Arizona

Whew, the Day of Discovery for Administrators at SkySong was a success in every measure of the word. Over 100 eager participants joined us for a day of presentations by Philippe Cousteau, Hall Davidson, Brad Hagaman, Justin Karkow, Rosie Escandon and Sarah Crawford. Welcomes and introductions came from Margaret Dugan and Cathy Poplin from ADE, and Mark Nichols from ASU Alt^i/IDEAL. An audience of 35 in Tucson was able to join us for many of the presentations via communications equipment generously provided by PolyCom.  

Break out sessions provided specific focus on techniques and tools available to educators; all of them designed to engage students, use standards based resources, and employ multiple learning modalities. The audience was actively involved in each workshop and there was never a shortage of volunteers for answers and examples. That enthusiasm carried through the beginning of this week with a flurry of e-mails asking for presentation copies, administrative rights for DE Streaming, student access, tutorials for IDEAL resources, and requests for more workshops.

Members of the DEN Leadership Council and Arizona’s Technology Integration Specialists were on hand to assist with directions and connections.

Students at Mesa Academy for Advanced Studies and Yavapai Elementary School were treated to an assembly featuring Philippe Cousteau on Thursday. On Thursday evening, Discovery also hosted a VIP reception at Eddie V’s.

AZ DEN LC would like to thank the Discovery team, IDEAL, ADE and PolyCom for providing our administrators with the opportunity to share the resources their teachers have been raving about!

Photos included in the Flickr photostream reflect all of these events.

Were you there? Can you find your picture? Click HERE to view the photos.

Big thanks to IDEAL & Dept of Ed, Discovery, CCS Presentation Systems, Polycom,  Lindsay Hopkins (Discovery Rep), and all the many who helped coordinate and get this event happening.

The Tucson event was hosted by the generous people of CCS Presentation Systems, who not only had a LifeSize screen to show the morning speakers, but allowed us to use four SMARTBoards for our afternoon digital storytelling project.  We had 35 administrators and lead teachers attend the event and leave very excited about getting their staff to maximize all the Discovery and IDEAL resources.  Their enthusiasm has the phone ringing off the hook and email inboxes chiming in AZ technology integration specialist offices.

For the morning, we used donated PolyCom equipment to stream Margaret Dugan and Cathy Poplin of the Department of Education; Mark Nichols of IDEAL/ASU, Phillipe Cousteau and Hall Davidson.  After a grand assortment of Tucson Tamales, we enjoyed “Beyond the Stream” done Lindsay Hopkins-style.  What an outstanding presenter!  We had so much fun and loved to see the participants taking breaks to play and explore the DEN and the rest of Discovery.  After the “Stream” administrators finally got their turn to do some of the Digital Storytelling we are always talking about.  Lindsay facilitated their PhotoStory “advertisements” and “virtual visit” creations using images from the day.  What fun!

We do regret we did not getting to rub shoulders with the “Talent” of Discovery en vivo, but  having such a spectacular facility (especially for gadget-lovers) and a more intimate situation, made for great Discovery experience.

Thanks again to everyone.  Excellent job!

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.

Songs

•Learning Our Long Vowels (02:56) Long vowels say their names.© 2005 Twin Sisters
•Learning Our Short Vowels (01:47) Learn about short vowel sounds. © 2005 Twin Sisters
•Letters “c” and “g” Have Two Sounds (04:48) In words the consonants C and G are sometimes hard and sometimes soft.
•Q and U Are Friends (01:13) \A song about words that start with QU © 2005 Twin Sisters
•Silly Sally’s Sister (00:29)  tongue twister with the letter S © 2005 Twin Sisters
•Singing the Consonant Sounds (04:36)  song about words that start with B,C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, and Z © 2005 Twin Sisters

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 (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.