DEN Blog Network

NECC is just under a week away, and we hope you’re as jazzed for it as we are!  Our home on the conference floor will be Booth #3228 and we’ve got a packed schedule there.  You’ll be able to see presentations such as:

• Discovery the Possibilities with Discovery Educaiton Digital Services
• Multimedia Einsteins: Discovery Education Science
• Using Multimedia in the Classroom with Mimio
• 50 Ways To Use Discovery Education streaming 
• Bring 21st Century Teaching to Your Classrooms: Professional Development that Works
• Connecting Formative Assessment to the Power of Digital Media

And who will be presenting these sessions?  None other than your favorite DE and DEN presenters, including Hall Davidson, Lance Rougeux, Steve Dembo, Matt Monjan, Jen Dorman, Eren Koont, Alex Morrison, and more!

Download the complete Discovery Education Booth Schedule
Don’t forget though, that’s just a fraction of what we’re doing at NECC.  Be sure to attend the special Using Multimedia in the Classroom session we’re hosting with Mimio and the four DEN spotlight sessions.

Look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Over 1,000 people participated in the Spring Virtual Conference this year, many from the very beginning until the bitter end!  But just in case you blinked and missed a session or two, we’ve now posted the archives from the day for you to review, enjoy and share with others.  If you go to the Virtual Conference page, you’ll find session descriptions, view links and embed codes for each of the sessions from the day.

One thing to note, if you watch the files online, you’ll notice that the chat is a little hard to read.  However, if you download the files you’ll find that they were recorded in High-rez and the downloaded versions can be played full screen, which makes the chat very readable.

Enjoy!

I think the title says it all!  It was quite a long day, and my brain feels just a little oversaturated, but more than anything I feel full of new ideas that I can’t wait to try out myself.  But that’s me…

Let’s hear about YOUR Virtual Conference experience!

Did you attend an in-person event?  How was it?

What was your favorite session?  What were your big takeaways for the day?

What could we be doing differently to make this a more enjoyable experience for you?

Take a few minutes and share your feedback!

Quick post with more to follow.

Steve Dembo, Mike Bryant and a ton of STAR Discovery Educators have and are currently presenting at the ICE Conference here in St. Charles, IL.  The Second Life and Illinois DEN Leadership Councils joined us for a wonderful dinner on Wednesday at McNally’s in downtown St. Charles (Pictures to follow soon). Over 75 STAR Discovery Educators joined us last night for the Discovery Education & Comcast Networking Social, held at the Pheasant Run Conference Center (Pictures to follow).

Session Presentations:

Pump Up the Volume: Ten Ways to Engage Auditory Learners

PowerPoint Download

Quicktime Download

Extreme Makeover: Education Edition

View presentation (not compatible with IE6 for windows)

Little Hands, Giant Reach

Powerpoint Download (Zip file with media forthcoming)

Are you a fan of the Mythbusters?  Think your students might be?  Well, they’re going to be special guests of Discovery Education at NSTA tomorrow and Lance is going to be hosting a Q&A with them.  While he has plenty of his own questions to ask them, we thought we’d open it up to you and your students!

Leave a comment with a question that you or your students would like to ask the Mythbusters and Lance will ask them it during the session tomorrow.  Rumor has it that he’ll be trying to get a few autographs to  give away as well, so there MAY be prizes involved here!

So… What would you like to ask Adam and Jamie?

How good was the Virtual Conference?  So good that you need to share it.  So good you need to watch it again.  So good that you need to add each presentation to your iTunes library so you have it on demand whenever somebody asks you what the best professional development you’ve attended this year was.

Ok, maybe I’m exagerating just slightly, but in all seriousness, the presentations were phenomenal.  One after another just blew attendees away.  And as many of you know, often the most valuable part of the presentation isn’t just what the presenter has to say, it’s what the audience shares in the chat room!  That’s why when we posted the archives, we included the chat windows as well, which shows up in real time!

