California DEN

Discovery Education videos are now available in Flash! Have your district DE admin call  1-800-323-9084 to get the Flash enabled for free!

• How many times can the newspaper you read today be recycled?
• How much can one compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) save in electricity costs over its lifetime?
• What single innovation is causing more people to recycle more products than ever?
• Which clean alternative energy source is created by landfills?

How much energy can you save by recycling one aluminum can every day for a month?

Find answers to these questions and raise your students’ awareness of environmental issues with ready-to-use classroom materials, lesson plans, worksheets, puzzles, quizzes, and activities at ThinkGreen.
ThinkGreen is a site created by Waste Management and powered by Discovery Education.

Visit the Earth Day Network to learn how make every day an “Earth Day.”

Thanks to Jen Dorman for the blog idea and johnlauresa for use of the photo.

Since blog posts continually move down as new posts go up, I know how frustrating it can be to find info on upcoming events that you’ve read about. So we’ve created a new page to store our event info more permanently. It’s easy to go to, just click on the word EVENTS next to the HOME button in the upper-left corner of the bar. Your Leadership Council has planned some fantastic events for this coming year so check back often as we’ll post up new events. Of course, we’ll also put up posts on the main page here to keep you in the loop.

Our State Flower is the California Poppy, but how much do you really know about it? Here’s an opportunity for you to experience the amazing color of our state flower first hand and bring images and stories back to your students.  (Fourth grade teachers – are you paying attention?!)

On Saturday, April 4^th you’re invited to bring your digital camera and join fellow California DEN members at the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve (http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=627).  Once there we’ll explore the Visitor’s Center and take in the breathtaking color of the poppies and other wildflowers (which will hopefully be in full bloom by the time we arrive).  There are trails to hike and many opportunities for photos.  We’ll have DEN “experts” on hand to teach helpful photography tips like the “rule of thirds” and how to use the your camera’s macro function.  After some hiking and exploring we’ll get together for lunch to share what you’ve learned. 

PS: For you Geocachers, the Poppy View cache (GC17FHG) and a couple others are also nearby.

EVENT DETAILS:

Meet at the Visitors Center between 10 and 10:30am.

Parking is $8 per car, so if several of you are coming from the same area it might be helpful (and fun) to carpool.

Bring a sack lunch.  Your CA DEN Leadership will provide additional snacks & drinks.

Bring comfortable walking shoes and a sweatshirt. It can get pretty windy out there and they recommend dressing in layers.

If you plan to attend this event, please fill out the Google form below.

 Please fill out this form if you plan on attending! THANKS

Thanks to Dennis Grice for organizing this exciting event!

Hey CA DEN folks,

It’s 2009 and there are some great DEN events headed your way. It starts with next weekend with the Orange County CUE Tech Fest. Come hang with fellow DEN members and bring a friend. We still have some limited space, so don’t wait to RSVP! Hope we’ll see you there!

Here are the details:

When: Saturday January 24, 2009

Where: Watson’s Soda Fountain, 416 E. Chapman Ave, Orange, CA 92866

Time: 4pm-6pm

RSVP: https://discoveryed.wufoo.com/forms/oc-cue-den-event/

Just in! We have a limited number of seats available for Discovery Education and the DEN at a special screening of Discovery en Espanol’s My Hispanic World and Mysteries of the Yucatan.

When: September 17, 2008

Where: Museum of Latin American Art, 628 Alamitos Ave., Long Beach, CA 90802

Time: VIP Reception 6:00pm, Screening at 7:45pm

RSVP: tahia_harley-cw@discovery.com or 240-662-2815 (Let her know you are part of the DEN).

Click here for the invite.

As the California budget dwindles, schools and teachers are relying more and more on additional methods of funding. Everywhere you look, there seem to be grant opportunities and contests.Have you taken advantage of these lately? You have to have the attitude that you can get it. Oregon DEN member, Amy Lundstrom, won $100,000 from Best Buy! Below is a link to a contest that California DEN member, Suzanne Wesp is aiming to win.  What can you do with a little effort and creativity?

Two of our Star Discovery Educators here in California need our help! Julie Mildrew and Suzanne Wesp entered a contest at NECC and would love some help from the DEN to win! They need votes, lots of votes to win sets of Turning Point Response Systems for their school. You can vote once a day, per computer until October 15, 2008. So let’s go DEN and show them how the west can win again! Click here to watch their video and vote.  (Give the video a minute to load….)

posted by Kim Randall and Dave Kootman

Deep in the headquarters of the Discovery command center, the top minds of the CA LC have been hard at work planning, networking, and gathering wonderful lesson ideas to bring back and share with you all. While all this work is not compulsive, the efforts of the council members has nonetheless intensively focused. The picture below says it all.

We are all excited about the announcement back home of Jannita’s first baby David. Check out multiple posts at the National Blog. More to come on the fabulous ideas and upcoming events that have been previewed at this institute. Until then, keep your digital storytelling skills fresh by making your own narrative out of these images: http://www.flickr.com/groups/denlcinstitute/

This is a cross-post of a previous National Blog Post:

Discovery Education is excited to announce many new GREAT additions coming your way to streaming! This includes the long awaited and asked for Student Center where your students will have ability to log on and download media, better correlation with your state standards, more refined search, an update builders and my content, not to mention that the base package has increased to 5,000 titles!

To learn more about the these updates, please join us for a STAR Streaming Update overview by logging on to one of the webinars on Thursday, June 26th listed below.

For additional questions please contact Jannita at Jannita_Demian@discovery.com

STAR Streaming Update
11:30 am, PDT or 2:30 EDT
Click here to join. No registration or password required: https://discoveryed.webex.com/discoveryed/onstage/g.php?d=556861250&t=a

STAR Streaming Update
12:30 pm, PDT or 3:30 EDT
Click here to join. No registration or password required: https://discoveryed.webex.com/discoveryed/onstage/g.php?d=556636663&t=a

STAR Streaming Update
3:30 pm, PDT or 6:30 EDT
Click here to join. No registration or password required: https://discoveryed.webex.com/discoveryed/onstage/g.php?d=5568755

I’ve been noticing a pattern in my reading over the last few years.

I love reading magazines and other periodicals. There are just so many new ideas, inventions and news all the time; it’s tough to keep up. I do my best with paper periodicals, but it never seems to satisfy me. Then it hit me… I can’t seem to read any magazines without having my laptop nearby! Almost every article I read has a link somewhere to find more info. This info usually comes in the form of videos, documents and other resources, further links, archives and even advertisements. I couldn’t even read the latest teaching magazine without looking up several links listed in the paper version! Of course the situation gets worse when I pick up the latest issue of PC World or Wired Magazine. I guess I’m an information junkie.

Am I alone in feeling powerless when I read a magazine without the ability to satisfy my literary appetite with a computer? What does this mean for today’s true digital natives? Is print going out with the typewriter that our students don’t even recognize?

“When I was young, we used to have these big “paper” messes called “newspapers.”

“Wow, Grandpa!”

Yet for some reason, I still refuse to read purely online magazines and hold tight to my paper. Nothing like a book on the beach or a magazine on an airplane. I guess some things die hard.

~Dave Kootman