what they had learned so far. I showed them a little bit more and sent them on their way again for 15-20 minutes. By this point students were so engaged in what they were doing. As questions arose that they whole group wanted to know we kept coming back and having discussions and mini how-tos that were directly related to what they wanted to know. At the very end I reserved the last 20 minutes to show them the games and how to edit them. The last 5 minutes we came together again and had a closing discussion about what they had learned, giving directions, and (most importantly to them) how to download Scratch.

It was just one of those special moments – the kids loved Scratch, had so much fun and learned so much in the process. I’d love to hear your experiences with Scratch!

Image Attributions
Image: 'head scratch'
www.flickr.com/photos/92518741@N00/39300193
Image: Scratch Logo
http://scratch.mit.edu/

Technorati Tags: Scratch,ESL,Projects,3rd

I'm a Candidate for the Member At-Large Officer Seat for the SIGILT Board!

2009-03-15T05:29:00.002-04:00

Exciting news! I'm on the ballot for the Member At-Large Officer seat on the ISTE Special Interest Group Innovative Learning Technologies (SIGILT) Board! This is a seat I’d love to have the opportunity to fill. Voting is from now until April 10^th and is open to all ISTE members.

If you are an ISTE member you can vote here: https://www.iste.org/inhouse/membership/sigs/sigilt/elections/2009/index.cfm you will need to login to the ISTE site to view the page. On the page you will find my answers to the guiding questions and my resume. Please also remember to vote in the general ISTE Board Elections here.

Please read below to find out more about ISTE, the SIGILT, and SIGILT elections.

What is ISTE? “The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is the trusted source for professional development, knowledge generation, advocacy, and leadership for innovation. A nonprofit membership organization, ISTE provides leadership and service to improve teaching, learning, and school leadership by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education. Home of the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), the Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology (CARET), and the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), ISTE represents more than 85,000 professionals worldwide. We support our members with information, networking opportunities, and guidance as they face the challenge of transforming education.”

What is the SIGILT? “SIGILT (Special Interest Group Innovative Learning Technologies) provides a venue for pioneering educators to explore promising new learning technologies and innovative practices. Learn how to implement and sustain innovation in classrooms and schools.”

2009 SIGILT Officers Election Ballot: Vote March 10–April 10 https://www.iste.org/inhouse/membership/sigs/sigilt/elections/2009/index.cfm “All of the candidates for each open SIGILT Officer seat are listed below. To vote, click in the box next to the candidate's name. Vote for only one candidate for each open position unless otherwise indicated. SIG Officers serve as critical stakeholders in helping to guide and shape strategic direction for education technology. Voting in SIG elections is important and ensures that effective leaders are selected to represent your interest group. Please take this opportunity to participate in your SIG's election process.

Image Attribution

ISTE Logo – http://www.iste.org

Image: 'Seat at the meeting'
www.flickr.com/photos/11922859@N00/175654360

Technorati Tags: sigilt,iste,elections,board,change

Presentations 101

2009-03-13T00:49:00.000-04:00

I've been giving the below presentation to many of my teachers and students. Showing them new ways to give presentations that stress that the most important part of the presentation - what you are saying and not the slides behind you. It has been well received and presentations at our middle and high school are changing! Here are my resources and the description for the presentation!

Presentations 101 - Presentations are changing. We know more now about how to give good presentations and engage our audiences. Presentations should no longer just be about "presenting" - to truly engage your audience you must become a "storyteller". The way you design your presentation can help you make this transition. Come and learn how to use PowerPoint in ways you may never have even thought of. http://katiechristo.pbwiki.com/Presentations-101

Image Attribution
Images combined in Picasa 3
Screenshots from some of my favorite resources from the presentation
Rivers: A 3-minute story of mixed emoticons – YouTube
The Girl Effect - YouTube
Meet Henry – SlideShare
Thirst – SlideShare
Becoming Presentation Zen – SlideShare
How to Create a Great PowerPoint – Take 2.0
flickrCC
TedTalks

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

Obama's Remarks on Education

2009-03-12T11:07:00.002-04:00

When I first started blogging, every post I made was on something I thought was wrong with education. I thought that is what you are supposed to do. Most of the blogs I followed did the same. I got sick of hearing them complain and I got sick of complaining. I now try to be positive and offer solutions. The big education news this week in Obama's Education speech. I am hesitant about blogging a political speech and figure. But I have decided to go forward and, hopefully, will keep it positive. Obama's words are in italics and my own words are in bold.

You can read President Obama's full speech at The Wall Street Journal. I am going to outline his major points and share my thoughts.

1. Cut wasteful education programs: The main idea here is to keep what works, cut what doesn't work, which will free up resources for investing in early childhood education.

2. Invest in early education programs: The plan is to invest $5 billion in growing Early Head Start and Head Start, expanding access to quality child care, and doing more for children with special needs. That part that excited me was his challenge to the states. "Develop a cutting edge plan to raise the quality of your early learning programs...If you do, we will support you with an Early Learning Challenge Grant." I feel the success of our county is due to our innovation. I think the same is true for education. I'm glad a cookie cutter program wasn't installed, but states can be innovative and get rewarded for it.

3. Adopt world-class standards: Adopting the standards will bring our curriculum's into the 21st century. Obama specifically calls "on our nation's Governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble sheet on a test, but whether they possess 21 century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, entrepreneurship and creativity." I would love to see multiple choice tests be replaced with a more meaningful assessment. I was hoping to hear a little more about technology in this part of the speech. I also think we need to a clear definition of 21st century skills. Problem-solving, critical thinking, entrepreneurship, and creativity aren't new skills for this century. What we are (or should) be using and how to teach them are the 21st skills.

4. Provide teachers and principals with information they need to make sure students are prepared to meet those standards. The main point of this section is about data systems that keep track of a student's education from childhood to college. In my experience, I have gotten lots of data and stats. Some of it has been very detailed on how individual studnets preformed on End of Grade type tests, including standard deviation. To me, what has always been missing is someone that take all that data and make it simple to understand and useful to the teachers.

5. Recruit, prepare, and reward outstanding teachers: A lot of this section is about teacher pay and merit pay, which are always hot topics. The major points included, "offering extra to pay Americans who teach math and science to end a teacher shortage in those subjects." Also, "treating teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them accountable." And the big one, "Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools." Using logic and Econ 101, I understand the supply and demand of paying Math and Science teachers more. I have no idea, how it would go over in a school. Treating teachers like professionals is important to me, but I am not willing to put the blame on administrators alone. If you want to be treated like a professional, you have to act like a professional. Without getting on my personal soapbox, I think it is important for teachers to dress the part. I would also support merit pay, IF someone could find a way to make it fair. From what I have observed, the better teachers are asked or volunteered to take on more responsibilities. Instead of pay being tied to achievement, I'd love to see teachers get paid for the extra responsibilities they take on.

6.Promote innovation and excellence in America's schools: This is mainly focused on expanding charter schools, but I feel technology can have the greatest impact here.

7. Change the academic calendar. Obama says, "we can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of the each day...rethink the school day to incorporate more time - whether during the summer or through expanded day programs for children who need it." I like the idea of expanded day programs, but they have to be special. I don't feel more math from the textbook is going to help. I'd love to see expanded day programs, where students can participate in the arts and in technology. It just has to be engaging, not more of the same. I am also in favor of year round schooling. I wouldn't mind seeing the summer cut from two months down to one month, as long as there were some increased days off during the school year. Any teacher will tell you, it is a long and grueling time between Christmas and spring break. Teachers and students, need sometime apart to refresh.

8. Students take responsibility for their own education. "America cannot succeed unless our students take responsibility for their own education. That means showing up for school on time, paying attention in class, seeking out extra tutoring if it's needed, and staying out of trouble." I always wonder if this is a chicken or egg situation. Are students becoming less responsible or a schools becoming less engaging. I feel students who get to use a iPod touch or laptop to learn everyday is correlated to their level of responsibility.

