California DEN

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

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

While these tools are great, please, please, check with your district’s/school’s teacher acceptable use policy before using them. Many districts block certain sites for many reasons. We don’t want any teachers “in trouble” for going around the system….

~DEN Management

I’ve had a lot of success using the online file conversion tool, Zamzar. I’ve used it to change sound file types, compress files, create pdfs and, most frequently, rip Flash videos from YouTube.

I hope many other DEN members had found this tools useful as well. One thing that never occurred to me though was how I could get videos from YouTube while at school (aside from simply converting them at home) . In the past, I had always converted them at home (being that YouTube is blocked at my school and most others).

It completely skipped my mind that I could actually do a Google search (or Google Videos) for a YouTube video and then copy and paste the URL from the results page into Zamzar! Now you can have your banned YouTube videos at school! I love finding ways around “the man.” Just make sure that Zamzar’s emails are not blocked by your system. Needless to say Discovery’s videos should always remain top priority

Hey CA DEN’rs! Getting lost trying to start using all these cool tech ideas we share? Don’t want to fight traffic to attend a conference? Trouble no more - here’s your chance to attend a great DEN training event right from your own home. The first DEN Virtual Conference is happening on Saturday, February 2nd (PST start time 9am). If you have an internet connection and speakers, you can attend.

Check out the Virtual Conference flier for more details on how to register. Don’t live near one of the listed locations? No problem, just register as ‘Virtual Attending Online’. But there’s no reason to keep all these good ideas to yourself. While you’re at it, why not get a group of 3-4 teachers and make it a party? Grab some munchies, your laptop & attend together at someone’s house (or if you dare on a Saturday, your classroom - shudder). You can listen/watch the virtual ‘breakout’ sessions in between the keynote speakers or have your own with your colleagues. No one will even know your in your pajamas. Now that’s my kind of professional development!

A special invite for CA DEN members! Join us for an evening in Sacramento for a special screening of the award winning In the Shadow of the Moon, including special guest Buzz Aldrin-Apollo Moonwalker. The event is free and space is limited! To see the invite, click on the image to the right.

When: January 23, 2008

Where: The Crest Theatre, 1013 K Street, Sacramento, CA 95814

Time: 6pm

RSVP: colin_templeton@discovery.com

I just really wanted to say “nomenclature” so I thought I’d write an entire post on it. Actually, I had been a bit confused by the changes in names of some Discovery products over the last few months and wanted to get a few things cleared up. In particular, I was curious about the new “Discovery Streaming.”

I spoke to Jannita Demian, a national manager for the Discovery Educator Network to get some insight on what I thought was a a huge brand name (United Streaming that is). Jannita said that Discovery wanted all of their products to have brand unity and that, as big as United Streaming is, the name Discovery has even bigger brand recognition. For instance, most people know of the Discovery Channel and now they can connect the two. Makes sense…

Don’t forget to check out this great Discovery site to catch their episodes of your favorite shows! (I get a $1.00 kick-back for everyone who clicks on this… kidding). Along those lines, many other major stations offer online access to their shows as well. Missed the last episode of Grey’s Anatomy? Catch it on ABC.com

Greetings CA DEN! We hope all of you have had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends! Are you attending CLMS/CLHS/CUE? Several of our CA Star Discovery educators are presenting at the conference, so be sure not to miss: Carol Anne McGuire, (closing keynote speaker), Scott Skidmore, Scott Johnson, Martha Snider, as well as Hall and Kim. (Please let me know if I’ve missed anyone on accident). Don’t forget to swing by the exhibit hall. We’ve partnered up with CUE to form a special DEN/CUE member lounge at our booth. We’d love to see you, so please stop by!

The CA Discovery Education team will be hosting a DEN social gathering during the conference and we hope you’ll join us! Feel free to bring a colleague who you think would be a great new Star Discovery Educator!

When: Friday November 30th, 2007

Where: The Crown and Anchor, 150 W. Franklin, Monterey, CA (Across from the Marriott, we’ll be out on the patio baring no rain).

Time: 5pm-6:30pm

RSVP: Please RSVP here.

Appetizers and fun surprises included!

Welcome to guest blogger, Herman Bautista, a DEN member from Santa Ana, California. Herman writes us his account of a recent DEN event:

I was lucky enough to win a spot in one of AFI’s Screen Education classes. As a sort of “thank you” for allowing me to attend, I’ve agreed to provide a guest blog regarding my experiences with the program. It’s my hope that you’ll be inspired by my ramblings or at the very least, be more willing to be creative with the inner-director in you.

AFI Screen Ed. is a program geared toward 9th through 12th graders and K-12 teachers. It’s intent is to demystify the video production process. In essence, it crams the very basics of film school into one or two days.

I was confident that my skills as a cameraman/director were good if not better than average. Since falling in love with iMovie a few years ago, I have dabbled in making videos for family and school purposes. In June of this year, I won an award in the teacher created video category of the 41st annual Student Media Festival for a video entitled “The Star View Experience“ . As an “award winning director,” what more could I learn?

In a couple of words, a lot…

Our AFI Screen Ed. instructor, Frank Guttler, is a master of his craft and took great pains to teach us the technical aspects of camera work and editing. He put us through the same lessons that I will be teaching my students in an afternoon GATE enrichment class. This includes a lesson where students take a camera and, with very little instruction, shoot a film sequence about a person opening a door while hearing a frightful noise. This of course is followed by a critique of the sequence and a discussion of what could be done better.

I was taken aback from how much I did not know about making movies. My sequence seemed to have a lot of comments from Frank about how things SHOULDN’T be done. I heard for the first time terms such as “garden hosing” and “lack of use of a dolly shot.” (Not good things in film speak.) In retrospect, the fact that so many of my fellow classmates looked like REAL film students with $2000 video cameras should have given me a clue that I wasn’t in a classroom full of novices. So much for an award winning director.

The most important thing I learned was something that was conveyed in class but never directly said: a videographer uses the camera to make videos; a film maker uses the camera TO TELL A STORY.

That being said, I took in all I could from the remaining four lessons of the class and will implement them and others with my GATE students.

It is my hope that I will report many good things to you in the future.

Herman