California DEN

I just LOVE Google’s creative ways to keep us informed on commemorative events.  If you click on their website today you will see a sketch of Mozart in the "O" of the word Google.  I clicked here and it took be to websites that honor Mozart’s life. Then it hit me that I bet unitedstreaming has it on our calendar feature also.  Have you been to "Learning Tools" lately.  If you go to our Calendar today, you will find unitedstreaming videos about Mozart!

The calendar feature is a great way to start everyday off with learning something new!  You can also have students share one interesting thing that happened on their birthday.  Or how about creating your own interactive class calendar comparing current and historical events.  Anyone have a Kid News/ Morning Bulletin broadcast to their site? 

How are you using the Calendar feature?

Want to help your kids increase their reading fluency by watching movies?!?  Turn on that Closed Captioning.  Whenever you see a CC by a movie title it means that Closed Captioning is available in Windows Media Player. To turn on your Closed Captioning you must go to the hot link titled "Show Media Controls" when you are looking at the table of contents of that movie.  Click the box that reads "Enable Closed Captioning."

To download the closed captioning, you must download 2 different files.  First, download the video as you normally would do.  Second, double click on the CC located to the right of the video and follow the steps to download.

After the downloads are complete, you only need to play the .asf file (the one with the Windows Media Player Icon).  If the Closed Captioning does not play, make sure that your captions are turned on by going to the Windows Media Player tool bar and clicking on "Play"… "Captions and Subtitles" … "On if available" and then start your movie over again.

MAC USERS: Your terrific Manager of Implementation, Craig Halper, just shared with me how to enable closed captioning with MAC.  See attached Document. THANKS CRAIG!!!!

Download closed_captioning_for_mac_users.doc

Thanks to DEN TX Manager Michelle Weeks, I learned how to show closed captioning full screen. 

To learn more check out these links or visit Michelle’s blog   Thanks Michelle!!!

http://www.mentortogo.com/discovery/

http://www.mentortogo.com/discovery/ClosedCaptioning.pdf

You can also turn the Closed Captioning into a Language Arts lesson, by pausing the movie and having the students point out the subjects, verbs, vocabulary, etc.  Go a step further by clicking on the black line masters, teacher guides, and correlations… often times you can find the script to the movie.

The news of Playlists is spreading like fire through the districts in California. I have seen some excellent examples of teachers creating curriculum based playlists (i.e. 4th Grade Open Court Theme 2) and as all  DEN members do you are sharing your lists with your site and/or district. Remember, that you are the only one that can edit, add videos, or delete the playlist you shared.  So, here’s a helpful trick to help you keep those Playlists pretty. Make sure that you write your name in the description.  That way, if anyone wants to suggest adding a video to that folder or they need to reorganize they know who to contact.  Great Job sharing all the great resources you are finding! 

How are you using playlists in your district?

Well, we kicked off our Mead DEN event by kicking off our shoes this morning (studies have proven that you are more effective when you work in your socks!)  We were quite the site walking around during our breaks… but I am proud to say that most of us kept our shoes off for the entire 5 hours! My feet thanked me after walking that exhibit hall at MacWorld last week. 

So, just what did we accomplish… more than I ever have in any day long training.  Jennifer Gingerich and I hosted the DEN Mead teachers to a full day of professional development.  We started off by sharing tips and tricks of unitedstreaming, showcasing dynamic presentations, and touring the tools.  (What are your favorite learning tools?) We followed that whirlwind by taking flight over earth as we learned how to integrate Google Earth with unitedstreaming by creating links on placemarks to streaming media and image overlays from the image gallery.  It took a while to bring people "back down to earth," but then we turned things over to Jennifer as she taught us the art of digital poetry.  I loved this part… more on this coming your way soon.  To cap of the day, we were able to join in Hall Davidson’s webinar debut. This provided a perfect opportunity to look at the wealth of resources on the Internet to help create digital stories… by far our favorite was KitZu.org   You have to check that one out!

Just a side note… the Mead district is pretty progressive when it comes to technology. To start off they ALL… yes every teacher in the district.. have LCD projectors in their classrooms and a fiber backbone.  In addition to this dream come true they have a webmaster, Matt, that actually created their own blog server so that each teacher in their district has their own.  To add to that excitement they are doing grade level podcasting!  I am looking forward to seeing what these Mead teachers will help provide to our DEN website (Any body out there do grade level podcasting or blogs?  I would love to chat with you!)

The party didn’t end when we put our shoes back on… because off we went to their famous burger restaurant The Onion.  We had our own private room, which featured 2 televisions and wouldn’t you know it when we walked in they had football on one t.v. and the Discovery Channel on the other!

