Summer is now underway and many of you are probably on
vacation. One great way to share your summer fun with your new students next
year is to create a trip journal. Check out the trip
journal I made after my wife came out following the DEN Institute and we
tripped around DC.
How did I do this? First you need a Google account.
Second, you need a place to store your photos online (Flickr works fine). Start
by locating your vacation spot on a GoogleMap. If you’re logged in, you’ll see
a My Maps tab in the corner. Click on it and click ‘Create a new map’. You’ll
also see 4 tools at the top of the map. These allow you to create lines,
placemarks, and shapes. Every object you create on your map is totally editable.
To make it really come alive, click Edit on an object and
click Rich Text. In another browser window, find an image – can be any image on
the internet including your own (I used my Flickr photos). Right click on the
image and click ‘Copy Image Location’ (in Internet Explorer, you have to click ‘Properties’
and copy the URL). Now go back to your map and your object’s edit bubble. Click
the Insert Image icon and paste the image’s URL into the pop-up window. Click
OK when you’re done and test it out. Save your map. You may get some long text
lines – these can be fixed by simply hitting returns (on your keyboard) in the Rich
Text editor. Finally, to share your map click ‘Link to this page’ in the upper
right hand corner. You’ll get either a small pop-up window or notice the full
URL in your browser’s address bar. Make sure to Save often as leaving the page will
cause you to lose all your changes.
After returning home and spending hours on our trip journal,
I discovered some other tools that make this process easier. Yahoo has created Trip Planner, a tool for users to
create their own travel guides. It’s a little bulky but there are some nice
features such as the Trip Journal and the ability to print your guide. Flickr
has also added Geotagging as one of their photo sharing tools. This is new and
there are bugs to work out but this also has great information organizing
applications for students. Check out their tutorial. Combined with the other built in features of Flickr (including connection to your blog) this is a great potential tool.
So try creating your own trip journal to share with your new class next year. This would also be great interactive first assignment for your students.
I can remember many moons ago, way back when I was getting my BA…
All the fun of communicating with my friends through instant messaging (IM). Back then, almost everyone used AOL IM, whether you had AOL or not. It was free and you could communicate with anyone else who was online, quickly and easily. I’m not sure what happened, but my own personal usage of IM abruptly ceased about 3-4 years ago. Not until recently did I begin to use IM again…
These days, there are a lot more IM clients: Yahoo! AOL, MSN, Google, ICQ…
So when I went to use IM again, I wasn’t sure which one to use. Luckily there was Web 2.0 to the rescue!
There are several web-based IM services that combine all of the above IM clients and allow you to talk with anyone on any client at the same time. My favorite is Meebo. Sign-up is simple, the service is free and it even allows you to detach the chat window into a new window!
Here’s a use I see for education, aside form the many quick ways to connect with friends, family and co-workers: Meebo allows users to create custom widgets that can be inserted into any website. Read: Your Teacher Website! It’s called the Meebo Me widget. The system lets you choose your colors and specs and then gives you a simple HTML code to put in your site. So now you have anyone go to your site and IM you if you’re online! Maybe a student has a question about homework, maybe a parent has a question about class policys. I wouldn’t give out confidential info like grades or anything this way, but this embeddable widget could have some nifty uses.
Kootman
Try it below if you see me online!
Or not so final - the last few days of the DC Institute were packed with
activity. This blog cannot hold it all, so keep checking back as we share more of the great ideas that came from this institute.
First, let’s answer the quiz question asked in the last update. Who
is Walter? Of the five people who voted in such a short time most of you got it
correct. Walter was our downtown DC tour guide. The trip was one of the big
surprises (although they had a hard time keeping secret). After dinner on the Discovery headquarters rooftop, 43 teachers boarded a
bus for a field trip to visit popular national monuments Lincoln memorial, 
Washington monument, Jefferson, the Korean and Vietnam war memorial walls, the Marines statue, and the White House. One of my favorites was the Roosevelt memorial – a maze of rock walls with waterfalls and large engraved quotes from his Presidency. Despite the grandeur and beauty of this memorial, it was difficult for the biology geek in me get sidetracked
by hunting through the bushes for fireflies. Jannita and I had a grand time
catching the little bugs whose rear ends light up.
The final days also included our projects. Without ruining
too much for those of you attending other institutes, the projects were
worthwhile creations that we were given a lot of freedom over. Perhaps the best
part of these institutes, as with many DEN workshops, is to spend dedicated time
working on projects that you always want to develop but are too busy with the
thousand other tasks we are burdened with on a daily basis.
Several teachers tested out a program for Discovery and were
able to give feedback to a representative of product development. Shelly
SantoraJones and Matt Monjan who oversee UnitedStreaming were also on hand to
help teachers one-on-one with troubleshooting and to get feedback on the new
developments. The genuine interest they had in finding out what we thought and
hearing our suggestions was truly amazing. I came away feeling like I had
personally been invested in a small network rather than beta-testing for a
large corporation. Discovery really does want to see teachers get the best
tools in hand to learn and create with students.
