Andy Losik’s Islands of Geektopia

Last summer’s Discovery Educator Network National Institute in Silver Spring, MD was awesome, hands down one of the best learning experiences I have ever had.

This summer the DEN is leaving it up to the stars to decide where the NI will be held.

Vote now for the location. Here are the finalists:

• Cruise to Mexico (San Diego to Baja)
• Las Vegas
• Boston
• Washington, DC
• Monterey, CA

Visit the DEN Blog and cast your vote.

Have you lost track of how many social networks you belong to?

Give http://usernamecheck.com/ a spin and see where your username is registered.

Honestly, I couldn’t get this thing to work but I found out all kinds of new Web 2.0 sites I never knew existed. The nominee for most-addictive distraction is Favtape.com where you create your own online mix tapes. The killer aspect is the ability to view the tops by year. Talk about bringing back lots of memories. You can embed your mix tape like I did here on the blog

Here is a quick blurb about a promising looking site from the US Geological Society. While browsing the resources in the Michigan Electronic Library’s MORE section, I stumbled upon all of these great Earth science resources specifically tailored to education.

Check out tons of images, videos, and podcasts.

USGS Education

ClassTools.net just might be the most helpful site I have stumbled upon in a long time. I saw somebody posted a link to it on Twitter and I was instantly hooked.

There are 17 different game building templates that literally take minutes to construct. You can download the games you create as stand alone web pages or embed them into a blog like I did.

Click here for full screen version

Besides the games, there are other tools. One I can’t wait to use with students is the online Venn Diagram maker.

Click here for full screen version

Kids type right into the template and print the finished copies.

ClassTools.net really has a ton of potential to engage kids and liven up how you teach.

The University of South Florida’s Educational Technology Clearinghouse has assembled an easy to use, yet extremely informative site that helps teachers understand technology better.

Everything is covered from the Internet to email, hardware issues, software issues, and even practical ways of implementing more technology into a curriculum.

Help comes in a number of formats as well. There is simple question and answer but also some nifty video and print tutorials.

Tech Ease promises “quick answers to real classroom technology questions” and delivers.

My brother-in-law is a funny guy with a number of catch phrases. He’s the guy that announces at the family gathering that he and his wife would have arrived a lot earlier but because they drive a Prius, they had to stop at the gas station and give back some gas. His newest phrase is “It will change your life.” I have now heard that in reference to a variety of things from a bottle of pinot noir, a certain video poker machine, to which flat screen TV I should be buying. We have a lot of laughs and I try to always let guys retain exclusivity over their own catch-phrases but I am going to drop his line on you…and I think…this is the first time I have ever used it seriously.

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-E2 will change your life. Ok, maybe not all that much, but I love mine. I thought I was getting a great deal on it when Apple.com had it on sale at 50% off for $200 during Black Friday. Amazon.com has gone even further and is offering it right now for $179.95 with free shipping.

I needed a small camcorder I could call my own for use with the Infotech classes, so I jumped at this one. However, I have to admit that the most intriguing part was the fact that it is waterproof down to 5 feet. I was quick to try this out and dunked it immediately into my daughter’s fish tank. The most fun we have with the waterproof feature is  when we take it sledding. Video:Sledding with the Sanyo Xacti VPC E-2 . I also held it on the dash one snowy day and recorded my commute to school. Video:My Commute.

I can’t wait for our upcoming Spring Break to Arizona and all of the possibilities it can have in a swimming pool. This summer should be fun for doing some fresh water exploring. I took it ice fishing once this winter and tethered it below the ice only to confirm (what my empty bucket was telling me) that I had picked a crummy fishing spot.

During my experiences with the camera, I have been very pleased. Like most point and shoot cameras, there is a bit of shutter lag but other than that the quality of the images have been good. With the video, the lighting is everything. The picture gets grainy when you don’t have enough light.

The thing I enjoy most about the set-up is the fact that SD cards are used as the recording media. No heads to clean and no tapes to wear out is a huge convenience. The included usb cable makes transferring video and images a snap…at least on my Mac.

Here is a pic from the Chinese joint in Houghton Lake, MI. It is great for stuff like this but if you are looking for professional results it doesn’t compare to using my Nikon D4o but can be a lot quicker and easier to carry. It all depends on what your objective is. This does a lot for me and now the price keeps getting righter.

