Today, Discovery Student Adventures: South Africa took us to the very bottom of the continent, the Cape of Good Hope. Pictured here are Linda Rush, Karen Wells and Jason Cochrane, who have now earned an honorary DENny for being at the southernmost DEN event yet!
To read about our cage dive with great white sharks, trip to the Cape of Good Hope, or adventures with African penguins, visit the DSA: South Africa blog!!
While Jannita’s journey with Discovery Student Adventures to Australia is wrapping up, DSA South Africa is just beginning! Two days of travel split up by a brief exploration of Frankfurt, Germany have led us to our first day in Cape Town.
This morning, we’re getting an overview of the country, before we hop on the bus and begin exploring. Thankfully, we have 12 student bloggers and 3 teacher bloggers to share the journey with you. To keep up with the adventures, follow along at the DSA South Africa blog to see our tweets, photos, videos and blog posts.
We’d like to congratulate the first, second and third place winners in this year’s Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge! And the winners are (drum roll)….
Grand Prize Winners: Team “Dead Weight” from West Branch, Iowa
- West Branch Middle School Students Jathan Kron (age 12), Justin Roth (age 13) and Brennan Nelson (age 12), along with their teacher, Hector Ibarra, raised awareness about the dangers of lead wheel weights in vehicles to help phase out this hazardous material in the tire industry.
Second Place Winners: Team “Recycle Because You Care” from Addison, Ill.
- St. Philip the Apostle School students Angel Lozzio (age 13), Maggie O’Brien (age 12) and Dana Gattone (age 13), along with their team advisor, Dawn O’Brien, recruited non-recycling households in their community to start recycling, and launched a school-wide recycling program.
Third Place Winners: Team “Stewards of the Pamlico Sound” from Buxton, N.C.
- Cape Hatteras Secondary School of Coastal Studies students Evan Haas (age 14), Ashley Hodges (age 14) and Kailee Pieno (age 14), along with their teacher, Tracy Shisler, created an artificial oyster reef to restore the oyster population of Pamlico Sound.
More than 2,000 students participated in the inaugural challenge, with the grand prize winners receiving a comprehensive prize package, including an appearance on Planet Green, Discovery’s 24-hour eco-lifestyle network, a once-in-a-lifetime Discovery Adventure Trip accompanied by a Discovery TV personality, a $5,000 U.S. Savings Bond, a chance to present their project before a panel of environmental experts, a flip camera, and an eco-friendly prize pack of school supplies.
Congrats to all the winners! And don’t forget, if you’re an elementary teacher and would like to have your students participate, keep an eye on WeCanChange.com in August for details how!
The State Finalists have been announced for the Siemens We Can Change The World Challenge! The winning teams were posted to the We Can Change website this morning. We’d like to extend a hearty congratulations to each of the 22 teams that have been honored as State Finalists this year. They have all done an incredible job of making a lasting environmental impact in their communities. In just a few short weeks, they’ll be announcing the 2 National winners, so you’ll want to keep your eyes open for that. And if you are an elementary teacher eager to participate in the challenge yourself, your time is coming! In August 2009 we’ll be announcing details for how K-5 teachers and students can join in.
Congrats to all twenty two winning teams!
What’s better than winning a 2009 BESSIE Award? Winning TWO 2009 BESSIE Awards! Discovery Education Science - Elementary scored a Best Science Web Site for Upper Elementary award for the second year in a row, and Discovery Education streaming won for Best Digital Video Library in the Teacher Tools category.
“We are grateful to the team at ComputED Learning Center for this recognition,” said Kelli Campbell, Senior Vice President of Content and Product Development for Discovery Education. “We strive to create not only outstanding instructional tools such as Discovery Education streaming and Discovery Education Science for Elementary, but also programs like the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge and the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge, which ignite student curiosity and engage students in learning.”
So join me in congratulating my colleagues here at Discovery Education on winning two more very prestigious awards!
Our own Digital Storytelling guru, Joe Brennan, was recently interviewed by Techn & Learning about his thoughts on techniques, software, and how to get the best bang for the buck!
A selection from it to whet your appetite:
Q. Many teachers are using digital storytelling in the classroom. How can seasoned educators in this genre polish their technique and bring their students to the next level?
