The Michigan Leadership Council for 2010-11 Chair: Cheryl Lykowski Events Coordinators: Gina Loveless and Lisa Wickman. Events Team: Cindy Carson, Susan Dornberg, Katie Rourk Blog Coordinator: Eric Strommer. Blog Team: Kristi Bush, John Phillips, Pam Shoemaker
Be it know that this is a semi-formal call out for any and all Michigan STAR’s to be a guest blogger on this site. You’ve read us. Now it’s your turn. Do you have a topic of great importance (or not that important)? Do you have a great idea to share? A best practice? Just [...]
What better way to kick off a new school year than with a whole day’s worth of DE streaming webinars? Join the DEN team on Tuesday, September 14 for the fifth annual streamathon! Come for an hour when you have a break at school or come for several hours! Here’s the schedule: 9:00 – 9:45 AM Back-to-School [...]
Getting ready for the new school year has taken a gradual shift for me. When I think back, I remember the early years where I needed a key to the building, to my classroom, and to the copy room. In my classroom, I dusted off and sorted through teachers’ editions, professional journals, and various handbooks [...]
Next time you log in, you’ll notice that My DE has a fresh new look and design, streamlined content and exciting new customization capabilities. Design your own landing page by utilizing the new Drag and Drop feature, which allows you to arrange your content so it suits your needs and gives you immediate access to what [...]
As many educators do I am taking a couple of continuing education courses this summer. These just happen to be all on-line and self paced. As I like to share good stuff, I share the Michigan LearnPort site. I am amazed at how many of my fellow educators don’t know about the site. It is [...]
I’ve seen the ads, I’ve read the reviews, and I couldn’t wait to get a copy of Windows 7 to see how it worked for myself. Admitedly, I was nervous about upgrading my computer (from Vista), worried that something would go wrong and I’d no longer be able to connect to my home wireless network, [...]
What do you get when you put a Media Specialist with a social personality on the web? FACEBOOK LISTS! Categorize it! Organize it! Label it! Okay, I doubt it was really a Media Specialist who developed lists on Facebook, but I can attest to the fact that at least one is using them–ME! I haven’t [...]
We just got back from an awesome week of learning and fun with the Discovery Educator Network. There were seven of us from Michigan who met with leaders from 20 other states. I sure enjoyed spending time with this group of geeky people with contagious energy and positive attitudes!
Michael Wesch: “Harness the relevant tools and engage students in real world problems that the teacher does not know the answer to.” “We need to move our students from knowledgeable to knowledge-able.” Michael Lambert: “Treat a visual like an onion. Peel back the layers, make the students slow down, and dive in.” “Emotion drives attention [...]
You’re invited to join us as we journey, “Beyond the Textbook” at an enriching and intensive professional development experience. REMC 13 and Discovery Education are excited to provide this Day of Discovery at no charge to area educators. Tuesday, July 27, 2010 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM (registration begins at 8:30 AM) REMC 13 [...]
I’m at the DEN Leadership Council Institute in Boston this week with 75 other amazing DEN leaders from across the country. This evening we participated in an AmeriDEN Idol competition. What a fun structure for learning! Each team (of approximately ten people) were given four minutes to deliver a presentation to the others… a web site, online tool, video, etc. The DEN team hammed [...]
DEN Summer School 2010 Who ever said summer school isn’t fun? Get ready for your school year with an amazing series of free professional development sessions from the Discovery Educator Network (DEN)! DEN Summer School begins August 2. Click on any of the session titles below for more information and to register. All sessions start [...]
Greetings all of you back in Michigan! The DEN group hit the ground running today in Denver with a pre-conference event held at the Denver Zoo. I put together a slide share of some of the photos that I took today, and I am sure that there will be more to come. ISTE 2010: Day1 [...]
I have to credit this week’s blog to my esteemed (and recently retired) colleague, Mr. Bruce Vigneault. He sent me a link to http://edte.ch/blog/2008/08/23/10-google-forms-for-the-classroom/. One reason that it particularly interested me was because he commented that many of the forms pertain to the lower grade levels. In my experience at our district, the majority of [...]
Is anyone from Michigan headed out to Denver for ISTE 2010? I would love to meet everyone out there, and perhaps share a few stories and ideas. If you are interested, fill out this form and I will contact you with meet up info.
As the school year draws to a close, I find myself beginning to have a few spare moments to look at some of the websites that I accumulated over the course of the year that I haven’t looked at. One of those sites is http://www.fillanypdf.com. This site allows you to upload any PDF form to [...]
Cheryl Lykowski was awarded a Discovery Educator Network leadership award at this year’s DENny awards! Cheryl is the Michigan DEN Leadership Council Chairperson. Congratulations, Cheryl; your efforts are much appreciated.
For your reading enjoyment. I have already used the math sites with my students while in the lab with great success.
Today is the Discovery Educator Network (DEN) Spring Geocaching Day. Groups of teachers from all over the country get together to geocache! This is part of the West Bloomfield group, organized by Cindy Carson and Pam Shoemaker. It rained the whole time, but that didn’t stop us. A fun time! Another Michigan group cached in Battle [...]
Due to the AWESOME number of people who have registered for the Battle Creek session of Geocaching Day 2010, we have had to make a change of location for the morning meet up. We will be meeting in the back parking lot of Urbandale Elementary School. The address is 123 N. Bedford Rd., Battle Creek, [...]
I’d love to say that I have more information about Shepherd High School’s use of Facebook in the classroom, but we really haven’t done much more with it. Maybe it truly is just a social media in which students prefer to focus on their social lives? Perhaps we won’t venture into their social circle with [...]
Greetings fellow Michiganders. The DEN team here in Michigan is hosting two locations for DEN Geocaching Day on May 22nd, 2010. One location will be in West Bloomfield, MI and the other will be in Battle Creek, MI. Click on the city names to register for either location. Below you will find a flyer for [...]
It was not until we were in our Poetry Unit that I saw an obvious use of Voice Thread with my 1st and 2nd graders. I have been unsure how it could be useful with young students as I have. But, with the students showing excitement with writing poetry I presented Voice Thread to them. [...]
Let us here on the blog team be the first to welcome our new Michigan STARS! Kelly Alford Lori Banaszak David Jiminez Welcome to the BEST group for educators in Michigan!
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