So visit the Virtual Conference landing page and you can enjoy all 5 presentations again and again.   Share them with your colleagues.  Share them with your administrators.  Share them with your family!  And don’t forge,t if you enjoyed the presentations, let the presenters know you did by leaving a comment on the page for them.

BTW, due to the fact that they are all archived in hi-rez with audio, video and chat, they’re big files.  About 100MB or so.  Keep that in mind when downloading!

Enjoy!

The DEN team is going to be at ILC 2008 this year, and we hope that you will too!  We’ve partnered up with the ILC team and gotten permission to extend a $40 discount to any DEN members who pre-register for the conference.

The Innovative Learning Conference (ILC) 2008, will be held October 14-16 at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA.  Now through Oct. 10, DEN members can get a $40 discount off conference Early Bird fees when they enter the promotional code ORG40 during registration. If you are a STAR Discovery Educator and you’ve already pre-registered, send an email to hall_davidson@discovery.com and you’ll recieve information for how to get credit for the discount.

ILC 2008 is a “must-attend” professional development opportunity, offering educators, administrators and technology leaders a chance to experience first-hand the latest innovations in classroom technology. More than 150 concurrent sessions and nearly 40 workshops will provide thought-provoking strategies, applications and practices. ILC 2008 will also feature an expansive exhibit hall where attendees can view the latest products and services from some of the nation’s leading technology companies, with more than 100 top solution providers in attendance.  To learn more, visit their webite.

Need to supercharge your Discovery Education streaming skills? There’s no better bang for your buck than the Discovery Education National Training Academy.  Two days of intense training and resources led by the people who know the service better than anybody else.  After an incredibly successful debut over the summer, we will be hosting a second NTA on October 26-28 at Discovery headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.You’ll learn:  

• Strategies to organize and share educational resources through My Content
• Ways of using the Teacher Center to differentiate instruction and prepare students for standardized tests 
• Classroom integration ideas for using Discovery Education streaming content with tools like PowerPoint, video-editing programs, the video iPod, Google Earth, Web 2.0 and more

Want to learn more?   Download the PDF or visit this page for more information.  

I can’t tell you how many people I speak to that have a ton of great information to share, but come up with one excuse or another not to bother submitting any proposals to the various state conferences.  Well, let me tell you something…  You’ve got experience, you’ve got ideas, and you’ve got knowledge that would be valuable to other people.  Why not take the next step and share it with other educators?As I do every year, I’ve aggregated together a list of state conferences along with when their proposal dates open and/or close.  I didn’t realize just how late in the year I was doing it this year and a few of them have closed already.  So don’t waste any time!  If you’d like to participate in any of these conferences, JUMP at the opportunities and apply immediately (if not sooner).One thing to remember, particularly if you’re an East coast resident.  You aren’t restricted to just your state.  Apply to present in a neighboring state and see how they run things across the border!  More thank likely, there’s several conferences within driving distance that you could be presenting at.  Why not apply to them all and see what happens!