9. Provide every American with a quality higher education. Two quotes jumped out at me, "Never has a college degree been more important" and "simplify federal college assistance forms so it doesn't take a PhD to apply for financial aid." To me college means a four year degree, but I don't think that is the case anymore. North Carolina's community colleges offer so many options and many are in vocational fields. I feel every student is college material, just not in the sense it was once defined. I am almost always in favor simplifying things. To make the complex simple, takes a tremendous amount of creativity.

10. Learning does not end in our early 20's. Obama calls on the schools and colleges to "improve access to job training not only for young people who are just starting their careers, but for older workers who need new skills to change careers." This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. Nothing ages so quickly as yesterday's vision of the future. Richard Corliss

Teacher Showcasing Moves us Forward

2009-03-10T23:50:00.000-04:00

My 2009 Goal #6 was: “I will showcase the ways my teachers are using technology to enhance their teaching and their students’ learning”. Last week I had the opportunity to do another Teacher Showcase at our Curriculum Meeting. This is the third one I’ve done this year and they are so powerful.

Getting the teachers up and sharing the technology projects they have been working on and showing what the students are creating is huge. If you have the chance to do this or to encourage others to do it – Please do it! Teachers comment on how much they enjoy it and how amazed they are to see the fabulous work our Middle School students are creating.

This meeting we showcased two projects from our Art teacher - (1) a PhotoStory he created on Rembrandt’s Self Portraits complete with period music to introduce Self Portraits to his classes and (2) the amazing photographs his students took and enhanced in PhotoShop. Many of the photographs he showed were better than many in a professional exhibit we had seen recently.

We also showcased a fabulous Jeopardy game our Spanish teacher created for use with her students. We even played some of the game and had a teacher who was able to figure out the Final Jeopardy question – great fun and the teachers could see the power of using this in their own classrooms.

Image Attribution

Image: 'Our Direction'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68634595@N00/116220689

Image: 'M8 educating himself.'
www.flickr.com/photos/26612555@N07/3194890553

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

Authors@Google: John Palfrey

2009-03-09T11:02:00.000-04:00

If you haven’t seen this talk that John Palfrey did at Google you are missing out! I thought it was an excellent, quick overview of his book, and some great questions from the Google staff.

Enjoy!

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

Sunday Morning Learning

2009-03-06T01:51:00.001-05:00

I’ve so enjoyed watching the Classroom 2.0 Live and Future of Education events. Being in India it is difficult to participate live but it has now become a Sunday morning ritual to download the latest session and watch it with my morning coffee. If you are like me and can’t make the live events you can still watch the entire Elluminate sessions. I like to download the Recording (full) so that I can follow along with the chat also. It is almost as good as being there! It’s nice that you can pause and take notes, check out websites, or um start to write a blog post about it!

Classroom 2.0 Live events are archived and available at http://live.classroom20.com/archive.html.

Future of Education Interview Series are all archived and available from the Future of Education Ning. You can use the search to find past sessions. Also, once you join the Ning you will receive emails about events and you can use those links to find the archive.

Ted Talks is another of my favorite sites for a Sunday morning the talks are on a variety of issues and are fascinating! Ted Talks: Ideas Worth Spreading

Image Attribution
Image: 'Elementary love'
www.flickr.com/photos/10997674@N07/2339258030

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

PowerPoint, Logic Puzzles, and Differentiated Instruction

2009-03-03T22:39:00.001-05:00

One of my teachers is doing some pretty cool things with PowerPoint. She is the 8th grade Science and Math teacher at our school. Everyday she puts up the daily agenda including homework on a PowerPoint slide and then projects it at the beginning of class. As class goes along she tweaks the slide so that it reflects how far they got in the lesson. She keeps a PowerPoint file for every month and can easily go back and see what her class did on any particular day. It also makes it very easy to give students assignments that they might have missed when they were absent.

This teacher is one of those great teachers who is constantly learning and pushing her boundaries. She came to me the other day with a question about how she could use technology to help her with the logic puzzles she is giving her class. She is hoping to demonstrate to the students how we each learn differently and help them determine what way they learn best. She wanted to have the students only read the logic puzzles the first week. Then the students would only hear the logic puzzle being read to them the second week. The third week the students would read and hear the logic puzzles. She needed help figuring out how to record the logic puzzles for the second and third weeks.

What we decided to do was take a screenshot of the logic puzzle from the website. We then made the puzzle the entire size of a PowerPoint slide. We then went to the Slideshow tab (in MS PowerPoint 2007) and used the Record Narration to record her reading the instructions. We then simply used white boxes to cover two areas of the screenshot. We had one covering the instructions – this won’t be shown the second week and one covering the answer. We used Custom Animations to make everything come in on a mouse click. It worked beautifully. She is recording more of them now and will soon have a PowerPoint file with a ton of logic puzzles all ready to go that she can use year after year. Let me know if you need clearer directions for doing this yourself!

Anyone else have cool ways of using PowerPoint?

Great Logic Puzzle Sites
Brain Boosters - http://school.discoveryeducation.com/brainboosters/
Braingle - http://www.braingle.com/

Image Attribution
Image: 'thinking red,green and black'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74418275@N00/90648278

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

JeopardyLabs and Quia Shared Activities

2009-02-28T21:08:00.002-05:00

I just had to share these great sites. One of the trainings that always seems to be a big draw and gets participants really excited is Games In Education. This year I was lucky enough to read about JeopardyLabs just in time for the training. JeopardyLabs allows you to quickly create a Jeopardy game. All a teacher needs to do is go to the site, create a password, fill in the template, save, and write down (or delicious) the page that comes up. The most important step of the process is being sure to get down the last page with the link to play the game and the link to edit the game. I used this site the last two weeks with my teachers and they are creating great games.

Also, if you haven’t checked out Quia Shared Activities it is another great site. You can find a plethora of games that have already been created (Challenge Board is Jeopardy and Rags to Riches is Who Wants to be a Millionaire). Quia is a great place to also find questions even if you are creating your own JeopardyLabs game.

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

NASA Do It Yourself Podcasts

2009-02-23T16:11:00.001-05:00

If you ever wanted to interview an astronaut, you need to check out NASA Do It Yourself Podcasts.

NASA is providing video and audio clips and encouraging students to remix their own podcasts. Right now, students can create podcasts on Lab Safety, Newton's Laws, and Spacesuits.

NASA also publishes a blog devoted to these podcasts.

Networked Student Video

2009-02-19T03:11:00.001-05:00

This is a great video created in the style of the Common Craft's Explainations In Plain English series.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA

cross posted from: http://katiechristo.edublogs.org

Cyberbullying Videos

2009-02-15T01:59:00.001-05:00

This past week I was helping our Middle School Guidance Counselor create a CyberBullying presentation. She did a great job. We found some excellent videos to use also and I wanted to share them with you! Here are some of my favorites!

Cross posted from: http://katiechristo.edublogs.org/2009/02/15/cyberbullying/

Valentine's Day or Chocolate

2009-02-12T08:37:00.000-05:00

Being a computer nerd, Valentine's day was never one of my favorite holidays. Now that I am married with kids it is starting to grow on me. For the record, I ordered their presents from amazon on my iPod Touch.

This week would be perfect to have a Valentine's day post, but I am not going to do it. Instead I am going to write about Chocolate.

On Hershey's Making Chocolate site you will find a video tour of the chocolate making process and they also have a print version. I have been lucky enough to see the tour live in Hershey PA, thanks Mom.

Search for "chocolate" on Discovery Streaming and you can find...
24 full videos
50 video segments
17 articles
6 images
2 quizzes
2 songs
2 writing prompts

Still need more ideas, check out Mrs. McGowan's site for Chocolate Integration Tips. Be sure to check out the Name the Candy Bar Quiz.

Special thanks to Donna Rudisill (an awesome tech facilitator in Catawba County) for this post.