It’s also great to spend that time with a group of teachers
whose energy and passion circumvent the typical complaining about the school
system and griping over controlling administrators that I often hear at other
conferences.
It is invigorating simply to be with other teachers who have radiate
fun and excitement for the classroom. The town of Silver Spring got a taste of our teen-like enthusiasm as
we ventured around town in shuttles and shopped downtown. While shooting a
video on the sidewalk one group of teachers attracted a group of locals to join
in their goofy dance in front of a large mural. Rita (last name?) from Wisconsin kept us entertained as she took over the bus microphone and did some stand-up and talked her way into all sorts of unaccesible places – all captured in a hilarious video
shown on the last day. Jannita called it “DEN gone wild!”
As for classroom implementation ideas, new websites and resources,
and upcoming DEN events, there’s too much to put here in the blog. Look for
updates soon in the national blog. So many great
projects came out of this week that will be shared. Check out some of our photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/discoveryeducation/
What do sharks, avatars, and a guy named Walter all have in common? They have all presented at the DEN National Institute in Washington DC. This week, five CA DEN members have been working at the Discovery Communications headquarters in Silver Spring, MD with Star DEN teachers from all around the country. We have gotten an early summer start on jazzing up the classroom next year with presentations by Discovery Education leaders Lance Rougeux, Jannita Demian, Joe Brennan, and Steve Dembo. But it’s the ‘mandatory fun’ events that have held most teachers’ anticipation each day.
On the second night, teams exhibited their film projects made earlier that day in the HD Theater built into the first floor. There we were thrilled to have one of the producers of Shark Week speak to us and show an exclusive sneak peek of his show, Perfect Predators. Afterwards he did a very open Q&A about the shows. As a biology teacher I was like a kid going to the firestation for the first time. Get this - he’s not just a TV producer but has a PhD and is a professor-fellow at Harvard - evidence of the quality Discovery produces.
On Wednesday, Steve Dembo shared with us a list of 10 Best Web 2.0 Sites. Definitely check those out - later I’ll share what we learned about how to search what’s new on the internet using delicious. Then we witnessed a first when Steve showed us Second Life. That was perhaps the most intriguing part of the presentations. Several DEN members from all over the country joined in on a chat from second life as we watched their ‘avatars’, or Second Life personas join us on-screen. What is Second Life you ask? Well, think of the Sims but worldwide and on the internet. Each person creates an ‘avatar’, or person, and basically lives and interacts in a virtual world. Several companies have created buildings within the world to show off their products and have virtual meetings. DEN has created a building on EduIsland II - a gathering place for educators. Every hand in the crowd went up with questions about this fascinating development. Look for a lot more to come out about this later.
So much has gone on. Wait until my next post to hear about Walter - but see if you can guess first.
Flash animation is one of the fun new media tools that has made the internet more engaging. Flash has applications in storytelling (click on the small town on the horizon), mindless games and even the news. But if you’ve ever tried to learn Flash you know the learning curve is steep. However, thanks to a new tool called Toufee, you can make a flash video from anywhere with no experience.
With Toufee you can use images, videos and text along with several built-in transitions and effects to create online videos. You can even directly upload photos from flickr or videos from YouTube and Google (although I had recently trouble uploading my .wmv files). The program then gives you a URL to watch your video as well as HTML code so you can post the video into your website. Check out the video I made on the second day of the DEN National Institute below:
The program is online and requires no download but you must create a user account. I recommend watching the tutorial videos - they give very helpful tips.
My friend and I were walking down the street one day: He said, "I hear music…" As if there was any other way to take it in… "I see music?"
-Mitch Hedberg
I was recently reviewing the new publisher materials for
social studies, science and music (can you believe we’ve made it to the point
that we finally have a music adoption?) and have been noticing all the
multimedia that is now incorporated. My
district has adopted Scott-Foresman for social studies and the online component
is an indispensable part of the
program.
When I was
listening to the presentation for the music curriculum, however, I noted that
all of the included music was on CD. That
brings us to the topic of this post: what is the future of CD music?
Here is my take on music formats. I haven’t listened to a CD in over a year now
and before that all my music was on MP3 CD’s. Most car stereos now play MP3’s (or similarly formatted CD’s). Additionally, most new car stereos either
come with an additional input jack or are easily adaptable for iPods or other
portable music devices.
All the music I listen to at home
comes from either my laptop or my desktop PC and is then piped through speakers
I wired throughout my home. The songs
themselves are either streamed online or played through an application such as
iTunes, Winamp or Yahoo! Music Engine. There is never a CD anywhere in the equation!
At school, I’ve created playlists
with calm, classroom music that open up and automatically play at the push of a
single shortcut key. They last the
entire school day, so when the students are working there is quite music in the
background. When I’m teaching I have a
student lower the volume. I’m already
wishing that the new music adoption would put the tracks in a compressed format
so we could simply click on the song we wanted instead of firing up the CD
player. I guess I’ll just be ripping
them myself…
My question to our California DEN
and fellow technophiles is this: As
leaders in educational technology, how do you listen to your music? Are CD’s going the way of the dinosaurs? Please add to our poll below and/or
comment.
Via RSS