More than seventy DEN Star educators were excited to meet at the Headlands Institute in San Francsico for a week of collaboration using Web 2.0 tools. We bunked in single bed dorms (60 beds), ate exquisite food and plumped up our complexions in the foggy air. We were able to integrate the best of the best from Discovery in poster sessions, workshops, AmeriDEN Idol presentations and just some plain old f2f networking at meals, beachwalks, and cell signal searches! Arizona was fortunate to have four educators chosen to attend: Alexa Flores-Hull, Tim Johnson, Judy King, and me; Vicki Schmitt. I’ve asked them all to contribute photos and reflections here. My favorite sites were GoogleEarth, Glogster and WikiSpaces, but I’m exploring Prezi and Xtranormal (please remember to look for the educator versions). For shared photos, links, wikis - search your favorite 2.0 tools using “DENNI” (for DEN National Institute - but I’ve discovered someone has a cute new baby named “Denni” so you may need to add “09″ “2009″ or “SF” (San Francisco) For some unknown reason, you’ll find 100+ shots of the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from our Tuesday trolley tour. Personally, I like the Flickr photos of the sourdough bread shapes from Boudin’s, group photos of us in matching shirts and hats (I kept thinking of the “Madeline” stories). Alexa (Lexi) contributed the photos below and I hope we hear from Tim & Judy soon.
Webinars to introduce the new Face of Discovery are rolling. Please check on the schedule often and join us. Justin did a great presentation today and the changes are very exciting and thoughtful. I love that the Discovery presenters are so generous with the resources and presentations they create. Check the right sidebar here to link to their pages.
SEI training is coming to a close and we are SIOP-fit and ready to scaffold for all learners. We love that Discovery gives us even more tools.
Here are some example ELL Resources put together by our very own Justin Karkow, THE Arizona Discovery Facilitator, in his Powerpoint. These are just examples and searching for many more just got easier with the new features of Discovery. Please share other goodies you find.
Closed Captions are great, but manipulating and improving them is even better! Please see Matt Monjan’s PowerPoint about How to find, Alter, Enlarge Close Captions These are such cool tricks, in fact, these and embedding so many good things like MediaShare files and Glogsters into Google Earth (Thanks Justin & Traci) have been some of my favorite learning this year.
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 (seehighlights); 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.
More than seventy DEN Star educators were excited to meet at the Headlands Institute in San Francsico for a week of collaboration using Web 2.0 tools. We bunked in single bed dorms (60 beds), ate exquisite food and plumped up our complexions in the foggy air. We were able to integrate the best of the best from Discovery in poster sessions, workshops, AmeriDEN Idol presentations and just some plain old f2f networking at meals, beachwalks, and cell signal searches! Arizona was fortunate to have four educators chosen to attend: Alexa Flores-Hull, Tim Johnson, Judy King, and me; Vicki Schmitt. I’ve asked them all to contribute photos and reflections here. My favorite sites were GoogleEarth, Glogster and WikiSpaces, but I’m exploring Prezi and Xtranormal (please remember to look for the educator versions). For shared photos, links, wikis - search your favorite 2.0 tools using “DENNI” (for DEN National Institute - but I’ve discovered someone has a cute new baby named “Denni” so you may need to add “09″ “2009″ or “SF” (San Francisco) For some unknown reason, you’ll find 100+ shots of the Golden Gate Bridge as seen from our Tuesday trolley tour. Personally, I like the Flickr photos of the sourdough bread shapes from Boudin’s, group photos of us in matching shirts and hats (I kept thinking of the “Madeline” stories). Alexa (Lexi) contributed the photos below and I hope we hear from Tim & Judy soon.
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