Picture Citation
Chocolate. Jupiterimages Corporation. 2006.
Discovery Education. 9 February 2009

Blogo Test Post

2009-02-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

I am trying out some new blogging software. Ignore this post.

Update: Now trying to remotely update

Abraham Linclon

2009-02-09T11:58:00.002-05:00

"I view [education] as the most important subject which we as people can be engaged in."

--Abraham Lincoln

February 12th will mark Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. On lincolnbicentennial.gov, you can find out about the plans for celebrations all over the country. I didn't see any celebration planned in North Carolina, but that doesn't mean you can't have a celebration in your classroom. On this site, you can find lesson plans, an Honest Abe Quiz, coloring pages, podcast, and a whole lot more.

If you subscribe to Discovery Streaming you have access to...

47 full videos
115 video segments
40 images (including the one in this post)
5 writing prompts
1 song

If you still need more, check out these sites.

Whitehouse.gov Biography Here you will find a quick biography of Lincoln.

Lincoln / net Here you will find historical materials from Lincoln's years in Illinois (1830-1861). Included are Lincoln's writings and speeches.

Library of Congress Here you will find over 20,000 documents. There are special sections for the Emancipation Proclamation and his Assassination.

Picture Citation

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States. IRC. 2005.
Discovery Education. 9 February 2009

When the Best is Free: Images

2009-01-31T13:10:00.002-05:00

Last week I did my When the Best is Free: Images training for my staff. The training focuses on where to find the best copy"right" photos, images, and clip art. I also discuss some great primary source images and how to use them in your classroom. Participants were also given time to explore the websites.

Interestingly enough the big hit was how to get clip art from Microsoft online, download it, find it in My Pictures, and edit it. I've added directions on how to do this to my wiki.

All of the resources are also available on my wiki here.

I've uploaded the presentation to slideshare here.

Have a great weekend!

<---Cross post from Katie Christo's Edublogs site--->

I need your help!

2009-01-09T00:31:00.002-05:00

My K-12 school is looking for ideas for next year for hosting blogs, wikis, eportfolios, forums, etc. I would really appreciate your feedback on my quick What do you use for Web 2.0 applications in your district/school? survey. The survey is here: http://tinyurl.com/7yl9ph

Thanks in advance!

Katie

Update:

The survey is going great - getting lots of responses! Thank you to everyone who is participating - the information is great! I will still be collecting responses through the end of next week. The survey is here:http://tinyurl.com/7yl9ph and the responses are here:http://tinyurl.com/7dxj9x

Make-a-Flake

2008-12-11T10:55:00.005-05:00

My daughter loves cutting paper. One day, I showed her how to make snowflakes. She had a ball. My daughter hates cleaning up. I cannot begin to tell you how much little snips of paper were on the floor.

Luckily, my daughter also loves to "work" on the computer. Next time she wants to make snowflakes, I am sending her to Make-a-Flake.

http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/

Make-a-flake is a snow flake maker by Barkely Interactive. This flash games folds the paper and gives you a virtual pair of scissors. Snip away at your paper and you have a snow flake. There is a preview option and even an undo button.

After you have perfected your snowflake, you can save it to their gallery, email it to a friend, or save it to your computer. When saving it you have two options, .jpg or .eps. The .eps file can be opened and manipulated in PhotoShop or Illustrator.

The best part, no clean up!

LIFE Pictures Available on Google

2008-11-19T09:02:00.002-05:00

Babe Ruth

Google partnered with LIFE and is now in the process of digitizing their photos. Some of these photos date back to the 1750's. Odds are you won't recognize most of the pictures as they were never published. Right now, only 20 percent of the collection is availabe. Over the next few months the entire archive will be online. That is 10 million photos.

LIFE photo archive

Google's blog post

Where the Wild Things Are

2008-11-17T10:28:00.001-05:00

In 1963 Maurice Sendak published Where the Wild Things Are. A story of Max, who is sent to his room without supper. In his room, Max’s imagination takes over and he journeys to the land of the Wild Things. It has been a beloved children’s book ever since.

Discovery Education Streaming has the Where the Wild Things Are video. The video is just over 7 minutes long and a teachers guide is also available. Both the book and the video are appropriate for grades K -2.

After showing the video or reading the book, take you kids to buildyourwildself.com to, well, build your wild self. I turned myself into a Gaz-ossa-rusa-frog that likes to play guitar. The site was created by the New York Zoos and Aquarium. Students will have a great time creating themselves into a monster. Since they are using parts from an actual animal, it is easy to bring in science into the lesson. Talking about the places the animals live brings in social studies. Math can be integrated by sorting the monsters. Fans of the Madagascar movies may enjoy that the site was recently updated with Madagascar parts. Don’t worry if you don’t recognize the animals, there is a short explanation at the end. Buildyourwildself.com allows you to save, print, and send your wild self to a friend.

Map of Future Forces Affecting Education

2008-09-30T22:54:00.004-04:00

KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the Institute for the Future have a very cool interactive map of the trends that will shape the future of education. You can click the Go to the map to explore an interactive map or you can download a printable version. Be sure to read the legend at the bottom to understand how the map works. Spend some time clicking around - it is fascinating!
http://www.kwfdn.org/map/
They will be coming out with a 2009 Education Map in January!

Apple Youth Workshops

2008-09-09T10:11:00.005-04:00

Apple Youth Workshops are free hands-on workshops for families to learn how to compose a song, produce a movie, create a photo album, or make a presentation. The workshops are held at Apple retail store locations.

Currently, registration is open for the September JAM and October ACTION workshops. For more information, including dates, times, and registration information, visit http://www.apple.com/retail/youthworkshops/

The Collaboration Cycle

2008-08-30T10:50:00.003-04:00

I just read a fabulous post with an amazingly great resource... the Collaboration Cycle is one of the better ways I've ever seen to explain our role as Instructional Technology Facilitators to teachers and staff at a school. I love that it is a cycle... here is the original post: http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2008/08/28/going-full-circle/
Enjoy!

Wordle in 6th Grade Humanitites

2008-08-26T09:05:00.005-04:00

In our middle school we have a Humanities class (SS and LA combined) at each grade. These teachers are doing some really fabulous projects. One of the ones is the use of Wordle to help students explain the 6 Big Ideas of History - Science and Technology, Government, Culture, Geography, Belief Systems, and Economics. The products completed by the students were printed and put on a bulletin board and will be used throughout the year for them to reference as they study any event in history.

The Process:

Students had to brainstorm 20 different terms/keywords that were associated with their Idea. They then prioritized those ideas by which were the most important in describing their Idea. Next, the students typed their keywords into Word (spellchecking was needed) - they would type the most important terms multiple times (Wordle uses the frequency of a word to determine it's size in the final presentation), so "ScienceandTechnology" (all one word) was typed 5 times while a lesser term to describe it say "computers" was only typed 3 times. Each word needed to be separated with a space. The students then copied and pasted their text into Wordle and adjusted the design/colors to suit their tastes and then published their work! We were able to print them off and the students also pasted the url of their published work into their class forum so that everyone could see and comment on them.

Conducting Interviews via Videoconferencing

2008-08-20T22:32:00.005-04:00

As many of you by now have figured out I have relocated to Chennai, India. I am working in the American International School here! In the past week we (my husband and I) attended a fabulous presentation for the Madras Day titled the Sea Story, "A special play/performance by the members of Nochikuppam seafishing community, facilitated by the World Storytelling Institute." It was hosted by Eric Miller, Director of the World Storytelling Institute (Chennai). He was nice enough to share a fabulous article he wrote for the education newsletter of the American Folklore Society. This article has great tips for how to conduct interviews via videoconferencing - take a read! http://www.afsnet.org/sections/education/Spring2008/Feature.html

And thanks again to Eric for sharing!