• Florida Educational Technology Coorporation, January 21-24, 2009. Deadline is past, but you can still volunteer to support the conference.
• Northwest Council for Computer Education, Portland, Oregon, February 17-20, 2009. Deadline is October 3
• South Carolina EdTech 2008, November 5-7, 2008. Call for proposals is past.
• Arizona Technology in Education Alliance, November 8 2008, January 31 2009, and May 2 2009. Call for proposals open now.
• Georgia Educational Technology Conference , November 5-7, 2008.  Call for proposals is open now, deadline is Sept. 7th.
• Massachusetts Computer Using Educators, November 19-20, 2008.
• New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education Conference, November 23-25, 2008.
• North Carolina’s 18th AnnualTechnology Conference, December 1-4, 2008. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is September 27.
• Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference, New England, December 2-4, 2008. Deadline is passed, but proposals are still being accepted for Thursday Share-A-Thon
• Tennessee Education TechnologyConference, December 10-12, 2008. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 16.
• Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educator’sConference December 3-5, 2008.  Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1.
• Virginia’s Educational Technology Leadership Conference, December 10-12, 2008. Deadline not posted.
• Midwest Education Technology Conference, Missouri, January 26-28, 2009.
• Indiana Computer Using Educators, January 27-29, 2009.  Call for proposals not open yet.
• eTech Ohio Educational Technology Conference, February 2-4, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 8.
• Texas Computer Education Association Conference, February 2-6, 2009
• Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference, February 8-11, 2009. Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept.30
• Virginia Society for Technology in Education, February 22-24, 2009.  Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1 .
• Illinois Technology Conference for Educators, February 26 -29, 2009.  Call for proposals is open, deadline is Oct 1 .
• Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, March 18-20, 2009.  Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept 29
• Kentucky Teaching and Learning Conference, March 4-6, 2009.  Call for proposals is open, deadline is October 31st.
• Wisconsin Technology Education Association, March 5-6, 2009.  Call for proposals is open, deadline is Dec 23 .
• California Computer Using Educators, March 5-7, 2009.  Call for proposals is open, deadline is Sept 12.
• Delaware Instructional Technology Conference, April 22-23, 2009
• Alabama Educational Technology Conference, June 9-12, 2009.  

And of course the big momma, which happens to be in Washington DC next year…

• National Educational Computer Conference, June 28-July 1, 2009. Call for proposals is open now, deadline is Oct 8.

Did I miss any? If so, leave a comment with the info!

Is it ever too late to post a NECC round up?  I hope not!  Because the STARs were truly shining bright at NECC this year and I got a plethora of links to share.

• The Northwest Blog has a solid summary of the day along with an Animoto made up of pics taken there.  Trust me when I say that it was a wild time indeed!  Jen Dorman shared her experiences there as well.
• Jen Dorman has also shared a huge number of live blogs from the conference, including her notes from the DEN in Second Life LC’s Creating a Personal Learning Networking in Second Life.
  
• Speaking of the DEN in SL LC’s session, they rocked the house!  And there were more than just a few blog posts about it.   In fact, Beth Knittle of the aforementioned LC has a post well worth reading about what the DEN in SL means to her and Elaine Plybon chimed in with her own post about her experiences presenting at NECC on her DEN blog as well as on her personal blog.
• Beth also shared her own reflection of what NECC meant to her, as well as how much her personal learning network has affected her.  Lee Kolbert has her own ‘brain dump’ over at her MacMomma blog, including a shout out to Hall Davidson and his cell phone presentation.
• While we’re on the subject of Hall’s cell phone presentation, you might want to read this review that says it was the “best presentation I saw at NECC this year, hands down…”  I’m assuming he just hadn’t seen my presentation on policies yet.  But others agreed with him.
• Since we’re talking about Hall, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that he did do a second Spotlight session that he shared over on Media Matters.  Both sessions can be found over on NECC’s webcasting page.  If you missed them, here’s your chance to check them out!
• Of course, some people decided they were going to be at NECC even if they had to drive halfway across the country to do it.  Tim has shared a summary of his entire NECC experience on the Tennessee blog, including some of the evening festivities that were going on.
• I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we had the opportunity to celebrate the DEN’s third birthday with about 400 close personal friends as well!  Over on the Virginia blog, they have Flickr slideshow posted with photos from the event.
• And while my fingers are starting to wear out, I can’t close this off without mentioning the daily summaries from Joe Brennan, discoveries from NECC shared by the North Carolina blog, Geekybird’s brain being set on “sponge”, and even more daily summaries from the Northwest blog!

What’d I miss?  Surely that can’t be it, can it? If I missed a post, link it up in the comments so everyone can find it!

Thanks for making this a NECC to remember, whether you were there in person or attending virtually.  *whew*  Now it’s time to kick back and relax for a few weeks.

Huh?  What’s that you say?  Leadership Council institute next week?   DEN National Institute the following week?  Yikes!  Why stop now?  We’re rolling!