DEN Blog Network

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.

As requested by hundreds of people (literally), we have now posted the vast majority of the 2008 DE streamathon presentations as archives!  If you visit our streamathon page you’ll see that most of the presentations are now hyperlinked.  Click on a hyperlink and you will begin to download a high resolution archive of that presentation.  Each archive is about 100-200 MB so the downloads may take a little while.  However, we wanted to make sure we provided them to you in high resolution so you’d be able to see all the live demonstrations just as they happened the day of.

We hope that you enjoy attending sessions you couldn’t be at that day.  And if you learned something from a session, be sure to share it with your colleagues!  The more people that learn from these presentations, the better.

Don’t forget!  If you enjoyed the streamathon, you’ll love the other webinars we have to offer.  Visit our webinar registration page and see what suits your needs.  Hundreds of webinars are listed there, all of which are FREE and open to all educators!

Here at Discovery Education, people are doing daily calisthenics, stocking up on coffee and preparing I.V.’s full of Red Bull.  And that can only mean one thing…  The third annual Discovery Education streamathon is coming!This year’s streamathon features presentations by all your favorite members of the DEN team, from Hall Davidson to Lance Rougeux, and each of our expert DEN Account Managers.  They’ll be sharing a series of information-packed sessions on how to integrate the newest online technologies used by today’s media-savvy students into classroom instruction. Among the topics slated for presentation are an introduction to streaming media, tips and tricks for integrating digital media with popular Web 2.0 websites, and strategies for incorporating free movie making tools and multi-media PowerPoint presentations into curricula. On September 23rd, from 9AM EDT until 9PM EDT, we’ll be sharing a new presentation every hour on the hour.  Learn about integrating video into Powerpoint during your free period.  See how to integrate Web 2.0 into the Builders over lunch.  Share the latest in digital storytelling techniques with your colleagues in the teachers lounge.  Come for 1 hour or spend the entire day with us!  We heard reports from some STARs last year that they set up a projector in an empty classroom, supplied coffee and donut holes and invited teachers to drop in throughout the entire event.  Any way you cut it, it’s a wonderful way chance to learn some new skills, collaborate with your peers and celebrate the new school year with Discovery Education! Click here to register for the event. 

On Wednesday, Sept. 17th at 7pm EST, we will be kicking off our monthly EdTechConnect series with none other than the Director of the Office of Educational Technology, Tim Magner.  Tim coordinates the development and implementation of the Department’s educational technology policies. Many will remember his presentation at NECC 2007 where he outlined what School 2.0 would look like and shared the School 2.0 Toolkit.  If you missed that presentation, you can read about it here, here and here, or even better, hear from Tim himself at the EdTechConnect!  We hope you will be able to join us for this personal presentation and conversation with this influential member of the Department of Education. All you need to attend this webinar is a computer with an internet connection and speakers.  The audio will be broadcast through the speakers, and you will have the opportunity to ask questions in the chat window.Click here to register

Has it really been a year already?  I remember vividly when a group of us all met up in Second Life, sat down in a sparsely furnished room and established our most unusual Leadership Council to date.  Since then, the DEN has become one of the most active education communities in SL.  From Discovery themed events to the weekly PD workshops, the DEN in SL Leadership Council has helped literally hundreds of educators get their start in virtual worlds.  With over 60 events and a crack team of volunteer guides, it is truly incredible what they have accomplished in a relatively short time.

Well, tomorrow the DEN celebrates it’s one year anniversary with a black tie affair, “Dressed to the Nines.”  Time to break out your best dress and tuxedo and celebrate in style.

New to Second Life?  This is a perfect opportunity for your first visit!

Aren’t dressed for success yet?  Don’t worry, visit this site to give yourself an extreme makeover on a zero budget.

So join us on Wednesday night at 8PM Eastern to celebrate one year of rocking the virtual world, and to see what they have in store for the 08-09 school year!

The grand opening, just one short year ago!

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!

We’ve got one final Discovery Connect for the 08-09 school year in us and we couldn’t be more thrilled to bring it to you as only Discovery Education can!