Great Blog Post with Free Resources for Regular and Special Education

2008-08-13T04:18:00.003-04:00

Many of these are resources I use regularily. Some of them I've never heard of. This is truly an amazing list and much thanks to Paul Hamilton for posting it!
http://paulhami.edublogs.org/productivity/

Plagerism Videos from Rutgers University

2008-08-08T04:23:00.002-04:00

Rutgers University has a great group of 3 videos explaining Plagerism. While they are geared for university level I can see applications at Middle and High School level.
http://library.camden.rutgers.edu/EducationalModule/Plagiarism/

Enjoy!

Summer Hiatus Over

2008-08-05T12:43:00.002-04:00

Well, I got so involved as virtual attendee at NECC '08 the end of June, I just stopped posting. And well...then I got so involved having the month of July off, I just couldn't leave the pool to turn on a computer for anything other that minimal email and staying connected with family and friends.
But I am back at work and ready to start back in. I've heard from Katie, Donna and Aaron and they are all getting up and going with new jobs. I hope we can make a go of maintaining the "Think Tank".
I'll be back when I've got some new things to add.

NECC2008 Ning Community

2008-06-28T08:29:00.003-04:00

I'm up this morning and gleening resources from the NECC2008 Ning Community. I have joined the groups: del.icio.us and Diigo bookmark sharing at NECC2008, Virtual NECCers, and Digital Storytellers.

The Digital Storytellers have shared several sites in the discussion already. I've now got to take the time to investigate those. I am looking forward to watching their digital storytelling wiki to see what develops.

I have found lots of people to add to my del.icio.us and Diigo networks and follow. I've added feeds to this blog for del.icio.us bookmarks tagged digitalstorytelling and NECC08.

The Ning community has been a great place to start my virtual attendance at the conference. I can tell already that I will be in overload soon and need to figure out how to manage, evaluate and utilize all the information (but that is always the case).

Now I"m "headed" to see what the EduBloggerCon has to offer virtually.

Huuummmm...I must remember that I'm Eastern time and San Antonio is Central (Thanks Donna for the reminder)

Virtual Attendee at NECC08

2008-06-27T11:12:00.003-04:00

I'm multi-tasking again. Mainly trying to figure out ways to effectively attend NECC 2008 virtually.
Here are just a few ways I've found.
1. Summize - and search the tag NECC to search Twitter for twit posts on NECC. You can also get an RSS feed for the search.
2. Join the Ning NECC Network and join a group or groups that interest you. Be a part on the online community.
3. Check out ISTE Island in Second Life - events here http://secondlife.iste.wikispaces.net/
4. Do a Google Blogs search for these tags - necc, necc08, necc2008.
5. Do a TwitterScan for necc, necco8, necc2008
6. Check out NECClive wiki
7. Check out EdStreamTV wiki "Your TV Guide for NECC 2008"
8. ISTE has the sessions and events that will be available as Podcasts and you can follow Apple's official NECC podcast channel.
9. ISTE also has video-on-demand sessions and events.

Not as good as being there but.....

World's Best Presentation Contest

2008-06-27T11:04:00.000-04:00

SlideShare.net is putting on the World's Best Contest Presentation 2008. You could win a MacBook Air, Amazon Kindle, iPod Nano or Touch, or Garr Reynolds book Presentation Zen. I plan on entering, just as soon I some thing inspires me.

| View | Upload your own

Tips for Conference Bloggers

2008-06-24T14:01:00.004-04:00

I came across the e-book, Tips For Conference Bloggers, the other day. I printed it out and finally got around to reading it. I really wish I could put these tips to use at NECC, but I will be at home. I am making plans to attend NECC 09 in DC.

The 6 page book broke the tips down into 15 sections, including Tools, location, prep, style, quotes, context, audience, linking, taging, and several others. I am going to hit the tips that spoke to me.

Location
Don't sit in the front row, as you may distract others. Sit on the side or in the back. IMO, the best tip is to sit near the power outlets. I would also like to add, don't sit close to the outlet that the presenter is using. I once knocked the lcd projector out of the socket, David Warlick's to be exact. Not my best moment.

Preparation
Start the post before hand. I don't know why I never thought of this. I always started with good intentions of blogging a conference, but I never seem to follow through. Google the presenter or check the conference website for some info. Depending on what blog platform you use, it is possible to save this is a draft. Next conference I go to, I hope to have my first paragraph written, even before I arrive.

Style
Spelling and syntax matter.

Quotes
If you are quoting the speaker, make sure you got the exact quote.

Audience and Context
Remember you are blogging for yourself and those who read your blog. Also, assume the it will be read by those who were not at the conference. If they show a youtube video, mention it and try to embed it.

Linking
Link all there is to link. This includes, speaker's homepage, speaker's organization page, speaker's blog, speaker's books/videos, and other relevant posts or pictures. I use a program called Texter on my PC. It allows you to type an abbreaviaton and it replaces it with a phrase. For example, I type "linknecc" and press enter, then "a href="http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2008/">NECC" appears, which when published is just the link (ie NECC). Similar programs are available on the Mac. TextExpander (about $30) and RapidoWrite (free)

Tagging
Tag every post with all relevant tags, starting with the conference name and the speakers name.

Change is in the air

2008-06-23T09:41:00.003-04:00

This blog was begun in December of 2005 by Katie after we had attended a NCETC conference. She invited Aaron to join in, Donna was next and eventually I joined. They have done a great job maintaining the momentum.
We all have worked in the same school district and have had an incredible journey exploring, collaborating, and sharing within our district and in the greater edtech world. We have all been transformed in ways that are only partially documented in this blog.
Change is in the air. We won't all be in the same geographical location anymore. In fact we won't even be on the same continent. We have all committed to maintaining this blog (I'll have to start pulling my weight here at the original local) and have disscussed starting a podcast. While I will miss my coworkers, I am excited about the possibilities. The ability to maintain professional and personal relationships with people I admire and love across physical distance will add another dimension to our understanding of and ability to harness this vast new world.

Tablefy

2008-06-17T13:45:00.002-04:00

I came across this site while reading lifehacker. Tablefy is a site where you can create a table to compare any number of items. I just gave a presentation on iPods and was looking for an easy way to compare them. Too bad I didn't know about this.

I ran through it quickly. It is simple and was a breeze to do. Beside just adding text, you can give a url of an image. Tablefy will automatically create a thumbnail for you. It is also possible to add a youtube video, among other media.

The site also allows you to save your own tables to edit later. You can also search for other comparisons and leave comments. I can see great uses in education, like comparing characters, geometric shapes, and plants and animals.

go to the table!

The best part, you can embedded in your own wiki or website. There is an also an option to keep your table private, if you don't share well.

SlideShare

2008-06-16T10:37:00.003-04:00

From Katie's post, you know we just finished up our Summer Tech Conference. I would have to echo Katie's sediments, it was wonderful. On our wiki this year, we decided to post our PowerPoint presentations. We also did this last year by saving the presentation as jpegs and uploading them to Picasa web albums. We could then embed them as a slideshow.

This year I decided to give SlideShare and Scribd a chance. Both sites allow you to upload PowerPoint files, along with PDF and some open office file formats. Scribd adds support for Word and Excel too. I uploaded my presentation ppt file to both sites. I used a non standard font and both sites changed my font to standard font, not what I wanted. Since both sites allow PDF uploads, I used CutePDF to save my presentation as a pdf file. I once again uploaded them to both sites. Slideshare worked perfectly, but Scribd never took my pdf.

Needless to say, I have become a fan of SlideShare. Even more so, when they featured my presentation on their homepage.

| View | Upload your own

Quote

2008-06-16T09:30:00.001-04:00

I was cleaning out my desk and found this quote on a post-it note.

"Smart no longer means knowing information. It is more about knowing how to find the information you don't know."

I think is sums up the 21st century skills we are trying to teach.

