California DEN

In preparation for this summer’s NECC in Georgia, please visit this link to the national DEN blog and let us know your thoughts.  If you’ve never been to NECC, I can tell you that it blows Palm Springs CUE away!  There are so many sessions and interesting things to learn that everyone can take away something useful.   
D Kootman

    Unless you’ve been hiding under an unabridged dictionary,
you’ve no doubt heard about the podcasting revolution of the last few
years. Podcasting has been making its
way into education more and more every day. As with all new technology, people are often reserved and unsure about its
usage, capabilities and most of all, creation process.

Simply put, a
podcast is a method of publishing files, usually audio, to the Internet,
allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by
subscription, usually at no cost, (Wikipedia). Rather than show you how to create a podcast or discuss educational applications of podcasts
(just Google it), I’m going to show you a neat new way to create podcasts
without even the use of a microphone or a computer!

First, sign up
for a Gabcast or Gcast account. These two sites not only allow you to host your podcasts, as tons of
sites out there can, but they will allow you to create your podcast using only
a telephone! I often use my cell phone
and have my students sit outside my door and record where it’s always
quiet. This method requires no
additional hardware and the podcast is automatically saved and published by the
time you hang up! Of course, the
drawback with this method is that you cannot edit it or add music, although you
can delete and rerecord easily. The
tradeoff is unbelievable simplicity.

The website
will then create a podcast “channel” for you, where all of your episodes will
be hosted. You can then link to that
page from your classroom website. Now
here’s where it gets really cool. Go to Blogger/Blogspot and create a classroom blog
if you don’t already have one. Using
Gabcast, you can set it up to automatically post to your blog using the “edit
channel” page. Once you have confirmed
this, you can then record a podcast and have it integrated smoothly into your
personal/class blog! It appears as a
regular post with a small flash player in less than a minute!

With the
integrated podcast option, you can use a traditional blog for all of its
features (text/image posts, customization, comments, templates…) and add audio
when you want! Just remember that all
educational podcasts should begin on paper with the “precasting”/ “prewriting” phase.
 
 
Post some links to your own
creations in the comments section of this blog.

Dave Kootman

In support of those affected by recent occurrences, Discovery Education has altered the color scheme of the blogs.  Please see the following statement for further information:

Virginia Tech family members across the country have
united to declare
this Friday, April 20th, an “Orange
and Maroon Effect” day to honor
those killed in the
tragic events on campus Monday, and to show
support
for Virginia Tech students, faculty, administrators,
staff, alumni, and friends. “Orange and Maroon Effect”
was born several
years ago as an invitation to Tech
fans to wear orange and maroon to
Virginia Tech
athletic events. We invite everyone from all over
the
country to be a part of the Virginia Tech family this
Friday, to wear orange and maroon to support the
families of those who
were lost, and to support the
school and community we all love so much.

Come have a BLAST with DEN at JPL’s Annual Open House!!

Bring your family and friend’s to celebrate Jet Propulsion Labratory’s accomplishments with exhibits and
demonstrations about the Laboratory’s ongoing research and space exploration.
Many of the Lab’s scientists and engineers will be on hand to answer your questions
about how spacecraft are sent to other planets, how scientists utilize space
technologies to explore Earth and how researchers are now searching for planets
beyond the solar system. You will see exhibits, displays, demonstrations and
presentations about new technologies, solar system exploration, spacecraft
communication and much more.

Following our visit to the Open House, we will all meet at Hahamonga Park across the street from JPL) for a family picnic beginning at 1:00 p.m. for lunch and networking! Don’t
forget to bring a lunch for your family!   

When: Sunday, May 20, 2007 

Where: JPL is located at 4800 Oak Grove Drive in Pasadena, off the 210 (Foothill) Freeway at the
Berkshire Avenue/Oak Grove Drive exit. Parking is available near the Oak Grove main
gate and the eastern boundary of JPL, accessible from Windsor Avenue via the Arroyo Boulevard exit off the 210 Freeway.

Time:  9:00a.m.         Contact : Sarah J - johase@fusd.net to RSVP or for more information.Here is the website for more information:    http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pso/oh.cfm

OK, one last reminder to take advantage of this special offer.  No coupons or promo codes necessary:

4, 3, 2, 1…. That’s
right… the final countdown in rolling!  4 days left to make sure
you have your application
in to the National
Institutes.

If you have already applied,
you should have received a confirmation email.  If you have not, please
email Jannita at Jannita_Demian@discovery.com
ASAP.

Good Luck!  We are looking
forward to seeing you at the institutes!

By now, I think most of us are familiar with the process of
turning PowerPoint slides into jpeg images to insert into a Photostory3
project. If not, search that under the
DEN resources. It’s really simple and
effective (essentially saving your PowerPoint in the “save as” box as jpeg file
interchange). Here is one that I created
for an online presentation on digital equity (no need
to watch it all, just check out what you can do using this method).

I recently came across another novel PowerPoint
integration. This one takes a step
backwards, but really creates some interesting slides. In essence, the concept is just writing your
text on sticky notes and photographing them. Then simply insert the images into your PP. Check out this
sample (once again, disregard the content of this sample and look at the
presentation itself). I picture using
creative entrances to overlay sticky notes and creating a more dynamic
presentation. Either way, I think the
concept is innovative and artistic!

If you create some
uniquely different PowerPoints, feel free to link them in the comments section.

As the DEN blogs start to grow in number, I thought it would
be helpful if I showcased some potentially important information from some of
them. One thing to check out is this
post regarding your DEN
event reporting. Another posting you
may want to check out is the info about the Discovery
National Institute. The deadline is
quickly approaching, so make sure to get your apps in!

Lastly, I wanted to let everyone in on another great Discovery blog. Digital passports,
maintained by Steve Dembo, showcases some of the latest and greatest web 2.0
websites. They’re fun, useful and often
educationally related as well. If you
like some of the tech tips in this blog, you’ll love Digital
Passports. Check out the link to the
right or click here. OK,
that’s the end of this infomercial. Stay
tuned…