Arizona

We are back from NECC and the DEN Leadership Council Symposium inspired and ready to Share! (Mouse over text to link to references)

The DEN brings together so many distinguished educators to meet and mind-mash with; those who have done great things like taken students on Discovery Student Adventures to Australia, South Africa, and China (see highlights); Discovery leaders who are ready to share and willing to travel to us in order to facilitate our events and lend their expertise for the cause of  inspiring teachers and administrators to capitalize on the benefits of using technology and Discovery resources in classrooms; teachers who have used technology to turn around approaches to learning for the great benefit of their students.  (Check out Carol Ann McGuire, Outstanding ISTE teacher for 2008 and her Rock Our World project). It is easy to see how the power of the DEN benefits all of us.

At the symposium, we realized how lucky we are in Arizona to have the state treating us to the Discovery subscription.  We are one of the rare states that provides this resource, while teachers elsewhere are bound by their district or site’s willingness to subscribe.  I encourage everyone to show the state how valuable it is to our students’ learning, make the most of all the resources, and encourage that in your colleagues.  Matt Monjan has a great presentation on the administrative analytic feature of Discovery that allows school leaders to see how and how often teachers are using the various resources in Discovery.   You will love his Geekybird site. This is a great tool for approaching administrators about encouraging more use of Discovery and evaluating what tools teachers are using to deepen student learning.  Be sure to get your school leaders to the Administrative Event:  Discover the Undiscovered, Administrative Pathways at Skysong on August 28th.  Rumor has it there will be “Camera Talent” (that means TV stars) and Hall Davidson will be the Keynote and breakout session leader.  We are hoping to do a simulcast from a Tucson location for those of you closer to the Old Pueblo.
A reminder to keep checking on the upcoming Webinars and share them with everyone you know.  There will be a preview to the new site on July 14 & 28th and Justin Karkow’s outstanding presentation on “Thinking Outside the Slide” is on August 3rd, 8-9.

I’ve been trying to participate in the LC Symposiums via googledocs and Mogulus feed. Not quite the same as being there (lucky Rosy, Lillian & Emily), but I learn something anyway. Look for future DEN events to be linked here via google calendar (one of the new tips).  Looks like Tim, Judy, Alexa and I will represent Arizona in the upcoming DEN Institute in San Fran Headlands during the second week of July. Watch for our postings here, too.

Do you communicate with your administrators about your  of DE in the classroom? We’d like to have more active admin use the resources and tools and to that end, we have a special session setup for admin in DE on the tentative date of August 28. Please talk it up to your principal, tech director, curriculum director, librarian, etc., whoever it is that will “manage” your site’s DE settings. Those settings include the “sharing” option which has become very popular. You’ll soon see a registration link for this event in IDEAL Announcements.

Another very popular event has been the webinar previews of the new face of DE. Wow! So many new features - much like the best shopping sites (with personal preferences) that are available online. Did you schedule yourself for a preview? The new “face” is expected to be revealed July 2.  Try this link to register.

As the National Geocaching event approaches, I post this video of the fun had in

Tucson during our DEN day of educational geocaching so as to share the fun.  Join us!

Two notes:

1.  I love the Media Share capabilities in the DEN. I love that it has so much storage. I love that so many people are using it and populating it with great resources. I love that it enables me to easily create a link. I love that it gives embed coded that we can paste into Google Earth or our blogs and get a video linked. Good stuff!  –I just wish I could figure out why embedding code makes the page all crazy re-formatted???

2.  If anyone would like cute flyers to advertise a Geocaching event you are doing, please send me a note and if I get a chance I will post it to the blog beforehand.

SlideShow Digital Story made on PhotoPeach

Tucson teachers got a wonderful introduction to Geocaching with the DEN STARs from the Statewide Instructional Technology Project on Saturday. Allen Swanson, a hard-core geocaching enthusiast, and Emily Mann led teachers through the DEN and its great resources and landed on the fabulous postings about Geocaching already in the Educator Resources like Steve Dembo’s posting about Geocaching 101 and an introductory PowerPoint. -Lucasvan’s Presentation for his class on Geocaching is a great starter too.