Summer Tech Conference '08

2008-06-12T11:31:00.006-04:00

We just finished our BCPS Summer Tech Conference '08! It was fabulous. We had a huge response and doubled our numbers from last year. Participants also enjoyed the conference and we have received great feedback that we will be posting on the wiki soon. To see what we did and get resources from our sessions go to the wiki! http://stc08.wiki.burke.k12.nc.us/

Posting from Word 2007

2008-05-30T09:25:00.001-04:00

Just learning how to publish to blogger from Word 2007. A coworker blogged it originally and send the link.

http://web2.burke.k12.nc.us/blogs/ndenton/2008/05/27/neat-trick/

Into The Book

2008-05-15T10:37:00.000-04:00

Check out this interactive site about reading comprehension strategies:

Into the Book: Wisconsin Educational Communications Board
http://reading.ecb.org

Explore eight reading strategies for K-4 students and teachers in this
interactive and in-depth reading comprehension site:• Make meaningful
connections to climb to the summit of the Mountain of Understanding • Summarize
the thrilling life of a talkative pirate • Evaluate books to successfully
explore a distant solar system • Infer the real news in letters from pen pals •
And much more!

Students can watch online videos, play learning games and interactives,
and share their creations with friends and family. Teachers can delve into rich
information and teaching resources, lesson plans, video and audio clips,
downloads, and more.

Both the student and teacher sections of this site allow unique log-ins (that don't require any sort of registration or email address) so users can access prior work within the site.

The student section is very interactive and includes tasks for each comprehension strategy. The teacher section includes lesson plans, short videos, pdf posters, and even songs.

I was very impressed with this resource! Check it out!

Going to the Moon.

2008-05-14T10:31:00.001-04:00

Think your students might want to go to the moon? Well, they can! Or at least their names can!

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO spaceship) will be taking an exploration journey in preparation for NASA's return to the moon.

You can add your name to a database that will be placed on a microchip to be embedded into the spacecraft. Visit http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php to add your name (and print a certificate, if you wish).

I've added my name!

The LRO website has lots of information and resources to share with your students.
http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/

SMARTen Up!

2008-05-13T10:25:00.003-04:00

An interactive whiteboard allows you to "drive" your computer from touching the board, rather than from behind your computer. When I was teaching third grade, I wrote a grant and had a SMART Board in my classroom. It truly changed the way I taught. Having the board (and a projector) in my room encouraged student engagement in the lessons. It provided a chance to reach different learning styles, including my kinesthetic learners, who could interact with an activity by touching the board.

One example I often give when I talk about the impact the interactive whiteboard had on my students is this: I was teaching some low-level readers (who were often turned off from reading and were difficult to engage in comprehension skill activities). I would put a reading passage on the screen for the students to read. Then I would ask a comprehension question. I would ask a student to answer the question, but in addition to the answer, the student had to come to the board and underline the proof. I watched as my students who hated to read anxiously waited to be called on to answer the question so they could interact with the board. And it wasn't a phase; all year long, students were excited about using the board to interact with lessons. I, too, enjoyed the interaction the board afforded me. Instead of standing behind my computer to guide a lesson on the screen, I was able to be at the screen, "driving".

SMART Boards are not the only interactive whiteboards available. There are others (for example, ActivBoards, and Interwrite Boards.) My favorite is the SMART Board, but that may just be because I'm comfortable using it.

Below are some interactive whiteboard resources. Some are just for SMART Board, others are generic, and others are simply links to interactive sites that you could use even if you don't have an interactive whiteboard.

Education section of SMART Technologies website: http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-us/

Teacher's Hub has sections for "Getting started" and "Enhancing skills"
Educator Resources includes Lesson activities, online classroom resources, software resources, etc.
Training Center- Free Training Materials
SMART Exchange- Community area, including a forum and downloads.

Notebook lessons and SMART Board Resources

Notebook lessons http://technology.usd259.org/resources/whiteboards/smartlessons.htm
Notebook lessons http://www.lakelandschools.org/EDTECH/Smartboard/smart-files.htm
Teachers Love SMARTBoards Blog- Tons of ideas and resources!
SMART Board Podcasts
Scholastic SMART Board Links and Resources
Engaging Learners the SMART Board Way

Interactive Whiteboard Resources

The Whiteboard Blog Interactive technology in the classroom
Whiteboard Resources (see links at the top for level and subject area)
Internet 4 Classrooms SMART Board Resources

Interactive Websites

(cross posted on Explore the Possibilities)

FREE Typing / Keyboarding Practice

2008-05-12T10:20:00.005-04:00

Want an alternative to purchasing keyboarding practice software?

Here are a couple of FREE keyboarding sites for children:

Keyboarding Skills Course http://www.e-learningforkids.org/Courses/Keyboarding_Skills/index.html (Click “Skip Intro” to go straight to the instructions/course.

Dance Mat Typing from BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/ Includes 12 stages.

Also, TuxType is a free typing tutor download for children. http://tuxtype.sourceforge.net/

You CAN take it with you! Workshop Resources

2008-05-10T14:37:00.000-04:00

This workshop was all about portable drives and the free applications that can be loaded on them.

Online resources from my You CAN take it with you! workshop.
http://katiechristo.pbwiki.com/PortableApps

Digital Storytelling Workshop Resources

2008-05-06T14:35:00.000-04:00

“We are our stories. We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves.” - Daniel Pink A Whole New Mind

Online resources from my Digital Storytelling workshop
http://katiechristo.pbwiki.com/Digital+Storytelling

Free Images, Clipart, Primary Source, Sound and Audio Resources

2008-05-05T14:32:00.002-04:00

It is always hard to find the best "free" resources to suggest to teachers. Below you will find links to three pages where I have begun to compile these resources. Let me know if there are any I should add!

Photos, Images, and Clipart http://katiechristo.pbwiki.com/Photos,+Images,+and+Clip+Art

Primary Sources http://katiechristo.pbwiki.com/Primary+Sources

Sounds and Audio http://katiechristo.pbwiki.com/Sounds+and+Audio

Weather Resources

2008-04-20T14:27:00.000-04:00

Weather Dude http://www.wxdude.com/

Web Weather for Kids http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/

Edheads Weather http://www.edheads.org/activities/weather/index.htm

National Geographic Forces of Nature http://www.nationalgeographic.com/forcesofnature/

Weather Channel Kids http://www.weatherclassroom.com/

Practice your basic math facts online!

2008-04-05T14:24:00.001-04:00

Here are some great resources for practicing basic Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication facts!

Best of the Best
Arcademic Skill Builders has GREAT Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication Drill and Practice Activities! Check out: Meteor MultiplicationAlien AdditionMinus MissionMultiplication Grand Prix – which can be played against other online players or you can setup a 4 person game with a password

Addition and Subtraction
Hoot’s Addition and Subtraction
Math Magician Addition
Math Magician Subtraction

Multiplication
Camel Time Table
Multiplication Roll Over
Math Magician Multiplication

Resources similar to Starfall

2008-03-28T14:28:00.000-04:00

If you haven’t checked out Starfall go here: http://www.starfall.com/

Between the Lions http://pbskids.org/lions/games/

Clifford Interactive Storybooks http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/

CrickWeb http://www.crickweb.co.uk/

Game Goo http://www.cogcon.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

Interactive Phonics and Word Study Center http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/phonics/student.cfm

Interwrite Resources

2008-03-25T14:21:00.000-04:00

Free Interwrite Lessons and Activities Correlated to State Curriculum Standards- Go to http://www.interwritelearning.com/resources/lessons.php- Click on the Browse Lessons Correlated to State Curriculum Standards

Free Interwrite Tutorials and How-Tos http://www.gtcocalcomp.com/erc/interwritetutorials.htm

Background Image Library http://www.gtcocalcomp.com/erc/interwritebackgrounds.htmYou can download these and use them as backgrounds when making an Interwrite Activitiy

Interwrite Supporthttp://www.interwritelearning.com/support/index.php

Encyclopedia of Life is ALIVE!

2008-02-26T10:33:00.006-05:00

"The new Encyclopedia of Life portal has gone live with more than one million species pages!