WHEN WE LEFT EARTH: THE NASA MISSIONS presents the dramatic story of the space agency’s pioneering, awe-inspiring missions, to commemorate the first 50 years of space exploration. The story of NASA is the story of man’s greatest adventure, of man’s great ambition, and of man’s endeavors to go – quite literally – where no man had gone before. The series blends astonishing re-mastered archive – 100 hours of original NASA footage, much of it never seen before -with first hand testimony from the men and women who embarked on the greatest action adventure mankind has ever undertaken.

Discovery Education would like to invite you and your students to participate in our first ever “Virtual Premiere”, followed by an exclusive Q&A session with When We Left Earth Executive Producer Bill Howard.

Click here to register

On Wednesday June 11th, share this exclusive video with your students the very day that it premieres in Discovery Education. Simply log into Discovery Education streaming and do a search for “When We Left Earth.” You’ll find the video and can watch it with your students. Then at 1pm EDT, gather your students together to chat directly with the executive producer of the series. He’ll share the stories behind the stories as well as answer your students’ questions.

Don’t both searching for the video just yet. It won’t be released into streaming until June 11th!

What a fantastic way to wrap up the school year!

In order to attend, all you need to do is register here and then follow the link that will be sent to you via email a few minutes before 1pm EDT. Sound will be broadcast through your computer speakers. However, if your students want to be able to ask questions verbally, you will need to have a phone handy and join the teleconference as well.

We look forward to seeing you and your students there!

Register for the webinar

After ten months of traveling at 16,000 mph, the cruise stage ended and the lander was ready to make its descent to Mars. According to our host, sending Phoenix from the earth to the polar ice cap of Mars can be compared to launching a golf ball from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and hitting home plate in Wrigley Field in Chicago 1744 miles away (a fitting analogy with the Dodgers and the Cubs squaring up in Chicago this week). Unlike its predecessors, this rover does not have wheels! A stationary science lab, all of the experiments will be conducted at one location in the Martian arctic making the exact positioning of the lander a make or break detail.

In a room full of NASA friends, family and some very smart people, we waited for 90 minutes for the Phoenix to phone home. Data is relayed 422 million miles to the earth via X-band radio waves in 15 minutes time! As the first pictures of the solar panels (confirming their deployment), the foot bed (showing how the lander had settled into the surface), and the horizon (the first glimpse of the polar ice cap) arrived, mission control erupted again! Not only had Phoenix arrived safely, but it was ready to get to work.

It’s mind boggling that a manmade object can enter the Mars atmosphere at 12,750 mph and be safely slowed to 5 mph in 7 minutes time! With all of the things that could have gone wrong, the Phoenix team expressed their surprise with how smoothly everything went. What is their secret? Maybe it’s a yellow plastic bowl adorned with cute little bunnies and filled with peanuts that made its third appearance in the control room as a source of “good energy” during the re-entry communication blackout. With a three for three record of bringing good luck (Spirit, Opportunity and now Phoenix), I wonder if they will lend the bowl to me for next year’s spring training?

It goes without saying that this latest DEN event was definitely “Out of this World”  From the moment STARs walked in they were surrounded with the most incredible high definition images from NASA, not to mention being in the presence of NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and another one of their favorite scientists Bill Nye.

I won’t give away too many details, as I will ask them to share their favorite parts.  But I will say, that Discovery’s newest show When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions’ which details 50 historic years in space with 100 hours of original NASA footage, much of it never seen before,  is one you will not want to miss.  Executive producer, Bill Howard, will expose you to a whole new side of what really went into the missions, planning, and the launch.   It debuts on the Discovery Channel on Sunday, June 8th at 9:00 pm ET/PT.  Lucky for our Discovery Educators, it will also be available on Discovery streaming following the premiere.

So STAR DEN Members… what was your favorite part of the movie, the event, something fascinating you learned?  Let us know…

We’ve had a bunch of folks who unfortunately did not receive their good news last week because of SPAM filters. So, here is the current list of STAR DEs who have applied and were accepted to attend either the LC Institute or National Institute. If you applied, check for your name and email me (lance_rougeux@discovery.com) to get all the info about how to submit your registration fee.

DEN National Institute List