California DEN

If you’re planning on attending California’s largest conference on educational technology, you should know about  special offers and events for DEN members and their guests. On Thursday, March 6 from 9:30 am to 3:30pm Discovery Education is presenting a “Media Makeover” pre-conference day. This day will include several different sessions on how to incorporate technology tools, as well as useful tips and tricks from your favorite Discovery speakers and fellow teachers. Check out the full Pre Conference Flyer for more info.

Go to this link to register, but hurry up, there are only about 10-15 more spots open! When you register, use “Guest of Jannita Demian” for how you heard of the event. See you there!

~Dave Kootman

Call for Presentations- passed on to you from your caring DEN friends

We must receive your submission by Monday, February 18.

Each year, TechEd’s most popular hands-on lab is the Adobe Lab. Attendees literally line up to learn the latest Adobe Software.

Usually Adobe takes care of all the details, including providing the trainers… but this year, we have the opportunity to choose the trainers from among you and your colleagues!

Are you, or someone you know, an expert user of the Adobe CS3 products on a PC platform? Do you use any of the CS3 products listed below in your daily teachings or in a unique way that benefits your students?

Then submit your presentation abstract to TechEd 2008.

TechEd has a limited number of additional opportunities for hands-on Adobe software presentations from educators who want to present on the following Adobe products:

• Adobe InDesign CS3
• Adobe Photoshop CS3
• Extended Adobe Illustrator CS3
• Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
• Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
• Adobe Fireworks CS3
• Adobe Contribute
• Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional
• Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
• Adobe Soundbooth CS3
• Adobe Encore CS3 Plus
• Adobe OnLocation CS3
• Adobe Ultra CS3

To submit a new presentation on any of the software listed above, please go to www.techedevents.org click on the presenter’s link and follow the special Call for Presentations instructions.

Back in December, I was ‘bummed’ as my students would say, that I missed the Daniel Pink Webinar on how right-brainers will rule the world. I was busy grading papers for a deadline. Imagine that? Luckily, Webex has it’s own recording feature, sort of like TiVo for WebEx. All the guest webinars are archived online. Getting there is pretty simple: click the ‘About the DEN’ tab (which you can see at the top of this page). Then in the menus to the left, click ‘Webinar Archives’ and walaa! All the webinars are there. Here’s the direct link: http://community.discoveryeducation.com/about/webinar_archives

Other great archives you’ll find there include Adora Svitak - the 11yr. old story-writing prodigy. I think if I were choosing an academic decatholon team, she would be one of my first picks - she beats most of my high schoolers’ on vocabulary! While I was there, I was even able to find a little content to use in my lesson plan the next day - I played some of the Daniel Pink webinar for my AP Biology students who were studying the nervous system and the brain. I must say however, that while watching the webinars on your own time is surely convenient, the interaction you get with others when attending a live session makes the experience more meaningful. Even our ‘digital native’ students would be impressed at the speed of our chat boxes.

This also made me realize how important this feature of digital media is. I remember the days of going to the library only to find the video I wanted was already checked out. It’s a great model for our students to know how to archive and then retrieve information.

If you missed any of the Virtual Conference sessions this last weekend, check out this National blog post.