In celebration of this big event, our first EOL newsletter is available at:
Click here to read the newsletter.
You can see the new pages at http://www.eol.org/. We also invite you to take the survey at the site so you can help us improve.
We thank you for your interest and support over the past year. Enjoy."

Just got this email from eol.org! It looks awesome can't wait to check it out more!

Geo-Green and Titan Wealth

2008-02-16T20:19:00.007-05:00

Today I got sent a great link to an audio file of a Keynote presentation Thomas L. Friedman gave at NC State University for the 2008 Emerging Issues Forum. I really, really can't wait for his new book now! The direct link to the audio is: http://ncsu.edu/iei/forum/2008/audio/friedman.mp3

I listened to this great Keynote and was then looking through my Google Reader and ran across this post by David Warlick, "A Bubblin' Crude" about the amazing amounts of hydrocarbons found on Saturn's moon Titan.

Take a listen and read! Share with your students!

Climate Alive!

2008-02-09T19:43:00.000-05:00

"The need has never been greater for accurate and understandable information about climate change and its impacts."

Check out this website and the wonderful 7 minute video on how Asheville, NC is poised to lead this change!

http://www.climatealive.org/

Pretty cool and if I do say another great example of digital storytelling!

Digital Projector

2008-02-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Being in technology, I sometimes fall for the latest trend or newest thing. Most of the time that is not a bad thing. Every now and then it is nice for a post to remind me of the KISS philosophy.

KEEP
IT
SIMPLE
STUPID.

dy/dan Wrote one of those posts.

Instead of using his digital projector to make a flashy powerpoint, he treated it like a old time slide projector. The results, "45 minutes running computations, discussing the results, arguing over the significance of the results — all from three photos."

I want to throw in the next quote, just because I liked it.

"No wipes, checkerboards, animations, or other PowerPoint detritus. This is the 21^st-century digital projector bashed back into the 20^th century."

The Simpsons Math

2008-01-25T12:17:00.000-05:00

I first started watching The Simpson when I was in middle school. I thought is was just a simple, funny cartoon. As I grew older, I realized the show was anything but simple. I started picking up on the quick humor and some of the references to every imaginable subject. Not all of the refences, some still go over my head.

Luckily for us, Dr. Sarah J. Greenwald, from Appalachian State University, and Dr. Andrew Nestler , from Santa Monica College, picked up on this too. They have created a website called Simpson Math

http://www.mathsci.appstate.edu/~sjg/simpsonsmath/

On the site you will find a guide to the math on The Simpsons, the mathmatical background of the shows writers, and even some activity sheets. You won't find any video clips, you will have to find those somewhere else.

Reflections on Instructional Technology

2008-01-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

I am in the process of applying to international schools and getting ready for the Search-Associates Cambridge Job Fair in February. Working overseas has always been a dream for me! As I am filling out applications and preparing for phone interviews it has dawned on me that we are doing some amazing things in our district right now. So much so that I haven't been writing to the blog or doing many other things recently. So it's time to catch ya'll up and for me to reflect a bit (you were warned!)...

Ever since NECC this summer I've been revising my thoughts on Instructional Technology and our role as Instructional Technology Specialists, Technology Facilitators, Computer Coordinators, or whatever else you want to call us. My thoughts and thinking began to shift as I listened to speakers talk about our relevance in education. And then I thought about our teachers - their needs of us and of technology are shifting, whether or not they know it yet. And most importantly, our students needs have already changed and we are not addressing that change.

It is my opinion that we (in Instructional Technology) need to be the voices for that change in education. Not only do we need to do everything we always have (troubleshoot, make walkthroughs, and lend a helping hand when something goes amiss), we also must now explain and help our educators understand the world our students are living in, how they communicate, what the tools are that they use, and what skills they need to succeed.

How do we do this?

This is the question that we have been answering in our district this year and that I have been focusing on. Below are some ways I believe we are addressing this.

Presentations to teachers and administrators - about new ideas (like this one I created for our Elementary New Teacher Orientation - Teaching and Learning in the Conceptual Age)
and new tools (like the Nova5000 and NComputing Devices).

Technology Wednesdays and Thursdays - one hour after school trainings and worksessions that allow our teachers the most important resource of all when integrating technology - TIME to LEARN and PLAY. See our current TWT offerings!

Collaboration and Communication Open-Source Applications - we are implementing WordPress, Moodle, and WikiSpaces this year. Teachers are blogging and having conversations in an online learning environment with their students as I write this!

Mini-Grants - this year we are offering mini-grants that get technology hardware in the hands of teachers. We have already given out 3 digital projectors and are in the process of distributing 29 digital cameras.

Summer Technology Conference - we offered the STC07 last year on the last two workdays in June and had an overwhelming response. We are currently organizing the one for this year.

I am so impressed with everything we have and are continuing to accomplish in our district. I really feel that through these projects we have started educators in our district moving in a new direction. Not all of them for sure - but a large majority. We are sharing with them. Collaborating with them. Communicating with them. All in new ways. We are helping them to understand and address the needs of our students.

Interactive Activities - Polygons 5th Grade

2008-01-22T14:19:00.000-05:00

Geometric Solids – one of my all time favorites!http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=70

Rainforest Maths – click on 5th Grade and then look at the bottom of the page at the Space activities – 3d shapes and 2d shapes.http://www.rainforestmaths.com/

BBC School – Shape activities, revisions, and quiz.http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/shape_space_measures.shtml

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives – all kinds of virtual manipulatives… scroll down the page.http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/category_g_2_t_3.html

End World Hunger one Vocab Word at a Time!

2007-12-03T12:59:00.000-05:00

Free Rice is a site that will donate 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger for every Vocabulary word you get right! Please play and help!

Penguin Resources k2

2007-12-01T14:29:00.000-05:00

The World of Penguins http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/penguins/

WebCams of Penguins http://www.penguin.net.nz/viewing/webcams.html

March of the Penguins National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.com/marchofthepenguins/index.html

Kidzone Penguins http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/penguins/index.htm

SeaWorld Penguins http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Penguins/home.html

National Geographic Kids Critters – there are a couple penguins on here!http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Adelie-penguin

Fun and Facts about Penguins http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/penguins/main.html

Penguin Theme http://www.cdli.ca/CITE/penguins.htm

New Zealand Penguins http://www.penguin.net.nz/

Arcademic Skill Builders

2007-11-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

The Arcademic Skill Builder site is WONDERFUL and FREE! Great drill and practice activities for both Language Arts and Mathematics.
http://arcademicskillbuilders.com/

Especially cool are:

New Multiplayer Games - you can practice your Division (Drag Race Division) and Multiplication (Grand Prix Multiplication) skills against other players around the world or your friends!

Wii Formatted Games - check them out here: http://arcademicskillbuilders.com/wiilist.htm

We Need Your Support!

2007-10-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

I've been working with a teacher here in our district to create a video for a contest sponsored by Interwrite Learning (Grand prize = Interactive Classroom WORTH $15,000). Mrs. Bumgarner and her students at Hildebran Elementary worked hard to write lyrics and plan out the video and they just found out today that they MADE IT TO THE FINALS!

There are five finalists in each category (K-5, 6-8, and 9-12). Between now and November 8, you can vote for their video online. Online votes will make up 30% of the final score and the winner will be announced on November 27. Individuals may vote once in each category.

HERE’S HOW TO VOTE:

Go to: http://contest.interwritelearning.com/contest/1/

Click Login/Register in the top right hand corner. Register to vote and then vote for Mrs. Bumgarner's video!

Click here to view voting instructions that you can print.

Please tell all of your friends to vote! Congratulations to Mrs. Bumgarner and her students!

Digg This!

A Vision of Students Today

2007-10-13T12:19:00.001-04:00

Food For Thought (at least for me)

2007-10-13T09:42:00.000-04:00

http://globalvirtual.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-if-schools-treated-students-like.html

Motivating Readers

2007-10-13T09:10:00.000-04:00

I've heard about the great training that Renaissance Learning (the company that owns Accelerated Reader) provides, but this afternoon I was finally able to take part in that training. It was so refreshing to hear RL speak about best practices for Accelerated Reader.

