I’m working on my presentation for NECC on things you can do with code and tinkered a little with the work of Cindy Lane, Jen Dorman, and others nicely noted in Matt Monjan’s blog. The trick is doing chromakey (the “weatherperson effect”) where a video clip can play inside another clip through a color that [...]
Although some of you may be thinking that this is the most wonderful time of the year because the school year is ending, for me it is also the time of student media festivals and teacher awards. Slick Rock had theirs, and you may have had yours at the school, district, or state level. On [...]
They opened the NASA film vaults and built the biggest winner since Planet Earth. The Discovery Channel premiered “When We Left the Earth” in Beverly Hills for an audience of science celebrities–and teachers. The DEN was in full force at the Paley Center for Media where they were wined and dined and shown what turned [...]
I haven’t been able to describe what I do since I left the classroom. “I teach math” was easy, and nothing in the twenty years since has been that simple to summarize. But since the last post, by way of apology, here is where I’ve been: Saturday (4/12), San Francisco (Leadership 3.0), Sunday, Orange Co. [...]
Forgive the quick post, but we are getting lots of requests for the PowerPoints used in the webinars for the Discovery/3M Young Scientist Challenge. They are posted below. Students and DEN teachers each have their own category so each have their own PowerPoint. Student Challenge PowerPoint Teacher Challenge PowerPoint We have recorded the webinars and [...]
This posting is made as a companion for the webinar series Discovery Education and 3M are sponsoring to support students and teachers entering the Young Scientist Challenge. This Challenge is entirely video-based. Entrants must create a one to two-minute video (max!) from a list of scientific concepts. Below are some different ways those videos can [...]
For the Young Scientist Challenge webinars explaining both the student category and the DEN teachers category, I wanted to have the overall student winner from last year say a few words as well as hear from a commited scientist at 3M. But the webinar schedule was extensive –inconvenient for both 11-year old Erik Gustafson and [...]
The Discovery-3M Young Scientist Challenge kicked off with a technology challenge as the online seminar locked up on my computer. Fortunately, old pal and fellow media maven Joe Brennan was able to take over from his. One fine thing about this Challenge is that it is NOT about technology. It’s about creativity and communication and [...]
The Discovery Educator Network had a team meeting in California this week. As with any group of educators, this means food is not to be taken lightly. Here, servicing the hungry crew, Vice President Kinney fries up the eggs as Jannita irons waffles behind him. The crew at the table chows down, with Dembo hitting [...]
Interesting thing about Dubai. In education, we share the visionary talk about conceiving things and then making them happen. In Dubai, there is the physical manifestation of that. They are going bricks and mortar big time. A town (right) that in 1990 was a figment of a royal imagination has become real in less than [...]
Still in Dubai. Some members of our ISTE group got bumped off their critically oversold flight last night. We’ll see what happens to me late tonight… Woke up smelling of camel, since we took an offroad adventure out into the desert last night. The desert is deeply beautiful and the sand has so much more [...]
Here in Dubai for the GETEX conference, the Gulf Education and Training Exhibition, held in partnership with ISTE. Interesting kind of place. We have been meeting with ministers and educational agencies. It is the most top-down education space I have seen since working in Los Angeles Unified. Nothing specifically about media for this post except [...]
Missed the webinar on March 11? I updated the Powerpoint from the Webinar and it’s posted below. It explains in more detail the topics we covered. The pdf file is probably the most useful. PowerPoints tend to gum up when they include video, but it’s there, too. The previous post (below) has videos that demonstrate [...]
Tonight (Tuesday, March 11, 2008) I’m throwing a free webinar, sort of an EdTech 1.5 where I’ll update iPod, Google Earth, and Digital Editing on Windows stuff. Hit DiscoveryEd.webex.com, go to Event Center. Come on aboard, 4 Pacific. Time, 6 Central, 7 Eastern. Tomorrow, Hulu launches. This video site has 250 television series online–for free. [...]
The DEN has grown–by five months! Jannita Demian, with an assist from her husband Laurian, is preggers! Five months old, the demi-Demian will be a native Californian. This is a first for the Demian clan. They are looking for a name. The winner will get a DEN hat from Hall Davidson (who is pulling for [...]
Joe Brennan wrote me that Wal-Mart must be reading my blog. They pulled the losing format hi-def DVD players (HD DVD from Toshiba) off their shelves. I did predict the triumph of Blu-Ray when Warner Brothers jumped ship and left HD DVD for Blu. That being said, now is a great time to bottom-feed for [...]
Videos are worth a thousand pictures–or least 24 pictures per second. When making points about global warming or other phenomenon on a global scale, wouldn’t it be fantastic to have visuals to make your point. In fact, wouldn’t it be great if you could build a story with those visuals to compare, contrast, and otherwise [...]
OK, I was at MacWorld (as faculty in the education strand) and met Steve Wozniac— and didn’t blog. I was at FETC, where I spoke several times and began a meaningful dialogue with David Thornburg. And didn’t blog. I went to the Discovery corporate meeting where CEO David Zaslav was. No blog. So why now? [...]
The format wars fought over high definition DVD’s reminded many folks of the VHS-Beta videotape format wars decades ago. Many buyers sat out the war, not wanting to buy a format that would soon be obsolete. Stop the presses–you can start buying now. Blu-Ray has won. HD DVD was the competition. Content, of course, is [...]
Lots of different kinds of media in the first post of 2008. It will be a digital year! Numerologically, if you add the “2″ to the “8″ in 2008 you get all zeros and ones. Close enough. First, Young Hollywood: If you didn’t see Joe Brennan’s post, it still isn’t too late to judge the [...]
Discovery and the teachers of the Los Angeles School District connected with each other Saturday, Dec. 8, for a great Discovery Educator Network event at KLCS-TV in downtown Los Angeles. Great presenters were onhand, like Los Angeles Unified teacher Brad Upshaw, pictured with his critical questions poster he used in his videomaking session. Check out [...]
“I Touch the Future, I Teach” was the wise and memorable quote from Christa McAuliffe. At the technology conference named for her in New Hampshire, I heard wonderful stories about her mother, Grace, the archetypal New England lady. Twenty years ago I was working in the library media branch of the Los Angeles Unified School [...]
This is a quick post with the PowerPoint and other goodies from the webinar of November 20. Thanks to everybody that helped out, especially Joe Brennan, Scott Kinney, and Teryl. Here’s the Word doc with the video copy-and-pastes, the Gcast site, and the “Why is Winter colder than Summer” site. webinar.doc
Things we did at GaETC! We worked with the great resources from GPB (home to the equally great Patrice, Mike, and Katherine). We made media on the dark side with Photo Story, Movie Maker, and Adobe Premiere Elements and incorporated GPB’s huge educational digital library. We also pulled clips and projects into iPods. And did [...]
The DEN did a Streamathon yesterday. Hundreds of folks took part, some with their staffs or classes watching through a projector. I referred to some both basic and ‘advanced’ Google Earth tips, techniques, and classroom strategies. These have been littered across this blogsite for more than a year. Here’s the aggregate! It has somethings old, [...]
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