California DEN

Fortunately this wasn’t the next “big one” that everyone speculates about, nor as powerful as the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, but the ground certainly shook tonight. Centered about 5 miles north east of Alum Rock, CA (close to San Jose, CA) on the Calaveras Fault, a 5.6 earthquake rolled through the south bay at 8:05pm. At first I thought a neighbor in my townhouse complex had strangely slammed their door really hard, then it started to sound like a freight train was coming through my front door. A couple of seconds later it finally dawned on me what was happening and before I could “duck and cover” as we used to practice in school or find a doorway to stand in, it was over. Maybe 30-40 seconds worth of the ground rolling and shaking. No major damage has been reported and a 5.6 is considered a “moderate” quake by the USGS. But it certainly got me thinking, “Find the flashlight, make sure it has fresh batteries. Do I have enough bottled water?, etc.” I also did a walk through of my place to check for any cracks in the walls and ceilings, esp. upstairs. I’m lucky too, that my clever dad had bolted my very tall bookshelves in my office/guest room to the wall several years ago. Any slightly stronger shake would have sent those books and potentially the bookshelves tumbling. (Sorry the picture is sideways, I had rotated it and resaved it before uploading and it’s still sideways…weird).

Interestingly enough, immediately afterwards none of my phones worked. Two cell phones and one landline. Nothing. The first people I was able reach were none other than Hall and Jannita, both on IM. Good to know for the next one, that the internet stayed “working” while our other technology became unreliable for about 15-20 minutes. If you’re interested in reading more, here’s a link to the San Jose Mercury News article.

So I started thinking a) about our Northern CA DEN members and b) I wonder how many downloads of earthquake videos there will tomorrow be as I imagine the talk of “school” will be about our big “shake” tonight. What a great way to foster the conversation of earthquake preparedness too! Hopefully there won’t be any strong after shocks tonight and tomorrow for Halloween.

Bay Area DEN members, especially those in Alum Rock, Milpitas, Fremont, San Jose, Alameda and the rest of the south bay, we hope you’re all okay. Let us know!

These days, we all use different applications to modify our websites.  Some people use MS Frontpage or Dreamweaver, some use Mac accounts and many people have different types of web hosting, such as Google Pages, Teacher Web, or even Word Press (such as this blog).  Whatever tool you use to host your site, sometimes the need arises to change only one small bit of content, without changing layout, paragraphs, images or other things.

Here is a tool that I use to change the welcome message on my site’s front page.  It is called Texty.   Texty allows users to insert a small bit of Java into their web page where they want the text to appear (you can even insert the same code into multiple parts of your site).  From there, you can go to Texty and change your text.  Whereever your code is, your new text will appear.  It may sound complicated, but it’s actually pretty easy.

Once again, login and get your Texty code from their site,  enter your text and watch it appear on your site!

Hey all CA DEN Members.

Hope that you are all safe and out of harm’s way. We’re getting good updates on the fires and a few of our DEN family has had to evacuate their homes.  Jannita has a post which several folks are replying to at: http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/2007/10/23/thoughts-with-the-ca-den/
Be sure to keep our fellow DEN members in your thoughts and prayers.

I also wanted share a couple ways to keep updated using Google Maps and Google Earth.  The LA Times has a a Google map  where you can click on the fire icons for more info. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=117631292961056724014.00043d21dedd02f5ae1f7&ll=33.651208,-118.146973&spn=2.199313,4.405518&z=8&om=0 A public radio station has also made one for SD County: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&ie=UTF8&om=1&msa=0&msid=114250687465160386813.00043d08ac31fe3357571&ll=32.990236,-116.732483&spn=1.442114,1.697388&z=9 and the US Forest Service and NASA have built overlays for Google Earth where you can see the smoke: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/10/california_fires_satellite_photos_f.html

It’s almost November and the whales are calling. The California League of High/Middle Schools Tech Conference is taking place in Monterey November 29-December 2. This is a great conference and holds a special memory for me as it’s the place where I met Hall D. and joined DEN. This year they’re adding a new strand for elementary teachers. Kim R. our new regional coordinator, has confirmed that a DEN get-together is for sure. Not to mention, our very own Star Educator Carol Anne McGuire is one of the keynote speakers!