There are many schools that have not used the program in the manner it was designed (and I'm not speaking just about our school district- I believe that it is widely misused). Instead, it is treated as THE reading program at a school and the world seems to revolve around points.

Today, RL representatives reminded us that the program should be used to motivate students to read and that AR is simply the PRACTICE reading portion of a reading program.

Some other best practices of AR:

Point goals should be set for each individual student, based on the ZPD reading range and the amount of time that student will be able to practice reading AT SCHOOL.
Teacher intervention and teacher/student conferencing should be happening daily, including after each test. This teacher intervention is CRITICAL to the successful use of AR.
ZPD (reading range) is actually not correlated to "grade level" range. Students should not be restricted to the books in this level, but teacher/student conferencing and guidance can help make each reading experience a successful one.

If these things are happening, students should be successful (85%+ correct on AR tests), and therefore most all of our students would earn rewards for meeting their goals. (And this doesn't have to be costly prizes! Think FREE when thinking about motivational "prizes"!!)

The goal is to foster the love of reading. We have to keep our eye on the ball and always keep in mind that the purpose of AR is to motivate readers and encourage the practice of reading as part of the reading program.

Making a successful change in the mindset of teachers and administrators will require patience (as we can't expect huge changes overnight), staff development (like today's), and committed leadership who will expect and encourage best practice usage of this program.

I'm excited about the possibilities!
Donna
Cross Posted at ITS Here For You

Some Schools Require iPods?

2007-10-12T19:11:00.000-04:00

Cross Posted from ITS Here For You

While more and more schools districts are banning iPods, some are requiring them. According to a New York Times article the Union City school district in New Jersey will be giving out 300 iPods next month. The iPods will be given students with limited English ability to help them sharpen their vocabulary and grammar. A NJ school board member calls it “innovation”. That maybe a stretch. I think teachers have to innovate everyday just to make content relevant to them. Having the support to try something new helps too.

Using an iPod in the classroom is a matchmade in heaven. Students and adults, including me, are very passionate about there iPods. Why not use them in the classroom. If you haven’t check out what an iPod can do, you should, there are tons of educational options. First, they play mp3 files. Mp3’s can be music, but it can also be poetry, audiobooks, or historical speeches. The new iPods can also show video. You could record your own lesson or download United Streaming videos. They will display pictures. Save your PowerPoint as pictures and you can put on your iPod. There is also a Notes feature, which displays text. It displays it similar to a webpage, so you can actually have links to the audio, video, and pictures you just put on your iPod. What do you think?

Cheers…Aaron

Moodle and Battle of the Books Team

2007-10-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

We have Moodle now in our district and it was amazing to see the student response to it yesterday. Moodle is essentially an online site that allows students and teachers to collaborate and communicate in a protected environment. Yesterday, students in the Battle of the Books Team at one of our Middle Schools were the first students to use Moodle in our county! They logged in to Moodle, navigated to their teacher's site, and clicked on Knights of the Round Table Forum. Students were then presented with a forum topic of "Introduce Yourselves". After reading a blurb written by their teacher about herself - students were asked to answer 4 questions to introduce themselves:

What is your family like?
What are some of your hobbies?
What is your favorite book?
What are your future goals?

Students were immediately engaged. They were in their environment. They communicate this way naturally. They had answered the introduction question quickly and were teaching themselves Moodle and how it worked. They were helping each other. It was amazing.

Students than began to write their own questions for their peers to answer. Students could see next to their question how many other students had answered, they then clicked and saw what the responses were from their online learning community.

This was a wonderful experience for me - Web 2.0 in action! Engaged students. Collaboration in action. Seamlessly integrated technology. Meaningful. Real-world.

I have one word - WOW!

Best Science Images 0f 2007 Honored

2007-09-28T13:25:00.001-04:00

The awards are given out each year by the National Science Foundation and the journal Science for the imagery that best conveys complex scientific information and concepts. Winners of the 2007 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

read more | digg story

Animoto Slideshows

2007-09-14T10:14:00.001-04:00

This is ridiculously cool and easy. Animoto (www.animoto.com) is a website where you can upload photos and it will spit back a slide show. The results are awesome. Above is a quick video I made about the drought in North Carolina. I grabbed the pictures from Google image search. This is a great way to grab students attention to start a lesson or even a writing prompt. They offer 30 second videos for free. A full length video is $3 each or $30 for unlimited videos for the year.

Teaching and Learning in the Conceptual Age

2007-08-15T13:27:00.000-04:00

Every year our district holds a New Teacher Orientation. This year we were given 2 hours to talk to these teachers! I was so excited - this was a great opportunity and we had so much fun doing the presentation for our new elementary teachers. The presentation we created, Teaching and Learning in the Conceptual Age, is now posted to SlideShare.
View and download the presentation here!

During the second hour we explored project ideas and resources. These are available on our wiki.
http://bcpselem.pbwiki.com/NTO

The Difference Between Flash Memory and a Hard Drive

2007-07-20T15:08:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite computer help sites, Of Zen and Computing, published a great article about the difference between flash memory and a hard drive. I really should have thought of this myself, as I often have to explain the difference.

The short answer...

Both are used for long term storage. A hard drive uses spinning magnetic disks. Flash memory is just a chip, it has no moving parts. No moving parts means it is less likely to fail. However, you can't just replace your hard drive with flash memory, yet.

For more information, read the entire article.

Nike + iPod

2007-07-05T18:33:00.000-04:00

For Father's Day I got a new pair of running shoes and the Nike + iPod Sports Kit. I have used it for about 3 weeks now and I absolutely love it.

In case you don't what I am talking about, the Sports Kit is a accelerometer that is attached to your shoe. A receiver is attached to your iPod Nano which is allows it to measure and record distance and pace of your run or walk. Personally, I don't care for running, but I do like to walk.

The coolest part is that your run data is synced to a Nike website. The website will track all of your runs and makes note of your quickest times. The part of the website that I thought I would use the least, has turned out to be my favorite. The challenges. Anyone can make a challenge and invite others to complete. You can set all sorts of requirements for the challenge. For example, I am competing in the Terrific Turtle Challenge. I am competing to run/walk the most miles over 21 days. The only rule is that you must be slow, your pace must be over 10 minutes per mile. I am currently in 10th place.

The Sports Kit runs about $30, not bad if you already have a Nano. You are supposed to use Nike+ shoes, but I have read that you can attach to any shoe and get good results.

Some of the cool stuff we saw/learned about!

2007-06-28T09:16:00.001-04:00

Higher Ground Gear

Very, very cool laptop bags!

Ed Tech Action Network

Apple Learning Interchange

ESRI GIS Education Community

Nova 5000

DLite Microscope

Lulu.com

These are just some of the neat things we saw in the exhibit area!

School 2.0- Wes Fryer

2007-06-27T11:27:00.000-04:00

A few quotes and some of my thoughts from the Wes Fryer presentation on School 2.0- what is it and how do we support it?

It is remarkably easy to teach and lead poorly.

How true, how true. Getting to know the students, their interests, their strengths, their needs- this is a difficult task at best. And as a leader, the same is true with getting to know the educators you lead. I think this comes down to the question, "What is your vision?" Am I here to teach and learn? If so, this requires me to learn about my students in such a way that all my decisions revolve around what I know about them.

The technology did not make the educator fundamentally different. It amplifies good teaching just as it amplifies bad teaching.

In my role as an instructional technology specialist at the elementary schools, I have to stay focused on the goal, the vision, the mission. And I have to remind myself that encouraging teachers to use technology essentially for the sake of technology itself is far from my vision. It is easy to fall into that situation, because my passion is exploring the ways technology can be infused in learning environments. But, IT'S NOT ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY. It's about learning. Period. So, technology in the hands of a bad teacher (or a bad leader) is terrifying, because it really will amplify all the wrong things (and encourage those not involved in "the conversations" to continue questioning the benefit of technology in education).