You can get all of the geeky specs and details as well as the user reviews at the Amazon listing.

Friday afternoon was an exciting time for kids at Bentheim when the Outdoor Discovery Center released a snowy owl back into the wild. WWMT from Kalamazoo did this story on the release.

Fox 17 was on hand and had this video on its 10 PM newscast.

The Grand Rapids Press had this to say about the big event. Link Picture above is from GR Press.

It always seems that just as I am really starting to feel good about a new technology or online tool, another somewhat similar comes along to start tugging at my allegiance.

This summer I finally had figured out this Twitter thing and everybody started raving about Plurk for microblogging. The same is true about Delicious and a somewhat similar service called Diigo.

What I have learned from the whole process is that instead of just sticking to one tool, I can utilize the best of both. Like I tell the teachers I lead in professional development in our district, “Don’t feel bad if you are not maximizing every capability of your classroom technology. Just get good at what helps you the most.”

I am a very loyal user of Delicious for bookmarking sites. In fact, because of the Firefox add-on, I only bookmark school related sites via Delicious. I use it in a number of ways and love experimenting with new ways to enhance what I am teaching. Therefore, when people started getting all excited about Diigo and asking me to join a number of groups, I wasn’t really into learning about it. But, I did and kind of put it on the backburner.

To be honest, getting really involved with Diigo is still on the back burner…but everyday it cooks up a bundle of great resources. As certain as there is going to be an email from Sierra Trading every morning advertising a sale, there is going to be an email with  great resources every morning from the Discovery Educator Network on Diigo. Thanks to the alert settings I can decide how often I receive updates from the group listing new bookmarks and new members. The MACUL Group on Diigo is another great group comprised of Michigan educators.

Someday, I promise I will be more of a contributor to the DEN Diigo group. I feel kind of bad that I am just taking at this point and really not giving to it as it has delivered so many ideas and  sites. Thanks to the people who are really involved. Maybe I will pick your brains sometime to really understand it and use it efficiently. I am also set on helping the MACUL Elementary Teachers group get rolling a little more in the coming year.

Like in schools around the country, many students at Blue Star Elementary in Hamilton, Michigan watched history unfold as Barack Obama took the oath of office and became the 44th President of the United States of America. The big difference though was the fact that nobody at Blue Star watched it on a TV. Every teacher streamed the ceremonies over the Internet.

For whatever reason, the local cable companies never saw a need to run wires down 58th street. The area is comprised mainly of dairy, beef, and hog farms with a couple of subdivisions scattered off to the side and luckily upwind of the pigs and cows. Trying to get an over-the-air signal is difficult as well and we don’t have satellite dishes.

What we lack in traditional broadcast TV reception we make up in broadband. As part of the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District and  Regional Educational Media Center (REMC) 7, and some district investment we are fortunate enough to have fiber optic connections to the Internet. This allows us to stream video quite easily. Thanks also to some administrative foresight from our current and past building principals, and an enthusiastic staff every teacher now has a mounted LCD projector to show the streaming media.

Now I understand that just as rare as a school not having access to television might be, a rural school having such a nice web infrastructure is probably just as rare. The point though  I am trying to make is that we at Blue Star are actually an example of a big paradigm shift that we are seeing culturally as people no longer rely on TV alone. The irony is that it was the television network websites that provided the streams.

Will the TV in the home ever go away? I am guessing someday but I doubt many of us will be around to see it…especially as nicely as the flatscreens continue to evolve. What I see happening though is the ability to harness the media on the web via the living room. We have seen attempts at doing this with Apple TV and the device I am craving, the Sling Catcher. These are beginning to bridge the gap but the real traction hasn’t happened yet. I am hoping it happens quickly as crowding around the laptop to catch a past episode of the Bachelor you forgot to record (not that I would ever actually watch it or anything…even though Jason should have cut Megan loose a long time ago) just isn’t the same as being able to stream it to your plasma or LCD.

The networks are really enhancing their program with on-demand episodes and extras. Maybe they will be the ones who eventually invest in the R and D of magic device connecting these two worlds.

This guy is hilarious…..and so truthful.

Warning: one word in here isn’t quite appropriate to show to a class. Watch on your own and enjoy.