I think my favorite part of the day had to be the networking and sharing at the end.  So many great ideas and visions of where to head next.  Far too many to mention, so I’ll let them post some of their feedback here.

And a final congrats to our golden coin award winners Jen and Kendra and our officially hooked on unitedstreaming winners Linda and Claudia. And the "unofficial" winner of the naughty boy award has to go to Joe! Just a huge final thanks to DEN member Kim for putting this incredible event together.  Keep up the great work Mead!

I have been wanting to post this blog for a few days and tonight after a long chat with some DEN Mead teachers at dinner, I knew it was time. 

At MacWorld last week, I had the honor of meeting Dave Warlick.  Now, I had heard several great things about Dave and when we had dinner together and he hung out with our team at the DEN and CUE party, I was pleased to find that he was humble, down to earth and extremely approachable. We had great discussions about many things from our favorite GPS machines for our cars to a Google Earth project that some of our DEN members will be working on.  Then Friday moring, Dave set my mind a spinning. Now, I don’t have my notes with me, but here’s what I remember the most.

He gave a wonderful keynote and explained how our students are like a an octopus when they arrive in school, with several tentacles reaching out grabbing resources from a variety of places… iPods, Internet, iTunes, Podcasts, Video Games, on line chats, etc.  Then, they come to school and what do we do?!? Cut those tentacles off! It seems that often times the only thing we really allow them to reach out and grab hold of is the text and workbook, and often times they don’t want to touch that at all. How true… seems like we have increasing technology in our world and in many ways we try to restrict kids from it in the classroom.  (We had a great discussion tonight at dinner as to whether it’s the districts, lack of budget or fear of teachers that causes this.) Dave urged us not to be the “gate keepers” any more as kids are no longer restricted by knowledge boundaries.  The gates are not there, but many of us are still standing their trying to control the flow.  Now is the time to let that gate fly open, and not try to teach our students the information, but rather teach them how to discern the information to find out which has the most “authority.”

One of the greatest things I left with was a quote from a study that I do not know the name of… my apologies, I never was very good at citations… but it goes something like this.  “Children today think that everything in their world is clickable… even their parents!”  So, are you clickable?  Are you making easy for kids to “remix” their content, not just consume it.  With the digital generation that is entering our classes, what are we doing to help prepare them to be successful citizens in our non-linear world?

I encourage your all to check out Dave Warlick’s website, blog, and podcasts http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/  His blog is titled 2 cents… but I am pretty confident it’s a lot more valuable than that!  He also has a Land Mark Project website http://landmark-project.com/index.php  designed to help "redefine literacy for the 21st century.  This site has more that 6,000,000 visits a month and you can add a few more to that count as I will now be a frequent visitor. CA DEN members are in luck… He’ll be at the CUE conference.  Make sure to get to his session early and save me a seat if you make it there first

Wowie!  I woke up to a complete blanket of white.  I got a few weird looks when I started taking pictures of my car, so I refrained from making snow angels.  Talk about beautiful.  A big thank you to my good friend Colleen, who provided me with a perfect scarf for my adventures.   

I felt like a Ms. Daisy today as I was driven around town.  DEN member Terry and Kim gave me a great inside look at their middle and elementary schools today. So here’s my recap.

I spent the first part of the day at the middle school where they have a 1:1 computer:student laptop ratio and they are all wireless!  What a dream!  It was so exciting being in a class where students were actually reading their textbooks from their computer.  But with this excitement comes new challenges.  For example… how do you control the students from staying on their textbook page and not doing Google searches for their favorite images?  Any sug gestions?   They ended this great lesson on Spanish Explorers by showing some unitedstreaming clips.  Every teacher in this district has an LCD projector! I also saw a cool image that had been put on a rasperator (not even sure I am spelling it correctly)  Basically you put a picture in the program and it prints it out as hundreds of dots on several different pages… when you put the pages together… wa lah.. the picture!

Next, we moved on to elementary schools were 2 sites were working on iMovie. These kids were making their first iMovies by using digital images and movies from unitedstreaming.  It was terrific because they were narrating the story themselves.  Most exciting thing… was watching just how quickly they learn iMovie… about 20 minutes and they were creating on their own.

Another impressive thing along my way was watching their librarian actually teach a lesson!  Not sure if it is like this in your districts… but the librarian really teaches a lesson.  Today, she was going over how to create a Keynote (Apple’s version of PowerPoint) She was also using a document camera, demonstrating how to search through their books to find the information they needed.  They are preparing for their WA state reports… did you know that WA has a rainforest?!?  I learn something new every day! Outstanding!

Overall it was a terrific day in the Mead School District.   Thanks to all these exemplary teachers, Terry, and Kim for keeping me pointed in the right direction.  I am looking forward to our workshop tomorrow.