Become a reflective practitioner.

Last night, back at the hotel, Katie and I discussed our role, our philosophy, our vision. I think the two of us challenge each other to think outside of our comfort zone and continually evaluate what we do and why we do it. It isn't always easy, but we try to purposefully reflect on what we believe and what we should do to help students and teachers.

Our students deserve better. Our future requires better.

I often say that we are doing a disservice to our children when they walk in our door, unplug, disconnect, and stop talking. When four walls define the learning environment, we limit the possibilities. Our students do deserve better and I have been reminded at the conference that I need to spend some time talking with and listening to the students. I know they have a lot to say.

Great session to keep me thinking about school 2.0, what it means, and what my role really is. It was a great springboard to some thoughtful conversations.

Finding Voice

2007-06-27T08:11:00.000-04:00

The School 2.0, Classroom 2.0 and Web 2.0 visions bring incredible possibilities, problems to be solved and open-ended discussions to be had. We are attempting to envision and embrace an open-ended future. We continue to talk about helping kids find their voices and authentic audiences, how that empowers and engages them. Learning to speak and converse with competency, confidence and appropriately using new and powerful tools is exciting, interesting. It will look very different from what we see now.
First steps in this direction require all of us to find our own voices and become actively engaged in conversations, to encourage and support teachers and administrators to recognize and participate in fundamental transformations and risk taking. Experiencing the community and converstation is essential to seeing, understanding and shaping the vision. Unless we ourselves are willing to be transformed, take risks and reach for an open-ended future we cannot expect to truly impact our students and the environment in which they learn.

School 2.0, Web 2.0, Creativity and Innovation

2007-06-26T17:54:00.000-04:00

The themes for me today seemed to be:

School 2.0/Web 2.0
Creativity and Innovation

School 2.0/Web 2.0
Ok, so I just renamed this from just School 2.0 to School 2.0 and Web 2.0. I think in our district we really need to work on both. We are really moving forward with our use of Web 2.0 applications, but does that mean that we are really moving towards School 2.0? I don't think it does.

One of the most thought producing things from the School 2.0 sessions I went to was that we are using technology in our district mainly to make School 1.0 flashy. I really think that this is something we need to look at in our district. What does School 2.0 mean? Where do we want to go? I also truly believe that we need to involve all stakeholders in the conversation (students, teachers, admins, CO).

Creativity and Innovation

I was so impressed with the emphasis in the sessions and keynote today on using technology to enable us and our students to be more creative and innovative! I believe that this is SO important - this is what we need to be focusing in on. Our students need us to focus on this!

I loved also that maybe our role should be to INSPIRE! And to look for our Cathedrals. And also and maybe most importantly to be willing to FAIL!

I'm willing to fall down in my attempt to inspire!

Special thanks to Wesley Fryer for the great notes he took on his blog!

The ITM Flip Videoed Us!

2007-06-26T16:53:00.000-04:00

Sorry the movie is green it just happened that way - all the videos from the Blogger's Cafe are turning out that way! See more of the videos from today here...
http://picasaweb.google.com/ncitsgirl/TuesdayNECCVideo

Conversation with Jeff Utecht

2007-06-26T16:27:00.002-04:00

Jeff, the author of the blog The Thinking Stick, talked with us today about his school in Shanghai, China. His school does not focus on restricting sites or content from their students. Instead, they embrace the interests of the students, letting them check out a TV show they missed the night before on YouTube when they get to school. They have a school YouTube and Flickr account, posting pictures and student work online for families and others to see. Some things are posted as private, and parents and families can join the group to be able to view student work/pictures online. The focus is on the content, not about keeping kids away. Teachers have blogs, including group blogs to collaborate and share ideas. The focus isn't on fear, it is on learning. The biggest struggle they have is with China's internet restrictions. But learning is happening, and the tools are being embraced.

Video Clips of the Music before the Keynote and an iPod Case!!

2007-06-26T13:11:00.000-04:00

The music playing before the keynote today was just absolutely beautiful! WOW!
Another cool thing today was the iPod case we saw on the exhibit floor.
Check out a short video clip of each of these here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ncitsgirl/TuesdayNECCVideo

Life at NECC

2007-06-26T12:24:00.000-04:00

I feel like I'm just beginning to get the feel of NECC, like my newness is wearing off and my comfort level is increasing. The panel this morning was fabulous and the conversation often had me nodding as I agreed with so much of the statements they shared. (I hope that discussion is online somewhere, as I really want to listen again.)

I wish I was more willing to take the risk of stepping out there and starting conversations with others. I see folks pass by here in the Blogger's Cafe and I recognize names on nametags as bloggers I read...and I sit and say nothing. Sometimes, the veil of an online presence brings a comfortable anonymity that allows me to be more... well, "me". The opportunity to have a F2F conversation is passing me by!

So, is there a lesson in there somewhere? Our students may be more willing to collaborate and communicate, share and expand their learning with the use of online tools. Some students may find comfort (as I have) in an online presence that may encourage a feeling of safety/anonymity for sharing thoughts and ideas.

As I look around and listen to the conversations going on all around me here at the conference, I realize even more the advantages of F2F. But I love the fact that I can also sit here and become a virtual voice as well. A nice harmony.

I survived day 1 of NECC!

2007-06-25T16:59:00.001-04:00

I have had such a great time today at the conference - I am so tired! I felt totally wiped but what an experience! I also felt so much better once I noticed that almost everyone else had the same glazed look! YEAH it isn't just me!

I think some of the greatest things I saw today in sessions was all the great free open source software and also Doodle which is a great way to do polls!

But, maybe the neatest part of this has been collaborating and talking to everyone else who is here! I just needed to get even braver tomorrow and talk to even more people! So signing off for now - someone (Donna) took my flip video so more movies will be posted tomorrow!

Connecting at the Blogger's Cafe

2007-06-25T11:38:00.000-04:00

I had a wonderful conversation with Jeff Whipple http://edutrails.edublogs.org/ about Instructional Technology and some of the incredible things he is doing in his district and with his schools. I loved the blogging idea of having the students collaborating with a local author on a blog! What a great idea! He also showed me the Site Meter that I added to our blog - I'm very excited about seeing exactly where people are viewing our blog from - so keep on visiting us! Thanks Jeff - It was wonderful talking to you!

Open Source Software in Education Session

2007-06-25T11:20:00.000-04:00

This was a great session - I saw some new open source software I had never seen before - I have links to some of them on my wiki here.
Great session and lots of fun!

At the Blogger's Cafe - Sunday afternoon

2007-06-24T15:44:00.000-04:00

We have landed at the Blogger's Cafe and Katie is tormenting us by posting videos of us. She has this nifty Flip Video camera and is enjoying taking quick videos, editing, taking clips and posting with the idea that this will be great tools for the classroom.
I, on the other hand, keep taking pictures with my "old" digital camera and getting blurry pics. My hands are either shaking quite a bit OR the camera is about to die. Maybe it WILL die and I can get a new one.
Most of today has been spent getting here, checking into the hotel, registering for the conference, trying to get oriented, and making sure all our techie gear works. We are still spinning in circles about what sessions, etc. we will attend....although it is getting a little clearer...I think.

We are here!!!!!

2007-06-24T15:28:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures from the movies:

See some of the movie clips here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ncitsgirl/NECC2007Sunday/photo#s5079712360320666850

Just "wow"

2007-06-24T15:02:00.000-04:00

Small town girl in the big city. Wow. I'm in awe at the size of this conference, at the idea of planning such an event. You can walk down the sidewalk, through the convention center and hear the conversations. Techie vocabulary, educational words.
I feel out of my league, not sure where I fit in. But I look forward to listening and learning.
Mostly, to absorb all I can.