So who’s in? Get your conference requests in now. If you have EETT funds or some of that Microsoft dough, they’re usable for this. Check it out at: http://www.clhs.net Let us know if you’re attending - leave a comment. See you in Monterey.

I’m sure those of you who are blog savvy have heard the news of Discovery acquiring HowStuffWorks.com . If you’ve never seen the site, it has tons of useful info presented in a manner that kids can enjoy. I’ve had my fourth graders do many different mini-projects and papers using HowStuff Works as a resource. FYI, although the site has had declining viewership over the last few years, it still fetched a nice little sum of $250,000,000 and ranks among the top 2,000 most visited sites online.

So, anyone who would like to start their own website, drop me a line and we’ll see what we can do. I could use a chunk of that money

I keep thinking of some of the general guidelines I try to follow on a daily basis in my classroom; particularly things of educational technology relevance. What pitfalls do teachers want to stay away from when using tech? What things do we want to make sure we do consistently when using tech? How can we better use tech to teach? I’m not talking about specific projects, hardware, software or websites, but rather the little things we do, or should do, that make a big difference in the long run.

Well, I got motivated and created a list of things that I think are important, but we all know that “We is Smarter Than Me.” So I’m posting it as a wiki. Take a look at the things on the list and see if you can add to them. Keep them concise and try not to add things just for the sake of adding to the list. let’s make them new and different. I’m excited to see what great ideas we can come up with! Here is the link.

~Dave Kootman

“Lights, Camera, Action!” reverberated through the halls of the Foreign Language Lab at CSUMB Saturday, September 22. Eighteen budding filmmakers (educators all!) from across Central California learned filming concepts, and then shot and critiqued three short videos over an eight hour seminar with Frank Gutter of the American Film Institute Screen Education program. A partnership between Computer Using Educators (CUE), Discovery Education and CSUMB brought educators and their cameras together for this great seminar.

“The AFI workshop allowed me to learn as my students would, giving me a better grasp of the process using a “hands-on” approach,” commented DEN member Jackie Berger.

Indeed, teachers and administrators became the students, walking through a well-crafted program developed by AFI. We learned planning and shooting basics, focusing on the details vital for clear communication using video. AFI’s method is based on learning through doing, with well-designed discovery steps complete with hands-on activities and critiquing sessions that focus on increasing detail throughout the day.

“We learned how to really plan and to differentiate between documenting an event and telling a story,” noted DEN member and CUE host Karl Forest, “The amount of attention to camera and shooting detail tremendously impacts the impact and quality of a story students will tell.”

The free curriculum is available at www.afi.edu, where you can download AFI’s 21^st Century Educator’s Handbook. Registration requires a special code: DEN members should use US222 for a free, one-year membership to AFI resources and materials.

Also look for professional development videos at DiscoveryStreaming introducing the AFI concepts to teachers and students featuring Sean Astin. They are available by searching for “AFI.”

Take this valuable seminar if you can! Frank will again present at the International Student Media Festival

~by Guest Blogger- Karl Forest

You likely know what a podcast is, but do you know what a screencast is?  How about a sketchcast?  I’ve been using screencasts as tutorials and marketing elements for quite some time now. A screencast is essentially a video of what a user sees on his or her computer monitor, complete with mouse trails, text boxes, voice over and other unique features. If you’ve ever seen Atomic Learning demos, then you may know what a screencast is, as most of those tutorials are screencasts.

If you are going to really get into screencasting, then I’d recommend Adobe Captivate. If you’re not ready to mortgage your home to afford that software, then you may want to go Open Source with Wink or Web 2.0 with Screencast-O-matic. Some people also may be familiar with Snag-it, which has a remedial screencast function integrated into it.

Finally, I’ve been fooling around with a new website called Sketchcast that allows users to create simple Flash animations of sketches that you do with your computer. You can also add voice overs. The functions are pretty minimal, but that may be a benefit for many users. Think of working through a math problem and explaining it through your computer’s microphone, then posting it for all of your students to see!