Through Discovery, I connected with the American Film Institute Screen Exhibition program and learned how to bring Hollywood features to classic digital storytelling. First, I had to teach video grammar. All of those writing elements apply to a 30-second or 60-second commercial, movie trailer, or any genre that the kids recognize. You just teach them a few shots–close ups, extreme close ups, medium shots, reverse angle shots. Even little tips, such as: the reporter is the one who looks into the camera but the person you’re interviewing never really does. When kids shoot their own original footage it looks recognizable to people who watch it.
Fresh off the presses, the latest offering from Discovery Education is called Progress Zone (PZ). In a nutshell, you create assessments for your students (based off of state standards of course). Students take the assessments. If the students get anything wrong, PZ will immediately step in to offer up digital media tailored specifically to those students’ needs. How cool is that?
There are over 35,000 unique items that can be used to create your assessments, focusing specficially on reading, math, science and US History for grades 1-12. You grab the items that you need, put together the perfect assessment for your students, and then offer it up to them digitally. The magic is, if the student misses anything, they can get remediation immediately. By harnassing the tens of thousands of videos available in DE streaming, students can get individualized support based on their specfic need.
You can read the full press release here, but if you want to learn more about it or give it a test run, give the DE team a call at 800-323-9084.
I’m very excited to announce that the DEN will be participating in the next global collaborative project that Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay are creating! You can read the entire announcement below, but here’s a quick summary:
1) Don Tapscott, the author of Grown Up Digital, is hosting a video challenge right now with the first prize being a college scholarship (or the equivalent for further education). The challenge is open to all teachers and students.
2) Julie and Vicki are organizing the Net Generation Education Project, a global collaborative project for hundreds of students worldwide that will involve both the book and the video challenge. STAR Discovery Educators are encouraged to apply to participate!
3) The DEN is hosting a Book Club for Grown Up Digital, and the author himself will be in attendance for the final discussion!
4) Hall and Joe will be hosting four webinars to help teachers and students create their video submissions for the challenge.
That’s it in a nutshell, but fare more details are below. Read on, and then apply for the challenge and join the book club!
Net Generation Education Project
Written by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay
As announced at the Flat Classroom conference this past Monday, the Net Generation Education Project is the replacement for the Horizon Project and will include approximately 10 schools with 300 students. The application process is now open for schools who wish to participate in the project.
Last year, Don Tapscott keynoted the Horizon Project 2008 which focused on having students envision the future of education via web collaboration and video. The reading documents include the Horizon Report 2009 from the New Media Consortium and Educause. Don Tapscott went on to include this project in his new Book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World
So, the next level of “flattening” is to not only have classrooms connect but to have the classrooms connect in new and more far-reaching ways with the authors of their books. Recent examples of connected classrooms and authors include Karl Fisch’s Whole New Mind Project as they work with Dan Pink and such as Will Richardson and Anne Davis did with Sue Monk Kidd, author of the Secret Life of Bees.
In the same genre students in this project will interact on a Ning jointly created with Don Tapscott. Don will post weekly questions to the Discussion forum and leave video messages to the students. It will be a read/write project. He will also interact LIVE via a webinar. Don has a vision for improved educational outcomes and is reaching out to interact directly with students through his challenge and this project.
Additionally, the Discovery Educator Network is going to be providing and sharing tips and information on effective video presentations and how-to’s and a book club group for educators. Don Tapscott will keynote and the student keynotes are award winning virtual worlds educator Peggy Sheehy and her middle School students from Suffern Middle School using machinima from their Island in Second Life.
We will be studying this year’s Horizon Report (released January 2009) but adding to it the intro and Chapter 5 from Don’s book, Grown Up Digital: (Rethinking Education) to the reading assignments for students. Students will be divided into groups to analyze some of the key trends in reworking education to create collaborative report written with other students from around the world. Each team will have a project manager and assistant project manager to help facilitate the work on the team. These “managers” will be students with teachers working as facilitators.
Each student will cast their vision for the future of education with a video to be uploaded on our project ning. All videos will be automatically entered into Don Tapscott’s Net Generation Education Challenge competition and could win scholarship money for future educational pursuits.