We then hoofed it to Reid park an chance to get our hands on the devices, learn how they work, more principals and culture of geocaching, marking and finding waypoints and for practice hunting down a micro-cache and a smaller cache–both cleverly hidden.

Now more adept with the technology, we went into the zoo for a virtual multi-step cache where we had to find clues on signs about animals and unscramble them to get a password to a locked document. It was challenging with interference from overhead trees, but when we had more than one unit and took the time to mark the specific waypoint, it got better–and we got better.

Lunch was a lovely time for debriefing and giggling about the fun we had. Marana and homeschool teachers are rearing to share this with colleagues and get it going with their students.Thank you Discovery, Justin and Lance for the support and adventure!

Geocaching with the STARs on PhotoPeach

Hey Tucsonans!  We have a great event and day for you! - To the rest of Arizona: let us know and we can bring this fun experience your way.

On May 16th we will be introducing educators to educational geocaching and all the great resources in Discovery that deepen the lesson. We will be meeting at Starbucks, 3421 E Broadway for an introduction to the DEN and then heading to Reid Park Zoo to experience the great fun of a puzzle cache. We will use coordinates to gather clues that will unlock a document. You are bound to learn a ton, catch the fever of the geocaching rage, and come away with great ideas for creating activities for your students.
Follow these links for more information or see the attachment:

• Geocaching with the STARs Registration and Information
• All about Geocaching by Dr. Alice Christie
  
• To learn more about the sport of geocaching and find geocaches near you, go to geocaching.com

We look forward to seeing everyone and diving into the adventure!

Thanks to Deena Jorgenson for snapping these photos!

Hey, we had a great time in Snowflake this morning. Let’s see if my new glogster poster works….and is there some news about who is going to S.F. Institute this summer :)? You’ll see me there!

The DEN webinar series has been one of the highlights of the last few weeks.  I’ve seen&heard Tony Vincent telling us all about iPods in the classroom; witnessed the magic of  “Movers and Shakers”  like Traci telling us about her wonderful use of Google Earth with Glogster to embed activities and links into her 1st graders’ journeys around the world learning about frogs and toads; Bernajean Porter sharing her wonderful  knowledge about digital storytelling and getting to the “Soul” of your message; Matt “Geekybird” sharing his amazing site within Discovery geekybird.com and its perfect resources  for learning all the tricks for using and presenting on Discovery resources that reside within his “Bird House” (They Might Be Giant Fans will appreciate the allusion). http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/matt.monjan/the-bird-house-your-source-for-geekybird-stuff/
Don’t miss the upcoming opportunities to learn more about using and sharing Discovery in effective and integrated curriculum-focused ways in your classroom.
Rumor has it that Discovery will be hosting a National Geocaching Day on May 23rd.  Stay tuned for updates.
Phoenix has it going on during the Culinary Festival.  http://www.scottsdaleculinaryfestival.org/  Educators are invited for food, folks, fun and digital storytelling. It is on us!  Come join us and become a star.

Join us in person or virtually for the “Spring into Action” DEN Virtual Conference Saturday, April 25 2009 7:30am – 1:00pm Snowflake High School (for a group gathering) or in your own home - virtually 

Spring Into Action with the DEN and join thousands of educators who are passionate about integrating media into their instruction and collaborating with each other to improve student achievement. During this unique (and free) professional development event you have the flexibility to attend online or in-person at one of many regional events hosted by the DEN Leadership Councils.

Register at this link.   If you want to join the local group conference, please use the pulldown menu for “event location” on the registration page and click “AZ Snowflake”

You are encouraged to bring your own laptop, flashdrives, USB camera

Our bowling night was loads of fun. Many of us had met in previous conferences or trainings, but had never just “socialized” and let loose. A few in our crowd looked as if they had actually bowled before, but some of us were more familiar with the gutters (just as a bowling term). The pizza prompted dreams of future events, including the Scottsdale Culinary Festival - watch for some delicious digital storytelling as “reporting” and another meet and greet as a “Starbucks with the Stars”.