Okay… well maybe not so private but it has definitely been an adventure today.  It all started at 6 am when I my hubby was drive me to LAX, as we passed the airport with all the private jets he made the remark that maybe someday I would be flying in one of those.  That gave me a good laugh and I figured he must still be sleeping. So, off I went to Seattle where I would have to switch planes and head to Spokane, WA.  Wouldn’t you know it… a small private looking United Jet J  So, on I climbed with 20 others (not so private anymore)  As if that was not exciting enough the plane happened to have propellers.  YIKES!  Had I not been so afraid the prop would fly off, I may have enjoyed the constant shaking of the seats… almost like at the spa pedicure place J  40 minutes later… touch down Spokane, WA.  BRRRRR!  A nice 35 degrees and yes… it’s snowing!  I had a wonderful surprise when I checked in…

I was greeted by DEN member Kim and her very cute son Joey, who brought with them a wonderful care package.  WOWIE!  I am looking forward to meeting the other Mead DEN members tomorrow.  For now, I think I will grab that bottle of wine and watch the snow fall outside by window.

SESSION IS FULL.  WE ARE NO LONGER TAKING RSVPs.

Discovery Educator Network is pleased to announce a private Discovery Educator only event on Friday, March 10th in Mesquite Room B from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The evening will highlight the arrival of our new website and on-line community.  Guest speakers will include Steve Dembo and Hall Davidson.

Note: You do not need to attend the CUE conference to attend this event. Make sure you join us before the event poolside for a special CUE Ball featuring some of our DEN members as they perform a live music concert!

You must RSVP for this event by posting a comment here.  More information will be sent out closer to the event, only to those who RSVP.  Please post a comment if you plan on attending with your name. If you plan on bringing a guest, please include their name also.

Okay… so this pretty much takes rank as one of my best days as a Discovery employee… it makes all those late nights very much worth it… On, Monday I played Santa… okay… maybe a late Santa, but I am sure these “kids” didn’t mind.

My day began with the trek out to Redlands Christian School to give our first CUE scholarship to DEN member Ruth Verhoef.  How wonderful that her next class she was doing a web quest using unitedstreaming… how’s that for perfect timing. I loved watching peoples expressions change from what’s going on… to sheer excitement! 

On the road again, to Solorio Elementary (Etiwanda) where DEN member Marie Forst received the second CUE scholarship.  Again.. what timing I had… she had just walked in to the computer lab with her students.  It took her a second to process that I was actually standing at her door and when she found out why… let’s just say there was lots of jumping up and down. 

Off I was again, to Centennial Highschool (Corona Norco) to pop in on DEN member Ray Waller.  His principal and secretary accompanied me down to his room, what great fun to see the expression when all 3 of us came walking in. His students didn’t seem to mind the break from working either.  And how’s this for an exit… He’s also the golf coach for the school and I tripped over his golf clubs on the way out! Way to go Jannita!  My husband, a huge golf fan, got a real kick out of that one! 

All of these DEN members entered our ticket contest by posting projects, referring new DEN members, and completing several DEN events. This was so much fun… expect another contest soon!

With one more stop, I headed to Lincoln Elementary (Anaheim City) where I actually thought Shannon Gaumer might actually faint when I walked in with her brand new Epson LCD projector.  Teachers heard the screams and actually ran in to find her jumping up and down and nearly running laps around her room.  Can you believe she had actually gone shopping for LCD projectors that

weekend?!? 

It was almost an out of body experience as Susan started her lesson.  I sat back in the tiny first grade chair and almost thought that I had been transported 7 months back in time to when I was in the classroom.  For a moment, I thought I was watching myself.  Susan is a first grade teacher in Ceres who is definitely an out of the box thinker.  I laughed outloud when I saw a little plaque on her wall that read “A creative mind is seldom tidy” and a miniature construction cone on her desk that read “Back away from my desk.”  So this post I have to dedicate to my old principal, who I almost made hyperventilate several times…. See… I’m not the only one!

Susan was on a “Journey” unit in her Open Court, so her class was transformed to a castle (which even included a knight that encouraged students to read and a “King Author” throne).  As a result, today her student would journey to far away castles and create stained glass windows.  She began by showing them pictures from a not so far away Hearst Castle.  Then played a unitedstreaming clip about castles.  This movie was actually designed for 3^rd-5^th grade students, however she just kept the volume down and narrated it herself.  Needless to say there was lots of “oooss” and “aahhhs”  Need a great way to bring bright color to your class… take it from Susan and have students create stained glass windows from sheets of thin plastic and permanent marker. 

Thanks Susan for allowing me to travel off to far away lands and for allowing me to prove I’m not the only one out there who’s not always tidy J