You do not HAVE to be a part of the project with Julie and I to join the Ning and participate in Don’s challenge competition - so go ahead and do that. But if you are ready to have your students collaborate globally and follow the best practices as used in the award winning Flat Classroom, Horizon, and Digiteen projects fill out this form before February 9th and applynow!.
Written by Kasi Bruno
A crisis is emerging in our schools and universities.
Traditional, one-way broadcast models of education are out-dated. Schools have not evolved as quickly as other institutions, and students are becoming disengaged as a result. Why are connected students at home suddenly disconnected at school?
How can we reinvent education for relevance and effectiveness for the 21st century?
Inspired by the work of Don Tapscott and Grown Up Digital, the Net Gen Education Challenge offers everyone an outlet through which to express their ideas and opinions about their ideal model of education. The challenge community will connect engaged participants all around the world, bringing educators, students, parents and professionals together in a global dialogue on learning. In partnership with the CBC, Flat Classroom Project, the Discovery Channel’s Educator Network and Classroom 2.0, Don Tapscott invites you to share your ideas and help make education engaging, inspiring and relevant.
by Steve Dembo
In conjunction with the Net Generation Education (NGE) project, the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) will be hosting a weekly book club for Tapscott’s work, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. While the NGE project will be focusing just on the Intro and Chapter 5, we will gather together weekly to discuss the ideas within the book and their implications for education. Best of all, the author himself, Don Tapscott, will sit in on the final week to share his thoughts in a candid conversation with everyone who participates in the book club.
There will be both live and web based discussion options for participants. The live component will take place Monday evenings, 2/9 through 3/23 at 7pm EST. We will be looking for people to lead the weekly discussions as well. If you would be interested in volunteering to lead the discussion for one of the weekly meetings, please mark it on the registration form.
If you are a DEN member and would like to be a part of the book club, please register here. If you are not currently a DEN member and would like to learn more, please contact me !
Don’s publisher has been gracious enough to offer the book for only $18.45, a generous discount, to everybody who participates in the Book Club.
There are three ways to order:
Order directly from website http://www.800CEORead.com
Email Aaron at and let him know you are participating in the DEN / Net Gen Book Club Aaron@800ceoread.com
Call Aaron at 1.414.274.6406, ext. 204 and do the same.
Schedule
Part One: Meet the Net Gen
Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 – 2/9
Chapter 3 & Chapter 4 – 2/16
Part Two: Transforming Institutions
Chapter 5 – 2/23 (chapter on Education)
Chapter 6 & Chapter 7 – 3/2
Chapter 8– 3/9
Part Three: Transforming Society
Chapter 9 & Chapter 10 – 3/16
Chapter 11 – 3/23
Click here to register for the book club
by Steve Dembo
To support teachers and students who are participating in the Net Generation Education Project, the Discovery Educator Network will be hosting four webinars with two of the country’s foremost experts on digital storytelling; Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan. These webinars will be intended for teachers to attend WITH their students so that they may learn ways to create digital stories from the very best. To learn more about Hall Davidson and Joe Brennan, visit the Discovery Education Speakers Bureau.
Webinar 1 with Joe Brennan: Wed, March 4, 1pm EST
Webinar 2 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 11, 1pm EST
Webinar 3 with Hall Davidson: Wed, March 18, 1pm EST
Webinar 4 with Joe Brennen: Wed, March 25, 1pm EST
As I was trolling through the EduBlog Awards this year, I was thrilled to see the DEN represented a few different times! In particular, the DEN in Second Life team has been nominated for the Best Educational Use of a Virtual World! Major kudos for the nomination, but now let’s see what we can do to earn them an Eddie! Stop by and give them a vote, and do it the Chicago way… Early, often and with others!
I also saw a few other STARs represented there as well. Jennifer Dorman, our Fall Virtual Conference lunchtime keynote, is up for Best Individual Blog for her ClioTech blog. Dave Kootman is up for Best Class blog, Vicki Davis, the CoolCatTeacher herself, is up for Best Teacher Blog, and yours truly has had Teach42 nominate for Best EdTech Support Blog and Best Individual Blog.
So support your fellow DEN members and cast some votes in their direction!
I’m sure I’m missing some. There are 16 categories and dozens of nominees. If you’re nominated for an Eddie and I missed you, leave a comment so I can update the post with your link!
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?
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